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Chapter Text

The last man standing, holding onto a broken sword coated with frost.

Hunted down by the silent wraiths in the shadows, burning eyes of blue.

Running through the snow, thick and treacherous, battered by a storm of ice and death.

Legs burning, sweat freezing where it sprung.

Dread running down my spine and spurring me onwards.

But it was all in vain.

No matter how much you run, they’re never far behind.

Like the stag given hunt in a walled enclosure, your fate is sealed from the start.

They will always catch you.

Your frightened desperation, their loathsome amusement.

Not even in death can freedom be found.

They’ll kill you for sport, then raise your body to serve them forever more.

Slaves to their desires, mindless wights and shadows, battered and bastardised remains.

Everything you were, wiped away under piercing gazes of blue.

The fate of thousands.

The fate of my friends.

My fate.

Broken bone.

Frozen gore.

Wounds that should have been fatal.

Wounds that were fatal.

Pain, sorrow, regret and fear, all silenced by the darkness that consumes me.

The vast, unending nothingness of death embracing me like a spider embraces her prey, pulling me down, down, down into oblivion.

Yet here I am.

Standing in the snow.

Unbreathing.

My destroyed heart.

Unbeating.

My hands are as cold as ice, congealed blood and dead flesh darkening them.

Through my destroyed and exposed ribcage, I can see my organs.

With trembling fingers, I dig into my chest.

I feel nothing.

With a strength I never knew I had, I wrestle my heart free.

I feel nothing.

Staring intently, the tattered remains of my heart are crushed by my frostbitten fingers.

I feel nothing.

No pain.

Not even the slightest sway in my composure.

If any breath still remained within me, it would have failed to hitch.

My body is dead, yet I’m still standing.

Not truly alive, not truly dead.

Though phantoms move around me, enthralled to the will of their slavers, in the middle of the current, I remain still.

Though my eyes blaze as blue as theirs, my mind and my body are still my own.

With grim enlightenment, everything becomes so clear.

My mission, feasible at last.

I cannot be slain, for I am already dead.

I have nothing left to lose, for even my life has been taken away.

And so, I march onwards, for I must fulfil my quest.

One only I can accomplish.

To bring light to this world forsaken by the Gods.

To bring an end to this long night.

To let there be fire again.

Chapter Text

But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,

Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:

And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd old ends, stol'n out of holy writ;

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

William Shakespeare, Richard III (c.1593)

Seven riders moved through the red mountains of Dorne.

High in the sky, the scorching heat of the sun imposed a heavy toll on the riders. But they would not be deterred from their objective: the single, small tower of red brick crowning the hill that oversaw the arid valley.

Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, a youth barely a month into his twentieth year, led the warband as they closed in on the tower. 

He knew not what to expect from the lone building in the middle of nowhere. Would a full garrison ride out to meet them with steel and blood? Did only the remaining sworn brothers of Aerys’s kingsguard hold vigil over the lonely tower? Or, as he feared the most, would the tower be host to nothing but the soft whisper of the wind and the dust of abandonment?

His nerves boiled in anticipation, a sinking, terrible dread that had burrowed itself in the very core of his being, and had held steadfast through the entire war. But he would not show it and he would not bend to it. He would not waver in front of his companions. Despite his youth, he was their Lord and leader, and he had to keep calm in the face of adversity, provide the steady leadership that was expected of him. 

For their sakes and his own, Ned settled his jaw and stoically kept his gaze ahead, trying to banish the thoughts of what they would find in the tower.

Or worse—what they wouldn’t find.

Lyanna.

His little sister.

They had always been close, and if Ned hadn’t been fostered with Lord Arryn in the Eyrie, Gods knew they would have been damn near inseparable. When they were children, Lyanna would follow him everywhere, even where she wasn’t supposed to be. Ned remembered how she used to sneak into his sparring lessons, steal a sword out of the armoury, and beat his or his brothers’ poor hides raw before they could even lift their own sword. 

His wild little sister, who had grown into a remarkable beauty and was betrothed to Ned’s best friend, the Lord of the Stormlands, who was completely and hopelessly besotted with her.

It was true that Robert Baratheon was a lustful man of voracious appetites, but such was the way of young unwed lords. Ned knew in his heart that once married to Lyanna, Robert would change his ways, for he loved her so. For Lyanna, Robert often claimed he would fight a war.

And so he did.

After she had been kidnapped by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.

The war had shattered Westeros to pieces, bleeding the land dry. It took men’s lives without remorse, leaving behind fatherless sons and childless fathers. The fields had been burnt. Castles ransacked. Old men maimed. Defenceless women raped.

Innocent children murdered.

The sight of the royal princes’ bodies wrapped in scarlet Lannister banners had been etched in fire in his mind’s eye. A little girl of just three years of age, stabbed half a hundred times. A babe of barely a year with nothing but a bloody pulp instead of a head. They were just babes, innocent of any of the crimes of their forefathers. And yet, they had been murdered in cold blood. Horrible, unspeakable crimes that, by all the laws of Gods and men, demanded the harshest punishment.

And yet, Robert had done nothing of the sort. Instead, he had congratulated the butchers for a job well done.

His cold satisfaction had been what truly shook Ned to his core. He knew his closest friend despised the Targaryens with a burning hatred for what they had done to Ned’s family. It was a hatred he knew all too well himself, and indulged in from time to time.

After all, King Aerys had burnt his father to death and strangled his brother, and his son Rhaegar kidnapped his sister to force himself upon her. For that, Ned would loathe them until the day he died. They had destroyed his family, and both Targaryens would pay for their crimes. And indeed, they had. With the deaths of King and Prince, the debt was paid. 

But it hadn’t been enough for Robert.

To condone the brutal killing of infants because of the crimes of their forefathers was a truly despicable thing to do, and he would have no part in it. To go the extra mile and call them ‘dragonspawn’ when confronted was utterly unfathomable to him.

And yet, his closest friend, the man he loved like a brother, had done just so. 

Ned had been outraged. He looked at his hands holding the stirrups and noticed they were shaking with ill-controlled wrath. He was still outraged.

What crimes had they commited? Who had they hurt? What part did they play in their family’s crimes? None whatsoever, and yet had suffered an undeserved death, far more gruesome than most of the soldiers in the war had suffered.

Of course something had to be done with them, Ned knew. Compassion did not come at the price of wit. Marry Rhaenys to Robert’s eventual firstborn son to strengthen the Baratheon’s tenuous claim to the Iron Throne. Foster Aegon in Storm’s End and have him take the Black when he was old enough.

It was a risky strategy, he knew, but one Ned would be willing to put his stakes on. Mayhaps Rhaenys would grow into happiness and love the man she would marry. Aegon would be as good as dead for the Realm once in the Wall, his claims forsaken, just like many other deposed claimants had been throughout history.

Exile them to Essos, if you were truly afraid of little children who might be taken by a winter chill before they learn which end of the sword goes in. In that case, however, you would eventually have to prepare for another war in a few decades when they attempted to cross the sea and take back their throne, as the Blackfyre pretenders had done over and over again.

But Ned would not have murdered them.

Never.

But no matter how much he grieved the children’s and their mother’s horrible, senseless deaths, it was already done. No matter how much he wished otherwise, the crime could not be undone. It was too late for the dead.

He had learnt during the war that it was no use dwelling on what could have beens. Sweet though they may be, they were of no good to anyone.

Shaking the images from his mind, he looked ahead.

He was so near to his sister, and yet so far away. The thought of Ser Barristan’s lead being false or outdated was too much to bear. And yet, like an insidious pest, such thought was unshakeable and crept on him constantly, unbidden.

Would the three of them still be guarding this tower in the middle of nowhere, with their prince dead on the Trident? With their king stabbed in the back? With the royal family butchered like dogs? They had vowed to defend the king and his family, and yet had been nowhere near when they had all been killed. It didn’t make any sense to Ned. Whatever could be said of King Aerys, he’d certainly had the finest kingsguard in decades; brave, skilled and honourable men, all seven of them.

Well, six of them, Ned thought contemptuously. Ser Jaime Lannister, the youngest member of the sworn brotherhood, had denied the realm of justice when he stabbed Aerys in the back. The Mad King had to die, of course. If Lannister had kept his oaths and died honourably with him, or forsaken them and fled like a craven, it was all the same to Lord Stark.

And yet, Lannister had killed him. He had no right to kill him. No family to avenge, Ned thought, grief forever raw in his heart. Long had he dreamed that his blade would be the one to pierce the Mad King’s accursed heart. Instead, Lannister had deprived him of his vengeance, and he would never forgive him for that.

Yet, he probably did us a favour, he mused begrudgingly. Better for Robert’s reign than the Lannisters were derided as the villains than the Baratheons.

It matters not. They’re villains all the same. Small corpses wrapped in scarlet banners. I rescue Lyanna and I’m done. Back to Winterfell. I won’t associate myself with opportunists and butchers a moment longer than I have to.

As they closed in the tower, he spared his companions a glance. They looked ahead anxiously, yet with grim determination in their faces. They had all suffered in many ways during the war, and they knew this was to be one of the last battles, yet no one would sing about it. They would not fail, despite how much the Dornish heat was already trying to kill them.

Theo Wull swayed on the saddle, looking near to a heatstroke. Lord Willam Dustin was sweating like a pig, cooked alive inside the steel chestplate he stubbornly refused to take off. The others weren’t faring much better; they were all from the North, accustomed to the cold. They had never experienced the Dornish sun, and were finding it too much to bear. Only Ethan Glover, his brother Brandon’s former squire, who had been locked in the black cells for over an entire year, seemed to relish somewhat in the sunlight. Not so the heat, though, which drove Ethan to drink from his waterskin like a hungry babe sucked off the teat.

Ned himself was profusely sweating, idly thankful he had taken to wearing his hair short during the war. He had rapidly realised that wearing a close helm with a head full of long hair was going to be unbearably uncomfortable. The fact that it also provided him with some measure of respite from the scorching heat of Dorne was an unforeseen advantage.

They were so close to the tower now that Ned could see three white figures standing guard. He felt both relief and dread wash over him.

Relief, for Ser Barristan had spoken truly.

Dread, for what was about to come.

As his horse slowed down its pace, and Ned dismounted, he looked at the three knights standing between him and his sister. All three wore the white enamelled armour of the Kingsguard, with its distinctive white cloak blowing with the wind.

Ser Oswell Whent was sitting in a boulder by the tower’s door, the black bat of his house painted in his white helm, as he sharpened his blade with a whetstone.

Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, just stared at them in a lackadaisical manner, arms crossed and with a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of Dawn, his family’s ancestral greatsword, poked over his right shoulder. When Ned caught sight of him, a deep sadness took hold of his heart. If only…

Between both knights stood old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, his unshaved and weathered face looking every bit as fierce as the man was reputed to be.

Ned walked up to them, followed by his faithful companions. Once they were close enough, they stopped. Ser Oswell threw the whetstone to one side, standing up.

Seven against three.

For a long, pregnant pause, they stared at each other warily.

“I looked for you on the Trident,” Ned spoke, breaking the silence.

“We were not there,” answered Ser Gerold.

“Woe to the Usurper if we had,” added Ser Oswell grimly.

“When King’s Landing fell, Jaime Lannister slew your king on the steps to the Throne. The royal family were butchered by the lions like sheep. And I found myself wondering where you were.”

“Far away,” Ser Gerold stated, utter contempt in his voice, “or Aerys would yet sit on the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in the seven hells.”

“I came down to Storm’s End to lift the siege,” Ned continued, “and the Lords of the Reach dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them.”

“Our knees do not bend easily,” scowled Ser Arthur Dayne.

“Ser Willem Darry fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. Where else might you have been, if not with him?”

“Ser Willem is a good man,” said Ser Oswell.

“But not of the Kingsguard,” Ser Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”

“Then or now,” said Ser Arthur, as he donned his helm.

Ned knew what was to happen next.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself.

“Where is my sister?” he asked coldly. He had his hand on his sword’s pommel, and he felt his companions moving up beside him.

None of the Kingsguard answered, but their silence spoke for them, telling him everything he needed to know. Ned glanced up the tower. I’m coming for you, little sister.

“The war is over,” Ned stated, but he knew very well it was a hopeless endeavour. Bloodshed was inevitable.

“We swore a vow,” sentenced old Ser Gerold uncompromisingly.

“The King is dead.”

“Long live the King,” Ser Oswell asserted, voice thick with suicidal devotion.

Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

“And now it begins,” he said. His sworn brothers followed his lead.

Ned looked at him sadly as he unsheathed his own sword. Behind him, he heard his companions do the same.

There was no way out, now.

“No. Now it ends.”

With a war cry, Ethan lunged forward against Ser Arthur, but still out of form after his year in the cells, he overextended himself. The Sword of the Morning effortlessly parried Glover’s sword to one side, and with a simple swift riposte, he skewered Ethan with Dawn before he could react.

Ethan fell to his knees, clutching his spilling guts. Dayne didn’t give him a second thought, immediately moving against Theo Wull with an upwards slash, swift as lightning. Buckets had better luck than Glover, though, blocking Dawn with his steel shield, buying Ned enough time to join the duel.

Dayne, however, was more than enough for both northmen, and kept them at bay with masterful ease, constantly taking on the offensive, a man entranced by the dance of battle.

Around them, the steel sang its bitter symphony. Mark Ryswell and Martyn Cassel found themselves facing Ser Oswell, while Lords Howland Reed and Willam Dustin danced with the White Bull. Despite being outnumbered, the Kingsguard knights were by far the better swordsmen, blocking every lunge, stopping any attempt at a remise, sidestepping out of the way when they were attacked with their swords out of place.

Mark Ryswell bashed Ser Oswell’s blade with his shield, throwing his sword arm back, but when he attempted to remise with his blade with a downwards cross, he left his chest open to the kingsguard’s swift counterattack. Ser Oswell ran Ryswell through with his steel before the Northman had even begun to bring his arm down.

Martyn called his friend’s name in despair and rage, but Mark was dead before Oswell freed his sword off his chest. Whent’s blade, still spattered with blood and gore, shot straight out of Ryswell to meet Cassel’s own sword, parrying him right on time.

While the ageing Lord Commander was still an implacable foe, he was having a harder time than his sword brothers, for he was facing Lord Reed. The crannogman was not a great swordsman himself, but was lithe and swift where Ser Gerold was slow and implacable, and constantly harried Hightower whenever his attention was focused on the broad and strong Lord Dustin. Howland always managed to avoid Hightower’s blade, leaving him open to Dustin’s attacks. The White Bull, however, always managed to deflect his blows on time, and the dance continued on and on.

Then, Howland’s sure footing failed and left him stumbling. Seeing his best chance appear, Ser Gerold lunged at the crannogman, his sword in a sidewards slash and poised to take Reed’s head off, but suddenly there was no one in front of him. Taking advantage of his small size, Reed had dodged the swing underneath the knight’s sword arm, positioning himself behind him and pulled the white cloak with all his strength.

Trapped between Howland’s pull and the inertia of his own weight, the White Bull staggered for an instant. An instant Willam exploited, lunging forward with his sword and slashing at Hightower’s unprotected neck as he swayed. Lord Dustin’s sword was deflected at the last possible moment by the White Bull’s.

For one fleeting instant it appeared as though the duel would continue as it had done many times now, but then bright crimson blood spouted out of the Lord Commander’s neck, and he fell to a knee, grasping at his bleeding gash with his left arm while he kept his sword arm raised, defiance in his eyes. If he was going down, he was taking someone with him.

It was not to be. Quickly Lord Reed stepped in from behind, and drove his sword through his collar and down the spine for good measure. Ser Gerold Hightower shuddered one last time, and collapsed on the floor like a puppet which had had its strings cut.

Finding themselves without a foe, both northmen ran to Martyn Cassel’s aid, who was struggling against Ser Oswell Whent, a man far too fast and skilled for him to keep up with, barely able to parry a strike before the next one came.

Whent kicked Cassel straight in the chest, staggering him. Before Martyn could recover, Ser Oswell twisted on the spot with his whole body, and struck at his foe’s neck with all his might. Martyn Cassel fell to the ground, instantly dead, his head half-chopped off, just as his friends arrived.

Howland crashed into Whent on the side before he recovered his poise, and, taking advantage of the closeness, stabbed him in the gut, piercing through his white enamelled plate. Oswell howled with pain and rage, and elbowed Reed off him straight in the mouth, but as he spun to deliver the killing blow, the crannogman had scurried off and the knight’s sword clashed against Lord Dustin’s. Quickly, Oswell remised, besieging an unprepared Willam, slashing his sword high and low, which Dustin struggled to meet blow by blow. And yet, it was Ser Oswell who was slowly but surely losing the fight, blood seeping down his chest piece, his wound hounding him down.

Reed snuck in behind Oswell, and hamstrung him, his blade scything up the knight’s leg. Whent, cursing loudly, turned on his unhurt heel to take bloody revenge on Reed, but it proved to be a fatal mistake, for his back was now facing Lord Dustin.

Dustin promptly grabbed Oswell by his white cloak, pulled him towards himself and shoved his sword deep into his neck. Ser Oswell Whent coughed blood for an instant, then went limp. Both men then moved to encircle Ser Arthur Dayne, joining Ned and Theo.

Ser Arthur was the only kingsguard still standing, and he faced four foes, but it gave Lord Stark no comfort nor confidence. If his sword brothers were masters of the blade, the Sword of the Morning was a true artist: Dawn, his brush, and blood, his paint. It had taken Ned every ounce of skill he had to just survive against Dawn’s dance, and yet, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it up.

Buckets couldn’t. The scorching heat had taken the heaviest toll on the clansman, and his moves were starting to get slower and sluggish as he grew more and more exhausted. His heavy lunge against Arthur was parried and, just like Ethan, Theo Wull was left overextended by his weakened form.

Unlike Ethan, Wull had a steel shield, which came up to meet against Dayne’s riposte, yet promptly gave in as Dawn’s shining blade pierced both shield and arm with ease. Theo howled in pain, and Dayne stepped in, twisted Dawn and pulled it free, then hacked at the clansman’s neck. Crimson blood spattered out, and Theo fell to the ground, headless.

Ser Arthur immediately moved against Howland, putting the crannogman on the defensive; his agility was useless against such a formidable foe who always seemed to know beforehand what Howland would do, how he would evade his swings and how he would counterattack. With his greatest strength taken away, Howland was left a mediocre swordsman facing against a legendary blademaster.

Ned lunged to his longtime friend’s aid, but the Sword of the Morning was already there, ready to meet his sword in a clash of steel. Dayne kicked Howland straight in the chest, knocking his breath out of him and dropping him to the floor, wheezing.

Taking advantage of the swords’ lock, Willam attempted to attack Dayne’s legs, but, without breaking his lock with Ned, Ser Arthur freed up his left arm and pulled a dagger from his waist, parrying Dustin’s slash at the last second, and stabbed his dagger in a gap between his chest plate and left pauldron. 

Dayne immediately kicked Ned in his left shin, the cold, hard steel of his greaves strengthening the blow, and taking Ned off balance. Without missing a beat, Arthur’s left hand left the dagger where it lay stuck in Dustin’s shoulder and shot up to the blade of Dawn, grabbed hold of it, and pushed it down towards Ned’s face. It was only the lock of blades that stopped Dawn from finding its way into his skull, but its cold edge still managed to bite him in the brow, missing his right eye by less than an inch.

With a flash of intense pain, warm blood gushed out, flooding Ned’s sight and blinding him momentarily. Arthur then stepped back and kicked him in the gut, throwing Ned to the sandy ground, and turned to capitalise on his hit on the Lord of Barrowton.

Willam was hurt, and the dagger poking out of his shoulder impaired his mobility. Pain was etched on his face as he struggled to keep Ser Arthur at bay, meeting Dawn with his own sword with all the franticness of a cornered snake. He would be dead in a matter of seconds.

This has to end now. Ned clenched his hand into a fist with grim determination as he stood up, right eye shut by blood and pain. He gulped, took a deep breath, and bellowed:

“Ser Arthur! You handle your sword almost as deftly as your sister handled mine! If it weren’t for the blood she left on my cock, I wouldn’t have believed her to be a maiden when she came into my bed!”

Ser Arthur didn’t turn to look at him, but from the way his shoulders tensed and his swings gained strength and lost finesse, Ned knew he was listening to his taunts. But most importantly, he was growing wroth at them.

His words had struck a nerve, just as he had hoped. So Ned went for the yugular.

“Your sister’s cunt was worth all the lies I spewed! Pray tell, is my bastard already born?”

That did it.

Ser Arthur’s composure, already cracked by a year of grief, pain and sorrow, finally broke, and with a primal snarl of rage, he hacked at Dustin without any of the finesse he had displayed before, slashing savagely across his chest instead of going for the kill with a riposte. The cuirass broke under the edge of Dawn’s magic-like blade. Dustin fell to the floor, howling in agony, but alive.

Dayne turned to face Ned, murderous hatred in his lilac eyes.

Ned knew the next few seconds would be crucial. He was staring straight into the face of death, as it loomed towards him with long, purposeful strides. He should have been afraid, yet what he felt the most was bitter resignation. I never wanted it to come to this.

“I wonder,” Ned continued, with the same crude tone, “if his surname will be Snow, or” – Ser Arthur was upon him, Dawn held up high – “ Sand! ” and he threw the fistful of sand he had been clutching straight into the Sword of the Morning’s eyes.

Ser Arthur staggered for an instant, stunned by the sand in his eyes.

An instant was all it took.

Ned lunged at him, driving his sword through the stunned knight’s left eye. Blood spattered Ned’s face, mixing with his own, and Ser Arthur went limp in his grasp. Dawn fell to the floor. 

Ned slid his sword off Dayne’s eye, and held him with his left arm. Slowly, softly, he crouched in one knee and laid the Sword of the Morning’s corpse on the ground. He closed the dead man’s remaining eye.

As he tore a piece of linen out of his shirt and wiped the blood blinding his right eye, Ned looked at Ser Arthur’s still features. He looked peaceful in death, the grief and rage that had consumed him in his last moments erased by the sword. He had been a legendary blademaster, and a great man as well. 

His Gods would judge him fairly; if they had any mercy, and if Ashara’s whispers were to be believed, he could be with his beloved Elia in death as they never could in life.

Somehow, he doubted they would show such kindness.

He felt his companions’ eyes bore into him. As the battle came to a close, Howland had run up in Lord Dustin’s aid, and was now in the process of taking Willam’s tattered chestplate. They had laughed at Willam for persisting in wearing his cuirass in the scorching heat but in the end it had saved his life, taking the brunt of Dawn’s savage slash.

Silence held heavy upon them.

Then Ned spoke, voice thick with woe and regret.

“He fought with honour. He deserved better than to die by trickery.”

“Then why did you?” Howland asked in a neutral tone.

“Honour killed my father. Honour killed my brother.” Ned looked over the battlefield. Ethan Glover, long bled out in a pool of his own blood and gore. Mark Ryswell, skewered. Ser Gerold Hightower, his throat nicked and stabbed through his spine. Martyn Cassel, his head half chopped off. Ser Oswell Whent, hamstrung and impaled through the neck. Theo Wull, beheaded. Ser Arthur Dayne, a sword ran through his eye. Ten men had fought, and only three had survived. “Honour killed everyone here but ourselves. All of them were good men, and all of them died far before their time to uphold a promise made to one dead madman. No more. I won’t let honour spell the end of me or mine anymore.”

He had already lost too much. He couldn’t allow it to happen again.

The last year had shattered his world. Everything had changed overnight. Lyanna, kidnapped. Father, burnt alive, cooked in his armour by the green flames of wildfire. Brandon strangled himself, trying to save his father in a sadistic mockery of a trial by combat. In one terrible afternoon, he was suddenly Lord of Winterfell, the title he had never been groomed for and that he never wished to hold, even in his wildest dreams.

He remembered when Jon Arryn informed them about what happened, a vacant look on his face. Robert nearly destroyed the courtyard in a blind rage, but Ned managed grief in his own way. 

He had sat in the Eyrie’s Godswood and wept bitterly. He wept for Father and Brandon, gruesomely and senselessly murdered by a madman. He wept for Lyanna, completely at the mercy of her kidnapper. He wept for his family, destroyed by the whims of tyrants. The injustice of it all had shaken him to his core.

He prayed to the Old Gods and the New that everything would be right.

And the world burned.

When he was a child, he used to hear Maester Walys and Old Nan talk of the wars throughout history as a glorious struggle between good and evil. The Long Night. The war against the Night’s King. The power struggles between the Kings of Winter and the Red Kings of the Dreadfort. King Theon Stark’s campaigns against the Andal invaders.

The heroes were always honourable, noble and chivalrous men facing power hungry tyrants, and Ned had always strived to be like them. Their honour was their sword and shield, and they fought to put the world to rights with their unyielding moral rectitude.

But war changed men. Through fire and blood, through the fog of war and the death of his friends, Eddard Stark had seen the last vestiges of his battered faith burnt to ash. Faith in Gods, faith in men. Chivalrous heroes like Brandon or the Arryns ended up dead, and ruthless butchers like the Lannisters sat in their ill-earned laurels. He couldn’t keep his eyes closed after that, regardless of how much he desired to.

Honour and righteousness were nothing more than a worthless vanity. What good was it for, if not for the sake of coddling one's own pride and conceit, one’s own sense of moral righteousness? What good was honour to the dead men, as their guts laid on the floor, their bodies maimed and defiled? Who did virtue defend, when the sword cared for neither law nor sense?

The names and deeds of the heroes would live on, but they were scant consolation to the broken families that would forever have an empty seat at their table. Were they to tend to their desolate fields, rear their fatherless children and warm their empty beds?

Blind to the nefarious workings of the world, neither Father nor Brandon could fathom the depths to which the depraved would sink to so eagerly, unfettered by law or morality, and had paid for their folly with their lives. Countless brave good men had been led to the slaughter by the promise of honour and glory in the killing fields. The realm put to the torch by the butchers and the lawless. Steel and fire reigned supreme.

No more.

Eddard Stark was done believing in the vain pretences of honour and virtue. 

He would not repeat the same mistakes that had led his father and his brother to an early grave. He would keep what little family remained to him safe by all means necessary, the Others take his honour. 

The Gods would understand, Ned hoped. 

That is, if they even cared.

Howland, however, worried about something else. “And what of Ashara?”

He stiffened. “What of her?”

For all that it was an older wound, it was deeper and slower to heal than the rest. What could have been, he wondered often, if only...

“Did you truly use her so callously?”

“You know the truth,” Ned stated simply, unwilling to speak of it.

Howland wasn’t having it. “Do I? I’m not privy to your thoughts.” He seemed strangely agitated.

Ned opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he had in mind was left unsaid as a woman’s blood-curdling scream cut through the air.

Ned felt the blood drain from his face.

Lyanna!

He shot up, looking at the tower with his mouth agape. He spared a glance at his companions.

“I’ll live, don’t worry,” coughed Willam.

“I’ll take care of him. Go!” shouted Howland, urgency in his face.

Ned needed no further prompting. He bolted towards the tower’s door, kicking it open.

He staggered into the tower, looking wildly around the barely decorated room, before his eyes landed on the circular stairs nestled into the far end. He shot towards them, sword in hand, ready to kill anyone left who was stupid enough to even try and stop him.

There was another scream, turning his blood ice cold.

I’m coming, little sister! he thought as he raced up the stairs, two or three steps at a time.

Just as he started to think that the staircase would go on forever, he reached the top of the tower, a solid oak door standing in his way. Without slowing or hesitating, he angled his shoulder forwards and body-slammed straight through it.

It was a small, claustrophobic room, filled with a heavy foetid smell that he vaguely recognised. Yet somehow, two women still found enough room to pace inside it. They froze at the sight of him, eyes wild, blood running down his brow, sword coated in scarlet.

They had been pacing beside a bed, terse, a look of panic in their faces. And in that bed… in that bed...

“Ned?” his sister asked weakly, her voice hoarse.

“Lyanna,” he said breathlessly. After so long, so much bloodshed, so much fear, after so many long dark and uncertain nights spent awake wondering, dreading he would never see her again, here she was, mere feet away from him.

He had finally found her.

He ran to kneel by the side of the bed, his sword forgotten, along with the women beside the bed.

“Is it you?” she sobbed, trying and failing to cut off another moan of pain, “is it really you? You’re not a dream?” Her hand came up to meet his face. It was wet with blood.

Only then did Ned realise the pool of crimson that soaked the bed. Mattress, covers, and worst of all, his sister’s body, all of them bathed in blood. So much blood.

Now he recognised the foetid, all-encompassing stench by its name:

Death.

Unsatisfied with the seven men it had claimed, Death had set its sights on his little sister. Ned could fight a thousand men, but against Death there was nothing he could do. 

He was too late.

Lyanna, his little sister, his baby sister, was on her deathbed. Fevered, red eyed, cold sweat across her brow.

His poor Lyanna, unbowed and untamed, who had been a force of nature like no other, filled with strength and life and passion. His poor little Lyanna, who deserved so much more than to die at sixteen years of age. 

His heart broke.

“No, I’m not a dream,” he said, catching her hand in his as it fell, leaving a bloody smear on his cheek, her blood mixing with his own, “I’m here.”

I won’t let you fall, he thought. I’ll catch you. He had to.

“I missed you,” she rasped out between short, pained breaths. “I missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, Lya.”

Despite it all, Lyanna smiled. It was weak and frail, but it was a smile, the Lyanna he knew and loved piercing through the feverish agony. “You cut your hair.”

His laugh sounded like a sob. “I didn’t. My head grew,” he replied.

“If it keeps doing that, you’ll end up with a bigger head than Bran,” Lyanna retorted, just as she always did when they were children, but her voice was weaker than he had ever heard it. It was wrong.

“Gods forbid,” he squeezed Lyanna’s hand, so feeble on his own. Everything was wrong.

“What took you so long?”

“A war,” Ned smiled weakly, full of grief. “But I’m here now, Lya. I’m here, and I won’t leave you again. So don’t you worry, alright? Everything will be fine, I’ll make sure of it.”

He knew the words were lies, even as he spoke them, but he had nothing left but lies, sweet lies to give her. It can’t end like this. Please, Gods, please, anything but this.

And quieter, in the back of his mind, in a place he didn’t like to acknowledge, he raged against it all.

But Lya, blunt, brave Lya wouldn’t, couldn’t let the lie stand.

“No, it 's not,” she wept. “I’m going to die here.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m going to die,” she insisted. “I wish I was brave. Like you, and Bran, and father.” Another sob. “I don’t want to die.”

“You’re not going to die,” he repeated, trying to reassure her just as much as himself. This couldn’t be happening. He wouldn’t let it. “I promised to protect you, remember? When I left for the Eyrie, all those years ago. I swore on the Old Gods and the New, no matter how far away I was, that I would protect you. I’ll keep my word. I’ll find a way. I promised you.” Tears burned his eyes and Ned cursed his weakness. He knew he couldn’t break now, he had to be strong for her, but he couldn’t hold his grief anymore, and so he broke. “I already failed once, when that… monster took you away,” he sobbed openly. “I won’t fail you again.”

“Oh Ned. Sweet Ned. Even you can’t protect me from myself,” Lyanna smiled feebly.

What?

Before he could come to terms with her words, he heard the weak, broken cry of a voice never before heard.

He turned to his side. One of the women he had ignored, a serving girl about his age, held a bundle in her arms, and wordlessly passed it to him.

It was a baby. It had a tuft of dark hair on the top of its head, and even now he could already make out the look of a Stark in the babe’s wrinkled purple face. Ned stared blankly at the baby in his arms, a deathly, sinking feeling in his gut.

“His name is Viserys. Viserys Targaryen. He... He was supposed to be our little Visenya, but…” his sister trailed off, tears trailing down her face.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place, and Ned felt the world turn inside out.

Lyanna hadn’t been kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen.

She hadn’t been raped.

She had run away with him.

They had eloped.

Whoever claimed she had been kidnapped had erred.

And Westeros had paid the price in blood and steel.

Father, Brandon, Arthur, everyone. Their future. They had all died for nothing.

Nothing but shadows.

Nothing but a lie.

Because all the wise and noble men of Westeros, thousands of swords under their commands, spurred by their stubborn pride had torn the realm apart over it in a never-ending orgy of fire and death.

And they had been wrong.

Scant solace it was for the dead. 

Seven Kingdoms, wrent apart and tethering on the edge over a single mistake.

But he couldn’t think of that right now, because, Ned realised with dread, his sister hadn’t said Viserys Sand, or Waters. Or hell, even Snow.

She had said Targaryen.

Viserys Targaryen.

A legitimate child, born from a couple married in the eyes of Gods and Men.

In his arms, he held the rightful Targaryen heir in his arms.

The true King of Westeros.

A king without a throne.

A child without a mother.

A babe, who, for the sole crime of being born the child of Rhaegar Targaryen, faced certain death.

“If Robert finds out, he’ll kill him. You know he will.” I see no babes, only dragonspawn. “You have to protect him. Promise me.”

Forget Robert, he thought, scarlet banners drenched in children’s blood unfurling themselves in his mind's eye. The butchery was done in his name, but not on his command. Robert was the least of his concerns.

“Lyanna…” Ned began, numbly.

“You swore to protect me, remember?” she said with an anguished smile. “You promised. It’s too late for me. But you can still protect him. My son.”

He felt his heart shatter into a million dagger-like shards, stabbing his soul with their vicious blades. Oh Gods, no, please… The reality of the situation was becoming too inevitable to ignore, and the finality of it all was dragging him down with it.

Lyanna was crying.

Ned was crying.

Lyanna was dying.

Was this how it was fated to be? Was this how the Gods had planned it? Was this an answer to the prayer he had made just outside the door of this tower? Or perhaps to the one he had made back in the Eyrie, when he asked the Gods for everything to be right?

Yet, as he saw his sister’s life fading in front of him, he could only wonder, what sort of god could consider this ‘right’?

Could this have all been avoided, if only…?

They had won the war. Then why did it feel like they had lost everything worth fighting for?

Except for the Lannisters, Ned thought with festering, venomous hatred. They are the only ones who won in this farce.

“Promise me, Ned,” Lyanna’s weak voice cut through his daze. “Promise me.”

Ned just nodded, the knot in his throat far too tight for him to trust his voice. It wasn’t enough for Lyanna.

“Promise me, Ned,” she repeated.

“I promise,” Ned whispered, choking on his grief.

Lyanna nodded weakly, dying with a small smile on her lips.

He looked down at little Viserys, a small bundle of cloth, quiet except for the occasional gurgle and smacking of his lips. Dark hair. Grey eyes. He really was every inch a Stark, as if Lyanna had made him all on her own. There didn’t seem to be any Targaryen in him.

And as he looked at the babe, his grief gave way to a burning determination.

He would protect his nephew with his life. He would give the boy in his arms everything he would ever need. 

A home.

A family. 

A name.

He would lie, he would cheat, he would cajole and threaten and blackmail and kill to ensure his safety. No matter the cost, Tywin Lannister would never be able to harm him.

Robert Baratheon himself would never allow for any harm to come to him, an unwitting participant to Ned’s scheme. Robert would dote on the little boy, forever unaware of his true identity.

For in his arms he held his trueborn son.

Jon Stark of Winterfell.

Chapter Text

She wasn’t on the battlements.

Odd, thought Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun. Healthy or sick, his little Cat always waited for his return standing in the battlements of the sandstone castle.

Mayhaps she had already given birth and was still recovering. It had been almost nine moons since her wedding night with Lord Stark; he presumed their babe, his first grandchild, should have been born a few days ago, so Cat would most likely be doting on her little wolf pup.

Hoster dreaded to dwell on the alternatives. His beloved Minisa had been dead and buried for years, but he still felt the pain of her loss keenly every morning when he woke and realised he had been sleeping in an empty bed.

Mother, please let Cat endure childbirth better than her own mother ever did, Hoster prayed silently, closing his eyes as he swayed in the saddle of his walking steed. He heard cheers coming from both the men and the castle as they closed in.

After a long year at war, the Tully host returned home. With the war already over, no more fighting was to come. And so, the Riverlords had all left with their men back to their castles.

Even the ‘late’ Lord Walder Frey had returned home, despite only answering his summons after Rhaegar’s corpse was cold. Damned craven, Hoster brooded bitterly. Took his men on a merry stroll while we were fighting a war, and he still has the gall to ask me to marry Edmure to one of his cows. Well, shit to that. Why should I grant him any honours when he wouldn’t even piss on us if we were on fire?

He dearly hoped Lord Walder did Westeros a favour, honoured the other meaning behind his nickname, and died once and for all. His firstborn son Ser Stevron, despite looking every inch the tired old weasel, was a pleasant and noble man, truly the best of Lord Frey’s massive brood of knaves and degenerates. What Hoster wouldn’t give to have him as his bannerman instead of the withered and extortionist crone Ser Stevron had for a father…

The cheering from the castle only grew louder as they marched closer to its heavy redwood gates. Standing in front of them at the other end of the drawbridge, instead of the castellan Ser Desmond Grell, stood his son.

Edmure Tully, heir to Riverrun, tried his best to appear lordly and gallant, but he was barely a decade of age, and instead appeared to be exactly what he was: a child trying too hard to be a man. It was actually a rather endearing sight, and seeing his little boy dressed as a lord made Hoster’s heart fill with pride. Still, he knew the display was one that would likely be mocked endlessly by his bannermen in their drinks.

It was a good thing, then, that most had already left the main host, and by now only Lord Tytos Blackwood rode with him. The Lord of Raventree Hall looked positively amused at the sight of Edmure, but Hoster knew his friend’s smile to be fond: he, too, had a young heir of more or less the same age, and was probably thinking of him.

As they approached the drawbridge, Hoster dismounted his warhorse, handed the reins to a squire, and stayed put. Whoever had put Edmure on it, the fact remained he was on stage. He had to say his lines. Formality had to be observed.

“Father,” Edmure squeaked nervously, “Riverrun is yours.”

Instead of speaking up in answer, Hoster strode across the drawbridge, knelt, and hugged his son fiercely. After a stunned instant, Edmure wrapped his arms around his father tightly. Gods, he'd missed him.

The world exploded in cheers around him, chants of ‘Riverrun’, ‘House Tully’, and even ‘King Robert’ rising up to the skies. Such a simple gesture, the homecoming of a father to the child he had left behind, signalled the true end of the year-long war that had changed the face of Westeros irrevocably.

The Age of the Dragons was over.

As the men filled the courtyard and reunited with their loved ones, Hoster took his son with him to a side of the entrance.

“You did well, boy,” he said, ruffling his son’s messy auburn mop. Edmure’s face turned as red as his hair.

Truth be told, it would have been harder to mess up than not, but to be fair with the lad, he was only ten years of age and it was the first time he ever played a leading role in the mummer’s farce that was the feudal protocol. His little boy was growing.

“Thank you, father. It was my idea I should be the one to present the castle back to you, instead of Ser Desmond. It is my duty, after all,” he mumbled, clearly proud of himself yet intensely sheepish. The contrast was rather amusing.

“Is that so? Why should it be your duty?” Hoster asked, feigning curiosity.

Edmure instantly deflated. His son looked at him as if he had just crushed a small kitten with his boot.

“Because… because I’m your son. Because I’m your heir!” he stuttered, sadness and disappointment in his bright blue eyes.

“I know, I know. I’m just jesting, Edmure. You’ll be a fine lord one day.” Edmure lightened up instantly at the praise.

He was an emotional boy, prone to change between happiness and sadness as easily as Walder Frey changed wives. He’ll grow out of it, Hoster mused as he looked around for his Cat, but she was nowhere to be found.

Lord Jon Arryn had taken Lysa with him, along with the accursed Blackfish. The thought of both of them filled him with bitterness. I only did what I had to do for my family, and they couldn’t, wouldn’t, wanted not to, understand that.

But Cat was still in Riverrun, that much he knew. Then, why hadn’t she come to receive him?

“Say, where is your sister?”

Edmure’s eyes dropped to the floor.

Hoster didn’t like that.

At all.

“Well…?” Hoster prodded, keeping at bay the insidious dread he felt threatening to drown him. This was supposed to be a joyous day…

“She entered labour a fortnight ago. But…” Edmure began softly, but trailed off.

“But what?” Hoster could hear his heartbeat drum in his ears. Gods damn it, boy, just spit it out!

“But… It wasn’t an easy birth. She screamed a lot. She’s had a fever ever since.” Edmure looked up. His eyes were tearing up.

No… He ran his hand through his greying hair. “What does the maester say?”

“He says she’ll be fine, but he said that days ago and she’s still bedridden.” Edmure pouted. “Is Cat going to die? I don’t want her to die.”

Neither do I.

His little girl was suffering the same fate her mother had. The same fate his own mother had, giving birth to the Blackfish. It made him wonder sometimes if the women of House Tully were cursed to die in childbirth.

What about Lysa? Had her bastard not been dealt with, would she also have suffered the same fate? Hoster felt like someone punched him in the gut. Still, something was missing.

“And the babe?” Hoster asked tremulously, holding his breath. He feared the answer.

At this, Edmure’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, he’s fine! The maester said he was stronger and healthier than any babe he had delivered before. Ser Desmond says little Robb looks like me, but I don’t see it.”

Hoster let out a relieved sight. Mother be good, at least the babe is alright.

“A boy named Robb Stark, then?” He had made a bet with Lord Blackwood that if the babe was a boy, he would be named Brandon. One less stag on the purse, Hoster mused.

“Well, Robert Stark, truth be told. Named after our new King,” Edmure clarified. “But Robb sounds better, doesn’t it? I came up with it myself!” He beamed, his previous sadness completely forgotten.

He didn’t believe that one bit. His proud little boy was always trying to take credit for himself in a misguided attempt to live up to the name he had been born to. Hoster had to ensure he didn’t turn out like pompous Lord Tyrell once he grew up, but there would be time for that later. If only Minnie was here. She’d know what to do.

That being said, Robb Stark did have a ring to it, if only because of how shamefully Robert Baratheon behaved in the aftermath of the fall of King’s Landing. It helped him, too, to stand out amongst the veritable army of ‘Roberts’ that would certainly be born in the following years. As befit the future Lord Paramount of the North.

Hoster tilted his head, puzzled. “If the birth was almost a fortnight ago, how come the maester didn’t send me any ravens?”

“He hasn’t sent them at all. He’s waiting to see if Cat… well…” Edmure answered awkwardly, fidgeting with the trout brooch that held his red cloak together.

“I see.” A moment of silence. “Where is he?” Hoster asked. He itched to see his first grandson. His first real grandson.

“At the nursery,” Edmure replied.

“Lead the way, then.”

He didn’t need to repeat himself. Edmure shot straight towards the keep, and Hoster was right behind him, both Tullys moving between the knights and guards who rejoiced at seeing their kin alive and well.

The courtyard was filled with the hustle and confusion that only a returning army could cause, as brothers rejoined, lovers met in each other’s embrace… and widows wailed when they found out their beloved had died in the war. Such was the aftermath of conflict.

By the time they arrived at the nursery’s doors, Edmure still seemed to be full of energy, while Hoster was out of breath. The boy had sprinted his way through the corridors and staircases, while Hoster struggled to keep up with him. It had been a long day of riding, he hadn’t taken off his plate armour and scabbard, and the wounds he had suffered in the Battle of the Bells were still sore.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to partake in the Trident, Hoster thought as he came to a stop and bent in on himself, breathing heavily. Since he had been wounded, he had spent most of the war bringing the royalist Riverlords to heel, a task that allowed him to both convalesce and keep tabs on his Cat’s pregnancy, but it seemed it hadn’t been enough. His body wasn’t as young and fit as it used to be.

He noticed Edmure looking at him expectantly. Not even a single bead of sweat was running through his brow.

“Father, are you alright?” Edmure worriedly asked.

Not thanks to you, you rotten b — 

“Don’t worry about these old bones,” he said warmly instead. “After you,” he gestured at the door.

On cue, Edmure opened the door to the nursery, ran towards Robb’s crib and, once he stood beside it and glanced inside, he promptly froze, eyes wide open.

Hoster felt his stomach sink to the depths of the Earth.

Did the boy…? It wasn’t unheard of children, deemed healthy at birth, dying suddenly in the next few days or weeks. Such had been the fate of his little Osmund. Is my grandson…?

“There’s another baby,” Edmure muttered before Hoster could react.

What?

“What?” Hoster said out loud.

“There’s another baby in the crib with Robb,” Edmure elaborated rather unhelpfully, clarifying absolutely nothing.

Hoster walked to the crib, the clank of his steel plates and chainmail the only sound in the nursery.

Indeed, there were two babies, both slightly less than a month old and both sleeping.

The babe on his right had the classic Tully look, a soft pink colouring his skin and an auburn tuft of hair on the top of his head. If that was little Robb, then Ser Desmond spoke true: he looked just like Edmure did in his first months of life. Perhaps even older than that, for this was a strong and healthy babe.

The other babe, however, looked nothing like him: small and wrinkled like a newborn, he was quite pale, maybe even a bit purple, with dark brown hair. While little Robb looked like he was sleeping fitfully, the strange baby looked troubled.

“I…” Hoster began, feeling as lost as Edmure looked.

That was an understatement, of course. Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun was completely and utterly befuddled.

How in the Seven Hells did a new baby appear out of nowhere? Who in the Seven Hells was this baby? His colouring and grim countenance reminded Hoster of Lord Stark.

Could it be that Cat gave birth to twins? Pairs of twins that look nothing alike between themselves were not a strange phenomenon. It would go a long way to explain her unexpectedly tortured childbirth, as well as the child’s identity.

But then, how come Edmure didn’t tell him just that? How come Edmure has utterly no idea who this baby is?

If he wasn’t Cat’s child, then what was he doing here? Could it be that someone snuck the child into the nursery? No, Hoster discarded the thought, the guards would have stopped him. They know the nursery is under strict surveillance.

Hoster glanced at Edmure, who still stared at the baby wide-eyed and open-mouthed, like a fish out of water. Perhaps he’s just stupid?

If that was the case, he didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.

“If I may interject, my lord Tully…”, came a quiet voice from the corner, breaking both Tullys out of their daze.

Hoster’s sword shot straight out of his scabbard towards the intruder. Sitting in a chair by the fireplace was a small and thin man with messy brown curls, and a haggard, unshaved beard. He was dressed in a dark green garb, and wore a gorget embossed with a lizard-lion.

A crannogman, thought Hoster as he recognised the sigil. He didn’t lower his sword. Crannogmen are shifty, cunning and treacherous, he could remember his father telling him in his childhood, and Lord Hoster had yet to see otherwise.

“Explain yourself. Now,” he commanded. Edmure looked wide-eyed at the scene in front of him. If they were still alive, the guardsmen would be in serious trouble.

The crannogman stared at the sword, unfazed.

“Now, Lord Tully, there’s no need for such hostility.”

“You snuck into my castle, my home, through means I ignore and for reasons I cannot fathom, and waltzed into the nursery. You could have easily kidnapped my grandson, if not outright murder him with the poisons your people are so fond of, if you so wished, and we would be none the wiser until the wetnurses found him. I say there’s all the need for hostility,” Hoster barked, not budging in the slightest.

There was a small moment of silence.

“Well, when you put it that way…” the crannogman chuckled.

And he laughs?! Hoster’s temper flared dangerously. He was sorely tempted to run the intruder through with his blade.

“I am not your enemy, my lord. My name is Howland Reed. I’m the Lord of Greywater Watch. I am Lord Stark’s bannerman and faithful friend.”

“You might as well be the Sword of the Morning for all I care,” Hoster sentenced, unfazed.

“Ser Arthur Dayne is dead.”

What? Now that he didn't know. Seeing his pause, Lord Reed continued.

“Lord Eddard Stark killed him in single combat. We rode afterwards to deliver Dawn, House Dayne’s ancestral sword, to Starfall. There, in Lady Ashara’s breast, we found him,” Howland nodded at the baby next to Robb.

“And what is he doing here?”

“He’s of Lord Stark’s blood. Ned looks after his family.”

“After his bastard, more like,” Hoster spat.

The boy looked the perfect Stark, grim and grey. His paternity was obvious for everyone to see, and it had only been his confusion what forbade him from noticing it on sight.

Did Lord Eddard intend to raise his bastard alongside his trueborn child? To usurp little Robb’s inheritance, in favour of a baby born out of the lust of a tourney? If that was the case, Stark would rue the day he crossed the Tullys of Riverrun.

“After his brother’s bastard, as a matter of fact,” Howland corrected. “Brandon’s bastard.”

At that, Hoster frowned.

Brandon had a bastard? He would be a fool to put it past him; Lord Rickard’s heir had been a hot-blooded youth, filled to the brim with wild passion and prone to rash acts of impulsiveness. It had led him to an early grave.

… Oh.

Hoster realised the true nature of the situation.

Would Brandon’s passion spell his brother’s downfall, as well?

Born posthumously to the firstborn of Winterfell, the bastard had been unable, both by law and by birth, to take his place in the line of succession, to be his father’s heir. He would grow in resentment of his uncle and his legitimate cousins, all his life feeling usurped, cheated out of what he believed should be rightfully his, as bastards are wont to do.

That little babe of Brandon’s seed was now sleeping snugly alongside his cousin, Hoster’s grandson, but he very well might one day kill him to take what he thought should be his. Many times, Lord Tully had seen bastards killing their legitimate half-brothers, unfazed, to take over properties as miserable as a farm or a mill. How eager would they be, if they felt cheated out of a keep?

And Winterfell was no ordinary keep, Hoster knew that much.

He couldn’t allow it to happen.

“What is he doing here?” Hoster asked once again, gripping his blade with renewed strength.

“Preventing such a disaster from happening,” Howland answered quietly, as if he had been privy to Hoster’s thoughts.

“I don’t see how bringing the bastard into my home does anything but instigate disaster!” the Lord of Riverrun shouted back. Edmure flinched instinctively at his father’s angered tone, but was otherwise completely enraptured by what was going on between the two lords.

“Bringing a bastard into your home instigates disaster, yes. But I didn’t bring a bastard into Riverrun. Lord Stark could have easily done that once he returned from the South. Instead, I snuck a Stark pup into the nursery, and placed him alongside your own. A babe very few know has been born, and even fewer have seen,” Lord Reed paused. “Now, why would I do that?”

The differential use of ‘bastard’ and ‘Stark pup’ to refer to the babe was not lost to Lord Tully. “That’s what I want you to explain.”

“Tell me, my Lord, what was your first impression upon seeing the boy? You heard you had one grandson, and was then presented with two. What was the first thought that crossed your mind?”

“I thought Edmure had been mistaken. I thought that Cat gave birth to twins,” Hoster answered truthfully. His boy glared at him, betrayed at the ease with which his father would doubt him, but he paid him no mind.

“Just so.”

“So that’s your brilliant scheme?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. “To pass him off as my Cat’s son, as Robb’s twin?” Lord Tully shook his head. “How does that help at all to clear up the issue?”

“Trust me, my lord, Lord Stark is only trying to make the best out of a terrible situation. You see, his hold on the North isn’t yet secure. He might have led them to war with success, but he’s still young and inexperienced in the art of ruling. I could name a few lords who might try to take advantage of him for that, but he is not a man to bend under pressure. What would those lords, foiled in their ambitions, do if they found out that there is another claimant to Winterfell, born of his elder brother? Lord Stark can’t afford to have a succession crisis.”

“He’s a bastard.”

“He’s a child, and children are easy to manipulate, no matter on which side of the blanket they were born. Furthermore, who’s to say they cannot simply forge a marriage document, claiming it was merely held in secret? Whoever held the regency would be the true ruler of the North. The boy would be a target for intrigue and unrest his entire life only for existing. By raising him as Robb’s younger twin, your grandson’s inheritance would be safe from the scheming of opportunists and traitors, for the world would believe the babe to be the spare to Winterfell, instead of a competing claimant; and indeed, even Jon himself would believe as much.”

“‘Jon’?”

“The boy. Lady Ashara didn’t give him a name when he was born, out of grief for her late lover. Lord Stark named him after Lord Arryn.”

Fair enough. Although that raised another question.

“Then why didn’t she raise the boy herself down at Starfall? The Dornish have always been soft on bastards.”

For the first time, Lord Reed hadn’t an easy answer to give. He frowned, looking suddenly out of place and uncomfortable.

“Lady Ashara…” the crannogman began, pausedly. He had a sad look in his eyes. 

Mayhaps she died in childbirth? Hoster thought then discarded immediately. If that fate had befallen a young noble lady such as Lady Ashara Dayne, the most beautiful woman in the entire realm, he would have known already.

“Lady Ashara is… unhinged, my lord,” Howland finally said, ruefully. “Her grief for her lover, her friends at King’s Landing and now her brother has proven too much to bear. She couldn’t stand to look at the babe anymore. He reminded her of all she had lost. When Lord Stark came down to Starfall to deliver Dawn to her, she near threw the babe at him, wailing that her child was dead, just as Brandon, just as Elia, and just as Ser Arthur,” Lord Reed finished, his voice filled with sorrow.

It was a feeling Hoster found himself sharing. To think of the hauntingly beautiful Lady Ashara Dayne, barely eight and ten, driven to madness by woe and loss… It was a truly terrible thought, and one that almost made him shudder. 

It is said that women are the true victims of war, for in it they lose everyone they love: fathers, brothers, lovers and sons. Hoster now saw the truth in those words.

“I understand. But…” Hoster began, before trailing off.

“But?” Lord Reed prodded gently.

“But why? Why should we bother ourselves to take care of the bastard? Why does he matter so much that we must go to such lengths to ensure his safety? Why can’t we just drop him in a peasant household, and just keep close watch?” Hoster said. He knew very well why, though, but he needed to hear it from the crannogman’s mouth. He needed to know that Lord Stark was a man after his own heart.

“Partly because Lady Ashara is not in any condition to care for him, but first and foremost because he’s Lord Stark’s kin,” the crannogman said simply. “After everything that has happened, there is nothing more treasured by Lord Stark than his family. There’s nothing he won’t do for his family. And now, for good or ill, he’s your family, too. Tell me, my lord, do you care about your family?”

Family, Duty, Honour.

Family.

Yes.

His family was his most precious possession. There was nothing Hoster wouldn’t do for his family, even if they despised him for it.

It felt utterly suicidal to embrace a bastard in his family to protect his grandson from being usurped. It went against everything he knew about bastards, about everything he knew of the line of succession, and the plan didn’t address the possibility of Robb dying prematurely, or what would happen to any other child that Cat might give birth to.

But it was a lose-lose scenario.

And staring at the little bastard Stark pup, Hoster couldn’t help but feel pity for him. Born to the wrong people on the wrong side of the blanket, he was as good as an orphan. He'd had no say in how he came into this world, and if he had been saddled with a bastard’s surname, he’d be a pariah by no fault of his own.

His heart softened, seeing him sleeping snugly alongside his trueborn cousin. The babes seemingly liked each other well enough. Try as he might, he couldn’t find in himself the will to tear both boys apart.

Hoster sighed as he made his decision. He finally sheathed his blade.

“Very well. I’m not happy with this arrangement, but he will stay here at the nursery, by Robb’s side. I will talk personally with the wetmaids and the maester and whoever needs be. But it still remains to be seen whether Cat accepts him as her own, or casts him away. And should she reject him, there’s nothing we can do.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“And rest assured, regardless of how his plan develops, I will tear Lord Stark a new one for his folly,” Hoster snarled.

The crannogman smiled.

“He wouldn’t expect otherwise.”

That night he was unable to sleep, his mind dwelling in the events of the day. It was supposed to be just a straightforward homecoming: he would hug his children, as he had ached to do for weeks, and meet his newborn grandchild, his first. He would laugh with happiness, and would trade stories with his family. He would then go to bed and sleep fitfully, after a long time away from home.

And now, he was embroiled in the midst of a scheme to protect his grandson’s inheritance from his own bastard cousin, a babe just as newborn as him.

Many times through the night, Hoster had looked at the empty space beside him in which his wife used to sleep. Oh, Minnie, you would know what to do. You always had a knack for this sort of thing, he’d think. But he was a widower, his wife long dead and buried, alongside three of their children, all gone long before their time. Minisa wouldn’t get him out of this, nor would she help him find a solution.

Lord Stark had provided one with his crannogman, true, but it wasn’t a wise idea. It wasn’t even a good idea. 

In Hoster’s eyes, it was folly of the highest order.

Having a trueborn heir and a baseborn son growing up together was not only bound to sow resentment in the bastard, but would put him in the perfect position to drive a sword through his brother’s back. Time and time again, he had seen legitimate heirs usurped by their bastard siblings.

Case in point: the Blackfyre Rebellions. Five wars, thousands of deaths, and a whole century of strife, thanks to a father who couldn’t (or just plain didn’t want to) keep his bastards away from his trueborn heirs.

Then again, to be fair, Lord Eddard was no Aegon IV, and the babe, Jon, wasn’t his, but his late brother’s. Lord Stark, despite his youth, was already known as a dutiful and honourable man; if the child grew up to be anything like his uncle, then Robb and his rights would be safe.

In fact, in such a case, Jon would never even think to usurp his ‘brother’s’ inheritance to Winterfell, being raised as, and always thinking of himself as, a second son. Perhaps, should the lad desire glory to his name, he could become a sellsword in Essos, or, as Starks are wont to do, forsake his place in the line of succession and ride for the Wall, taking the Black so he can freeze his balls off… with honour.

But if he had inherited his father’s temper… then, needless to say, trouble would undoubtedly arise.

Hoster understood, and indeed, he mostly agreed with Lord Stark’s reasoning—the child needed a home, and he was kin. It was his duty to look after him. 

And love could move a man to the riskiest of ventures.

Family, Duty, Honour. How come Stark understands that, but not him? he thought darkly of his banished brother.

Yet despite being kin, and his Stark blood, the babe was still tainted, a bastard, and the threat of a disaster just waiting to happen.

But he couldn’t help but wonder…

Was the taint of bastardry truly in the blood? Were bastards truly scheming, ambitious and deceitful by nature?

True, countless times he had seen bastards usurp their trueborn siblings, but at the same time, many cases across history proposed otherwise: Aegon Targaryen’s closest friend and most loyal follower, Orys Baratheon, had been, according to some, his half-brother. At the same time, in the North, Torrhen Stark had had Brandon Snow, who had volunteered to try and kill Aegon’s dragons. While his intelligence could (and should) be questioned, his bravery and steadfastness were clear to everyone. Or Ser Raylon Rivers, a Bracken bastard who chose to surrender himself and his army when Daemon Targaryen took the rest of the House hostage during the Dance to avoid any harm befalling them, when he could have easily turned his cloak and be rewarded as the new Lord of Stone Hedge.

And as a matter of fact, there wasn’t any need to go back centuries: Hoster’s own granduncle, Ser Edrick Rivers, had had the road to usurp Riverrun paved when his trueborn brother, Lord Medgar Tully, died prematurely. Instead, he had kept faith with his young nephews, protecting and counselling them as both came to hold the lordship in turns. He had died when Hoster was still a young boy, but he recalled a kind old man, bald, portly, with a white beard, who used to sneak him sweets and had gifted Hoster with his first steel sword.

If bastards were naturally wanton schemers, why didn’t old uncle Edrick usurp his father and his late uncle when they were at their most vulnerable?

Mayhaps…

Mayhaps the taint of bastardry was in the mind?

Mayhaps bastards were as they were not due to nature, but rather, their resentment and ambition was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like many peasants who resent their lords, bastards despised their trueborn relatives for having luxuries they could only look at, but never have, and mistrusted by everyone for reasons beyond their control.

Which begged the question: what would happen to the bastard that didn’t know he was a bastard?

Hoster understood that Lord Stark hoped to erase his nephew’s ‘bastard’ nature by raising him as his own, and while he could agree with the sentiment, his family’s lives were too high a price.

Morning came not a second too soon for Hoster. As he dressed himself absentmindedly in a blue tunic with a red velvet doublet, someone knocked the wooden door excitedly.

Edmure, Hoster knew immediately. Good thing he had made sure to drill Edmure into not speaking a single word of what he had witnessed. Fortunately for him, the boy had been most excited to be privy to a ‘super-secret’ (his words), and swore on the Old Gods and the New to keep his mouth shut.

“Come in,” he called out, tired.

The door shot open, and his son skipped into his chamber, blue eyes wide open and smiling ear to ear.

“Cat’s fever broke! She’s awake!” he announced happily, before turning on his heel and running back the way he came from.

She’ll be alright. My Cat will be alright, Hoster thought, elated and thanking every god he could think of, but soon enough, his happiness began to sour and turn into dread.

The bastard.

Had she already shunned him? Recognised him as someone else's child? Or, instead, had she fallen for the ruse herself, and decided to raise him as her own? To be frank, Hoster didn’t know what would be the worst alternative. It was a massive, unavoidable lose-lose situation for him, for Cat, for the Starks and for everyone involved.

If only Brandon had had the self-restraint to keep his cock in his breeches, everything would be much easier for those he left behind after his death. He just hoped Eddard Stark had the faintest idea of what in the seven hells he was doing, deciding to raise his nephew as his own trueborn son.

He better, Hoster thought somberly as he walked towards the nursery, each step increasing his foul humour. There was too much at stake to feel comfortable. He understood Eddard wanted to protect his nephew, his kin, but now he was also endangering his wife, his offspring and even himself, should the affair with the bastard turn sour.

He stopped once in front of the wooden door, as he realised he was afraid to know what awaited him on the other side. 

He had dwelled on the matter all night, barely an eye shut. And now, he felt utterly small. The Lord Paramount of the Trident, head of one of the most powerful and influential Houses in the realm, felt insignificant, a mere pawn of the Gods. It was almost amusing how helpless he felt against a single baseborn child who might as well die of a chill before he even learned to use a sword.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the nursery’s door and crossed the threshold, to face whatever the Gods had in store for him and his kin.

Immediately Hoster sighed in relief, for Cat was breastfeeding both children at the same time. Oddly enough, Edmure was nowhere to be seen.

“Cat,” Hoster called to his daughter, breathless.

“Father,” she answered. Her voice sounded weak and tired, but she had spoken with the same stubborn steel underneath she had always had. “It’s so good to see you.”

Hoster walked over to her and strongly pressed his lips against her forehead.

“Oh, my sweet Cat. And to think we almost lost you.”

Cat smiled tiredly. “As if you could get rid of me that easily.”

There was a brief moment of silence, in which Hoster observed as Cat struggled to juggle both babes at the same time. “Wouldn’t it be more sensible to have a wetmaid nurse them for you?” he suggested.

His daughter refused sharply with her head. “I will nurse my children myself.”

She turned to look at both babes by her breasts, missing her father’s anxious stare. So far so good, but the moment of truth was approaching, steady and deadly like an invading army. Every beat of Hoster’s heart resonated in his ears, as single seconds lasted whole hours, and he dreaded the moment his daughter opened her mouth again.

“How long since I gave birth?” his daughter asked. His Cat, always the proper lady, looked so out of place after the birthing and the fever that had followed. Hoster understood that she had been out of it for weeks, and needed a quick run-down of what had happened recently.

“A fortnight, mayhaps a bit longer,” he answered tentatively.

“Mother be good, I know I prayed I would bear my lord husband many healthy children, but if I continue birthing them two at a time I won’t last long in this world,” Cat chuckled softly.

Her innocent, light-hearted words struck Hoster like a trebuchet’s boulder.

She thinks the child is hers.

“I can barely recall their names as it is,” she continued, unaware of her father’s silent alarm.

“The eldest one, the one that looks like Edmure, is called Robb.” Hoster gulped near-imperceptibly. “The other boy is Jon.”

“I named them?” Cat asked.

“Yes. After our new king and Lord Arryn respectively, I presume.”

“No, it’s not that,” Cat shook her head, her dishevelled auburn hair moving along. “I can barely remember anything after the first pains started. Was I who named them? I truly can’t recall.”

“Edmure told me you did,” Hoster shrugged to hide how nervous he felt. “Maybe he lied and named them himself. He has been looking after them while you’ve been… indisposed.”

Cat snorted rather unladylike.

“I wouldn’t expect Edmure to be any more clever when it comes to names. Although… I like them. Robb and Jon. It fits them, don’t you think?”

Daeron and Daemon may be the better fit, I’m afraid, Hoster thought.

“It does seem rather appropriate, in a way. The lordly name ‘Robert’ for the fair heir, and the simple and stout ‘Jon’ for the sombre spare,” Hoster said, a hint of hostility sneaking into his tone. Perhaps Cat had unknowingly accepted the bastard as her child, but he would never consider him his grandson.

Cat frowned rather dangerously at him, all her warmth gone. “Don’t call him that.”

Hoster was taken aback by his daughter’s sudden change in demeanour. “Uh… what?”

“‘Sombre spare’,” Cat answered, dripping contempt at the word. “Do you forget, father, that my lord husband is also a sombre-looking second child?” Hoster detected a small tinge of sadness in her voice. Of course; it had been the handsome firstborn the one she had loved. And yet, she had done her duty. She always did her duty. His sweet Cat. “I won’t treat my own like any less,” she finished.

Gods, she has completely bought it!

Hoster could scarce believe it. He had worried all night long, and how easily it had all turned out! Was her full-blown adoption of her nephew some sort of consequence of her newborn maternal instincts? Admittedly, he knew very little of women. Hoster thought they were the greatest mystery in the whole Known World, greater than whatever laid beyond the Sunset Sea, what had happened to Valyria, or what was the mathematical logic behind their coin’s exchange value. Who knew how their minds worked? He wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, however.

At least it’s far better than what we had yesterday. The boy might be seamlessly integrated into the Stark family after all, but Hoster’s fears regarding any possible usurpation of Winterfell by him, should he heed his innate bastradry, still remained.

However, Hoster knew that it was rather likely he’d die before the issue was even remotely resolved. He was an ageing lord past his prime, and The Stranger would come for him sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, Lord Stark had barely turned twenty, and his Cat was younger still. I’ll take my blessings as they come, Hoster decided. Besides, if the bastard ever tries to do something about it, I know my Cat will stop it before it gets out of control.

“Is something the matter, father?” Cat asked, shaking Hoster from his thoughts.

“Lord Eddard will be most pleased to know he has two healthy sons,” he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“I certainly hope so,” she answered, looking at both babes. Jon had stopped suckling, and instead had fallen asleep in her bosom, while Robb continued to feed rather hungrily.

Hoster could tell by her non-committal tone that she bore her husband no real affection whatsoever. It was to be expected, as they had met, married and bedded all in the same day, and by dawn he was gone to continue the fight.

Furthermore, poor Lord Eddard had a great disadvantage: he wasn’t his eldest brother. Despite being dead for almost over a year, Hoster believed that Cat still harboured feelings for the late Brandon Stark. He had been a gallant and handsome man, a master swordsman and a skilled rider.

And a monumental fool, thought Hoster. We’re in this mess thanks to him.

Gods willing, his younger brother Eddard hadn’t his folly, but the whole plot he had come up with regarding Brandon’s bastard spoke volumes of the man.

Hoster found he had mixed feelings on Lord Eddard. While he was most certainly a person who loved his family deeply and came up with the most unorthodox schemes to protect them, truth be told he wondered if this new Lord Stark might be mad.

To be fair to the man, after what happened to his kin, it was to be expected he would go to such great lengths to protect them. But his ploy was extremely risky, and should it blow up in his face, he might end up dooming the same people he wanted to protect. Furthermore, his whole scheme had hinged on them agreeing to it. What would he have done had they disagreed? Hoster wondered, and decided he didn’t want an answer. Crannogmen were renowned for their poisons.

“Will my lord husband come to Riverrun to pick us up, or shall we meet at Winterfell?” Cat asked.

“I don’t know. To be frank, I have no idea where he is right now.” That was a lie, but Cat didn’t need to know about Starfall and the Daynes. “Last I heard, he had lifted the siege at Storm’s End, and taken the Reachlords’ oaths of fealty.” Cat seemed to mull on his words, as she put the sleeping Jon in the crib and shifted her focus to the still suckling Robb. She caressed the tuft of auburn hair in his head. “Mayhaps Lord Eddard will come here, but then to go North he would have to cross The Twins, and that’s something I wouldn’t wish even to my worst enemy.”

Cat chuckled at that. No one at Riverrun had much, if any, sympathy for the Freys. “And who is that worst enemy?” she asked innocently.

“The same cunt who exacts the toll,” he snarled, earning another small giggle from his daughter.

He was exaggerating, of course. To consider someone an enemy was to consider him an equal, a threat and a rival. Lord Walder Frey was nothing of the sort. The man was a lowly creature, a dishonourable fiend and at worst, a very bothersome nuisance. To consider him an enemy was to recognise him as an equal to the Tullys of Riverrun, and that was something Hoster would never do. He wouldn’t give that withering weasel the satisfaction.

“I hope he arrives soon. I wish to present him with his trueborn sons,” Cat said.

“I hope so too, sweet Cat. I hope so too.”

If only to get the bastard out from under my roof.

Chapter Text

I shouldn’t be in here.

It felt wrong, almost obscene, sitting where he was. He felt like an intruder, unworthy to call this place his own. This was all supposed to be Brandon’s.

The room he was sitting in, the castle he lived in, the wife he had gotten a child from. It was all Brandon’s… and yet, here he stood, in his elder brother’s place.

And Brandon was gone.

Everything he had been promised was lost to him, and everything that was meant for Brandon had been dropped on his lap. 

I don’t want it. I don’t want any of this.

They’d made plans, Brandon and him, about how they would continue the Stark legacy. He’d been worried, after his fosterage, about how the Northern lords would see him. What they would think of him, considering how long he had spent in the Vale. Brandon had promised to take him on a tour of the North after Lyanna’s marriage, to introduce him to all the Northern lords himself. Before Ned’s own marriage was announced, a marriage Brandon himself had played a hand in arranging.

Instead he had met them on the eve of battle, Brandon dead before he had ever been able to make good on his promise.

He caressed the oak desk his father used to spend far too many hours of the day working at. Old memories stirred, images of his father humming a tuneless song while he worked, showing his sons a Lord’s duty. Sitting in wooden chairs in a corner, watching his father working, Brandon usually yawned and drowsily held his head in his hands, bored beyond reason and no doubt thinking he could be doing far better things with his time, while Benjen entertained himself with Gods-knew-what this time (his own thumbs, most of the time).

Ned had been the only one to pay close attention, trying to memorise every single detail of how his father had run the North with such a steady hand. How he had signed and sealed his letters. The order in which he checked the ledgers. Every single comment regarding his vassals and enforcers, no matter how irrelevant or off-handed they had seemed at the time. It had all been noted and stored by Ned, for the day it might one day come in handy.

In service of Brandon.

Because gods knew Brandon wasn’t the type to calmly settle his issues with his lords behind closed doors.

And now he never would.

Brandon laid in the Crypts, and now Ned was the Lord of Winterfell.

Even as the stonemasons worked on his likeness, Ned couldn’t help but feel that, any moment now, Brandon would crash through the door and laugh at Ned’s poor attempt at filling their father’s boots. Lyanna would giggle and snicker at her brother’s misery, while Benjen would be stoking the flames with a devilish twinkle in his eye, like the rotten troublemaker he was. And from the door, Father would shake his head in disapproval, but even he would struggle to keep a smile off his face, while Mother, pale and frail but full of determination, scolded her rambunctious children for being so mean to poor Ned who was just trying his best. 

But they were gone. It was just him and Benjen left.

Winterfell was a hollow home now, and he couldn’t shake the emptiness and loneliness he felt, no matter how much he wished to.

How long would it take for the sense of unease that hung so heavily around him to leave?

Would it ever?

Standing amongst ghosts, only two of them remained.

And from the way Benjen had withdrawn to solitude, he may as well have been another one of the ghosts. Ned had barely seen a hair of him since he had returned to Winterfell.

Which is why he was so puzzled to see Benjen standing in the doorway to the Lord’s Solar. From the way he was hunched over, however, it seemed as though he would prefer to be anywhere but there.

And for all that Ned was irritated and a little hurt that his brother hadn’t spent a moment in his presence since he had welcomed them home, he couldn’t blame the boy. He didn’t want to be in this room either.

An awkward silence hung between the brothers, after almost a year and a half without any sort of contact. Benjen had grown much since Ned had last been in Winterfell, becoming a tall and lanky young lad, his first thin chin hairs sticking out rather unfashionably.

As was the custom, Benjen had taken the mantle of acting Lord and castellan as their mother’s death left Winterfell with no other Stark but him, and it had been him who had presented the castle to Ned when he had arrived home, newfound family and retainers in tow. Benjen had performed his role with a great sense of gravitas, and both brothers had embraced tightly and warmly after a long year without seeing each other.

But now, all on their own, he seemed uncomfortable.

Anxious, even.

Which didn’t help Ned’s own nerves. What could he say? How could he explain the mess they had all made, and the resulting babes?

His heir, who was meant to be Brandon’s. He knew Catelyn wished it was so. Some days he did too, if only because it meant that he would have one last piece of his brother with him, the same way he did his sister.

His nephew, who was now his son. If it hadn’t been for his plan, if he hadn’t trusted Howland to be utterly loyal to Lyanna and her memory, he wouldn’t have let that boy out of his sight until they had finally reached Winterfell. Most days, such considerations had been scant consolation to the boy’s absence.

And Ashara’s babe. Born dead and dragging her mother down with her. Seeing her tomb had made him sick, broke him to his very core. His daughter never had a name. 

This was how the Gods had repaid his faith.

But experience told him that if he wanted to tell Benjen anything he would have to listen to him first, or else whatever he said would go through one ear and out the other, no matter how important. So before the room’s temperature could get any lower or the air any heavier, Ned broke the silence.

“What is it, Ben?”

Benjen gulped forcefully.

“It’s good to see you, Ned,” he began awkwardly. Ned tried not to raise his eyebrows. Benjen must have quite the dilemma on his hands if he was this uncomfortable in Ned’s presence; unlike Lyanna or Brandon, or even their parents, Ned wasn’t known for his temper. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Ned smiled warily. “Likewise, brother,” he said, heartfelt, “but I know something’s bothering you, and smalltalk has never suited either of us, nor will it make your problem go away. So, tell me.”

If Benjen was discomforted by Ned’s straightforwardness, he didn’t show it. Instead, he stepped into the room, closed the heavy oak doors, took a deep breath and said the six words Ned had been dreading to hear.

“I wish to take the Black.”

Ned sighed. It shouldn’t have surprised him. He knew his little brother dreamed of joining the Night’s Watch since he had memory, long before the travelling black brother had made his impassioned plea at Harrenhal. Enraptured by the tales that Old Nan used to regale them with, Benjen, as a third son, could give himself the luxury of living his dreams of adventure beyond The Wall, at the price of removing himself from the line of succession to a castle he did not want and most likely would never hold.

But that had been so long ago. Things were different now. And yet, he still had the same desires.

“Why?”

“I have no place here at Winterfell, nor do I desire a holdfast of my own. The Night’s Watch is an honourable organisation, and I know I could be of use there,” his younger brother answered truthfully, if not very convincingly.

A truth, but not the whole truth.

“You could be of use here as well.”

“I’m redundant here,” Benjen shot back.

“Why in the Seven Hells would you be redundant?” Ned blinked. Out of all the things he had thought would come out of Benjen’s mouth, that wasn’t one of them. What has gotten into him?

“You have a son now, Ned, and a wife to give you more. You have no need for your younger brother.”

“I have every need for my younger brother,” Ned retorted sharply, even as the words were coming out of his brother’s mouth. Something was off; Benjen didn’t normally have a low opinion of himself and his place in their family. “My children are barely a few moons old, and winter is coming. What would happen if a pox broke out in Winterfell? Our family would come to an end. We are the last of the Starks, brother. Only us. And we have to remain together.”

It was only when he finished talking and his indignation died down that he realised Benjen’s exact wording.

You have a son.

He opened his mouth, but Benjen cut him off before he could say a single word. “Don’t lie to me, Ned.”

Ned felt like the air of the room had been completely sucked out.

“Lie to you?” he feigned ignorance, dread growing in his gut. How…?

“I know Jon isn’t yours.”

“... What are you talking about?” he asked in what he hoped came across as utter stupefaction. However, he knew his face gave him away as a liar, and a poor one at that; he’d never quite known how to maintain a neutral expression. But he would learn as time went on. He had to.

“Jon. He is not your son. I knew as soon as I laid my eyes upon him,” Benjen repeated forcefully.

Silence fell upon the brothers as Ned processed Benjen’s words. 

He knew he was treading on dangerous ground, and the next minutes would be crucial, and he needed Benjen to be on his side. That much, at least, was true. He needed his younger brother.

“Have you spoken of this with anyone else?” Ned asked carefully, looking around the room, searching for any weak spot that allowed any eavesdropping. 

It was an unnecessary task; his forefathers had designed the Lord’s Solar as a thick, closed fortress that allowed it to retain within its walls both warmth and intrigue. The only contact with the exterior would happen when the heavy oak doors were opened, or whenever servants brought coal and food. Perhaps that had been why Benjen had made a point of closing the doors prior to speaking.

“No.”

“Good,” Ned sighed. 

I knew this plan was going far too smoothly to last.  

Truth be told, he was amazed at the fact that this ploy hadn’t yet exploded in his face; so much had been left up to chance. Far too many knew about it. He couldn’t control the tongues of idle servants in the midst of their cups or the intimacy of a bed.

Well, they believe they know something. Good thing he had devised a safety net in which to fall back upon. As long as everyone believes he is Brandon’s… 

How ironic. He would find a way to make it up to his elder brother’s memory. 

“You don’t deny it,” Benjen said.

“He’s our kin,” Ned answered evenly.

“That much is obvious,” Benjen rolled his eyes. “But he’s not of your seed.”

“No,” Ned sighed heavily, “he’s not.”

Benjen nodded, but he didn’t look satisfied at his vindication; rather he looked even more worried than before. As if the confirmation made his worst fears true. “What is your plan?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“You’ve already seen most of it. I will raise him as my own legitimate child. He’ll have the name and life his birth forbade him. He will take the place befitting my second son in the line of succession.” Ned paused, then added a small, “Sorry about that.”

“The further I am from the lordship the better,” Benjen waved off his apology. “More importantly, who else knows about this?”

“Besides you? Lords Reed and Dustin, House Dayne, and Lord Tully and his intimate circle.”

Benjen frowned, alarmed. “That’s far too many.”

“Trust me, if it were for me, none would know. But Howland arrived a fortnight after Robb’s birth; the maester and the wetmaids already knew Catelyn had given birth to just one boy. Trying to trick them otherwise would have been folly.”

“Even more of a folly than this whole mad scheme you came up with?” Benjen asked pointedly.

Ned sighed deeply. He had to concede that. 

His plan had been utterly suicidal, made in the spur of the moment, fueled by grief and rage, because he couldn’t bear the injustice of Jon losing more than he already had. And he knew his own son would be born in a matter of weeks; he only hoped Howland could reach Riverrun in time, but if any man was capable of beating the odds and achieving the impossible, it was the Lord of Greywater Watch.

But their plan had hinged on far too many variables he couldn’t control nor influence, and the mere fact it hadn’t crashed and burned already was nothing short of a miracle.

I was far too careless, Ned knew. He couldn’t make the same mistake again. Next time, he would let nothing fall to chance.

“Do you trust them?” his brother asked. “The maester and the wetmaids?”

“No, but Lord Tully does.”

“Do you trust Lord Tully?”

“No, but what option do I have?” Ned sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “I’m passing Brandon’s son as his own grandson, so—”

“Brandon’s?”

“Yes. Jon is Brandon’s and Ashara Dayne’s child,” Ned explained, but he couldn’t resist a wince. Gods if that sentence didn’t burn coming out of his mouth. He was on the road to recovery, but some wounds still bled at the slightest touch.

Benjen stared at him blankly.

“No. He’s not.”

Ned sighed in exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What are you talking about?”

“She was my sister too, Ned,” Benjen said quietly.

A deathly silence fell upon them.

Seconds seemed to stretch into hours as Ned carefully mulled over Benjen’s words.

“How do you know?” Ned asked dangerously after a moment. I didn’t even know until I found her in that tower. And if he knows… 

Who else might? 

“I was a witness. I was there. I… I was there when they ran off,” Benjen explained softly. He sniffed as his eyes watered. “They… they told me everything. That they loved each other. That they wanted to be with one another… and that I was supposed to tell Father. To avoid any rash actions…”

His blood had frozen.

“... And you didn’t,” Ned said numbly. 

“I didn’t,” Benjen sniffed. “I couldn’t.”

Truthfully, he probably would’ve felt more alive if pure ice had been flowing through his veins. “Why?”

“Father was so, so enraged when he found out Lyanna was gone…” His voice grew softer as he spoke. “I had never seen anything like it… I… I was too scared to tell him the truth… I tried to explain, but… The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth… I tried, I really did, but…”

“You were afraid he would take it out on you,” Ned muttered, frozen to the core by the revelation. “So you kept quiet.”

“... Yes…”

Slowly, the numbness and cold faded away, as Ned’s blood started warming, then boiling with the fires of rage, like he was coming back to life. His hands clenched into a fist. His vision was turning red. His whole body shivered in ill-repressed wrath.

His father had been cooked alive inside of his melting armour. Brandon had been strangled while he was forced to watch. The Arryns and countless others, highborn and lowborn alike, cut down on the battlefield, their bodies left to rot while the ravens fed on them. The Targaryens had been nearly exterminated, not even the innocent children spared from the sword. Ser Arthur Dayne killed by dirty trickery, and his Ashara committed to the seas. Lyanna bled out in childbirth. His own life, twisted and taken off-course.

And all because his stupid, craven, imbecile little brother had been too scared of – what exactly, Ned couldn’t fathom – and could not be bothered to open his Gods-forsaken mou—

Eddard smashed his fist against the desk with all his strength. The wood boomed resoundingly, splinters breaking out and embedding into his knuckles. Blood started oozing out of his wounds, but he paid it no mind.

They were all gone. All of this bloodshed, because one stupid child couldn’t open his mouth when he needed to.

True to form, his brother kept silent. The atmosphere of the room was heavy, and hard to breathe in.

Ned raised his eyes to look straight into Benjen’s, but the boy avoided visual contact at all costs. He was crying. But Ned couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for the weeping child in front of him.

What does he know of suffering? Of fear, of pain, of sorrow? He sat out the whole war. He wasn’t at the Trident. He didn’t see King’s Landing burn. He didn’t hold Lyanna in his arms as she died.

And he has more blood on his hands than anyone else.

“The war… the whole war… it’s all my fault,” Benjen said after a moment, his voice thick with regret and sorrow.

“Yes,” Ned growled, furious, “it is.”

“That’s… that’s why I must join the Night’s Watch. I must,” he said, lowering his head. “There’s no other place for me. I’m a criminal, far worse than any murderer or rapist. I cannot atone for my crimes here. I must pay my penance at The Wall.”

“No. You won’t.” Ned glared coldly at Benjen, who was taken aback by the vehemence in his elder brother’s tone. “The realm bled because of your cowardice. Our family is dead because of your cowardice.” He stood up, driven by sheer wrath alone. Benjen flinched. “We are the last Starks left because of you. And you want to go freeze to death up at the fucking Wall? No. I will not allow it.”

“But I—”

“You will marry. You will have children. Three. One for father, one for Brandon and one for Lyanna. You will repay their deaths by fathering new Starks. Then, and only then, will you be able to leave for the Wall if you still wish to do so. That is your penance,” he sentenced, his voice never raised but harsher and crueller than winter.

“There’s honour to be had at the Wall…”

“I could not give less of a fucking shit about the honour of the Night’s Watch. Your family needs you. Your desires are secondary. You will do your duty. That’s final.”

Benjen frowned, shaken by what he had heard. “I…? Wha-? What happened to you?”

“A war,” he spat. “One that wouldn’t have even happened if you had opened your fucking mouth when you were supposed to. If only…”

Ned sighed, trying to calm himself. Then he glared at Benjen as he continued, mustering every shred of authority he could into his voice. “But there’s no use weeping about what-could-have-beens. You will marry and father children. Three Starks are dead because of you,” – Benjen nodded stiffly, full of regret – “so you will pay for their deaths with new Starks. You will stay at Winterfell, at the very least, until your third child is born. Only afterwards, will you be able to do as you please. And woe to you if you try to sneak away or escape from your penance, because I will hunt you down to bring you back home. Are we clear?”

“I… yes,” Benjen said finally, defeated. “I will do as you say, Ned.” He gulped. “Do… do I get a choice in who I get to marry, at least?”

“As long as you do not use that as an excuse to stall endlessly, yes.” A gruff black trout came to mind. “Why? Do you have someone in mind?”

“No,” Benjen answered truthfully.

“Good, because I do. I presume you’ve heard of Lady Dacey Mormont. She’s Lord Jorah’s cousin. She’s a year or so younger than you.”

Benjen mused about it for a few seconds, still downcast.

“Is this arranged?”

“We spoke with Lord Jorah about the possibility, aye. However, we wanted your consent before we were to commit to actually arranging anything.”

“I see…”

“Do you find it disagreeable?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s a good match, the one you’re proposing. It’s just…” Benjen paused, the struggle to open up clear in his face. “I never wanted to marry and settle down, Ned. That was Brandon’s thing. Yours too, perhaps. But it’s not for me.”

“I know. And I’m sorry for this, Ben. I truly am,” Ned replied softly. “I take no pleasure in doing this, believe me.” He moved around the table and walked towards Benjen, and put his hand on his shoulder in reassurance. Grey eyes met blue ones. “But we are all that’s left of House Stark. And we have to rebuild. We can’t do that on our own. Don’t you remember what father used to tell us?”

“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,” Benjen whispered.

Despite himself, Ned managed a weak smile. “And winter is coming.”

Ben sniffed. “Aye,” he said, straightening and putting up a very weak, yet honest, smile. “I understand. I’ll do my part, brother. I’ll marry the Mormont girl.”

Chapter Text

The day Catelyn married Lord Eddard Stark in the sept of Riverrun, her heart had known no joy.

Long had she dreamt of marrying the heir to Winterfell, a dashing, charming and chivalrous man who had made himself the owner of her heart at first sight. Despite being barely under three years older than her, he towered above most men. Tall, muscular and with a devilish smirk, he was a man so sure of himself he feared no man nor beast. He was everything a young maiden could dream her future husband to be.

And he was dead.

Brutally murdered barely a fortnight before they were due to be wed.

And in his place, she had married his younger brother, for an alliance with Winterfell was far too important to let it die as well.

Shorter, grim and stoic, Eddard Stark had none of his late brother’s magnetic charisma. His grey eyes had none of the vivaciousness his elder brother’s had. Even his countenance was duller and less handsome, and he spoke in curt and short sentences.

As she stood in the Sept and recited her vows, she could only wonder why had the Mother forsaken her, casted her away from Her protection, leaving her to be sold to this complete stranger whose only claim to her hand was inherited from his brother, like a lordship, an heirloom, a broodmare.

As her gown was ripped from her and her nakedness aroused bawdy leers, she could only ruminate what sins she could have committed to deserve such a punishment. 

As Eddard Stark pushed himself inside of her, all she could do was bite her lip and swallow bitter tears.

And as she saw him ride off into the distance the following morning, Catelyn was sure that the Gods she had loved her entire life hated her.

Yet now, five years later, Catelyn could only laugh at how foolish she had been. Her marriage to Eddard Stark had been no punishment, but rather the greatest blessing she could have ever dreamed of.

Underneath his gruff and cold exterior, her Ned had a compassionate soul, warm, gentle and loving, but only to her and their children. The cold, hard North froze the false courtesies of the South, a language Ned cared not for in the slightest. A language that Brandon had been so fluent in that Catelyn had failed to notice the tepidity of his heart.

Whereas Brandon waved her advice off with a smile and gallant platitudes, Ned deeply valued her counsel, and would often seek it out of his own volition. How many ladies could boast of a husband that cared to listen to their words? She was one of the blessed few.

She knew as much when her husband had built her a sept to worship in, despite no one else in Winterfell following the faith of the south. Countless kings and lords of Winterfell had taken southron brides throughout the centuries and aeons, but none had ever raised a sept for them. Yet, Ned had done just that, even when he held faith to the Old Gods with such zeal he had made a point of marrying her once again in front of the ancient weirwood of Winterfell, according to the customs of his ancestors and their land. Her first offering in the Sept had been to the Mother, a small, humble candle lit in thanksgiving.

And if that wasn’t enough, he had gone further and beyond when he named her, instead of his younger brother (as Catelyn had expected), designated regent of Winterfell and the North, should he meet an untimely demise.

Her, a southron.

Words would never suffice to describe how loved she felt that night.

They had made little Sansa on the desk that night, Catelyn reflected with amusement, as she held her beautiful baby daughter in her arms and watched her boys throw snowballs at each other in the courtyard.

Love had been the last thing on either of their minds when they were wed, both broken-hearted and with their worlds shattered, but she could feel it grow between them with its warm flames that patched every wound. The stiff awkwardness of supper had been replaced by bliss and laughter, and no longer did they keep to their separate bedchambers.

Indeed, she thought as she caressed her swollen belly, while their first time had been a solemn affair, done out of duty and nothing more, now there were times she felt like she had to be physically restrained to stop her from jumping his bones. More than once she'd had to leave for her chambers in the midst of court, far too aroused to keep a straight face while her Ned ruled the North with wisdom, compassion and authority.

And to think she had been in love with his brother.

She had been so childish, far too enamoured with what she saw to realise what he was. A brave and charismatic man, to be sure, but an immature lecher and hot-headed fool.

She knew Ned would disapprove of her choice of words, and protest that his brother had been a good, noble man, and perhaps he had, but Brandon had dishonoured her by bringing a bastard into this world while he was betrothed with her. Catelyn was disinclined to forgive such slight.

For not only had he dishonoured and slighted her, but his own younger brother as well. She did not resent Ned for being enamoured with the late Lady Ashara Dayne, just as he didn’t resent her for Brandon, but impregnating his brother's beloved was beyond the pale. It was vile, and so was Brandon.

Brandon had been so giddy as he told her at Harrenhal about his solemn and shy brother’s first flame. At the time, she thought he was excited for his younger brother, but now it seemed his laughter was born out of callous cruelty. She couldn’t understand how Ned was unable to despise his late brother.

Was her hatred of Brandon entirely reasonable? Perhaps not. Did she care? Not in the slightest.

She remembered how her father had taken her aside while they were preparing the carriage for the trip to Winterfell, barely a day after her new husband had arrived, a pensive look on his face.

“My sweet Cat, there’s something you have to know,” he had said.

“What is the matter, father?”

“There is no easy way to tell you this. I’m sorry,” she remembered the struggle in his face.

She had been alarmed and scared then. “Father?”

“Brandon Stark had a bastard.”

At the moment, it felt like a punch to the gut. She had struggled to keep a straight face and not break down crying.

“W-what?”

“Before he died. He laid with Lady Ashara Dayne at Harrenhal and got her with child.”

These days, Catelyn cringed at the thought of how grievously her father's words had hurt her heart. “Who… Who told you that?”

“Lord Stark himself. He found the boy in Starfall. He told me he would look after him.”

“W-where is he? The b-boy?”

Her father had kept quiet then; perhaps it had been barely a few seconds, or maybe minutes, but it felt like the longest time. Eventually, he mustered a soft, sad smile, and answered.

“I don’t know. But if he ever appears, I know you will be able to handle it,” and he had hugged her tightly one last time. “Take care, Cat. My sweet, sweet Cat.”

And they had left.

She had then decided to ask her husband about it, but it took months before she could muster the courage to face the cold block of ice given human form that she had married. 

Bastards were commonplace, she knew; many (if not most) lords bedded other women than their lawfully wedded wives. But was she truly being self-entitled by wanting to be married to a lord who kept faith with her? Was that really too much to ask?

In the end, she had married one who did just that, and much, much more. How silly had she been, thinking her Ned unfeeling and cold.

“My Lord…” she had asked during supper one night, a few weeks before Benjen Stark’s wedding to the surprisingly beautiful sword maiden of Bear Island. Her goodbrother, a moody and withdrawn youth, had just retired to his bedchamber, leaving her alone with her husband.

“Ned,” he corrected her gently, before raising a cup to his mouth.

“Ned…” At the time the name felt awkward in her mouth, yet now her heart warmed at it. “Is it true that Brandon fathered a bastard with Ashara Dayne?”

Ned choked on his drink. 

If she had doubted her father, that had confirmed it completely. At the moment, she thought her whole life had come crashing down. Now, she reflected, that moment had been the true beginning of it all: the moment she had finally let go of her late betrothed, of her first love. Good riddance, if you asked her.

“Wha-what makes you say that?” He had coughed and hacked, gasping for air.

“Is it true?” she asked instead.

“My lady,” he said, slowly regaining his composure, “my brother would never…”

“Please don’t lie to me,” she pleaded.

After a moment of silence (and a couple of coughs), Ned had sighed deeply, his grief palpable. “Yes. He did.”

“I… I see,” Catelyn nodded sadly at the confirmation.

“Who told you?”

“My father.” I should send him a letter, Catelyn mused while she idly caressed baby Sansa’s soft auburn hair, her mind in that night five year ago.

“Did… did he say anything else?” Ned had looked so shaken that, looking back on it, it was amusing. The bastard was his brother’s, after all. He had done nothing wrong.

“That you would look after him.”

Ned had muttered something under his breath, low enough she hadn’t been able to hear it. “Anything else?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“No, he didn’t,” she had answered honestly. The relief in her husband’s face was palpable. “Is that true, as well? Are you looking after him?”

“Aye, I am,” Ned's tone admitted no argument. “Legitimate or not, he’s of my blood.”

“Is he here?” Cat had to ask for her own peace of mind. “In Winterfell?”

Her husband had looked ashamed at that. “No. No, he’s not.” 

“Where is he, then?” she asked out of honest curiosity, but her husband had shot her a wary look, his grey eyes cold as stone.

“Away from courtly intrigue. He’s safe, and he will live a good life, and that’s that,” he had sentenced.

And indeed, that had been that.

Since then, she had been able to pry further details from her husband. He had refused to disclose any further details because he had been worried she would try to dispose of him as a way to ensure her children’s safety; and true enough, while she worried and dreaded the day a Snow would ride through the gates and tried to claim Winterfell as his, she would never harm a child.

Ned had told her he had left the boy in a peasant household, to be raised as their own, and kept a watchful eye on him. However, he had never come close to telling her so much as in which of the Seven Kingdoms the boy was located.

While she understood his reluctance to talk about it, and his fiery desire to protect the boy, at times it was frustrating how stubborn he was in keeping it a secret. Didn’t he see that she wanted to help him, to take that burden off his shoulders?

She wondered if Ned kept the boy away from Winterfell because the pain would be too much, a permanent reminder of his brother’s actions. Just how gutted had Ned felt when he learnt about it? Had he felt his world shatter, just like she did? And yet, he never wavered in his commitment to his kin, looking after his nephew despite how much his parentage hurt him. She could never be that strong.

“Mother!” a boy’s voice shouted from below the ramparts, shaking her out of her daze and returning her to the present day.

Looking up to her from the courtyard was her firstborn, Robb, his auburn mop spattered with the summer snow. Once he had gotten his mother’s attention, he turned towards Jon.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked her.

His mismatched twin was standing perfectly still a couple of feet across the courtyard. If it wasn’t for the rose tint in his cheeks, Cat might have mistaken the boy for one of the statues from the crypts, or might have thought he had frozen solid, or something along those lines.

Cat chuckled. For some reason, her second son had gotten into his head the idea that, if he stood perfectly still, he would become invisible to the eye. And so, now he was a constant fixture all across Winterfell, trying to eavesdrop on the happenings of the castle. He was as silent and undetected as a ghost.

Or, at least, that was what he thought. Nobody had yet had the heart to tell him otherwise.

Robb frowned.

“Jon, what are you doing?” he shot at his brother.

Jon didn’t even blink.

Robb stared at him confused for a few seconds, then turned again towards his mother up in the ramparts. His unsure face spoke for him. Cat simply shrugged. He’s alright, he’s just playing, she conveyed.

“Jon!” Robb shouted with impatience.

“You can’t see me,” Jon muttered through clenched teeth. “I’m invisible.”

“No you’re not, stupid,” the elder twin rolled his eyes.

“Shut up, yes I am!” the younger one hissed, completely unaware that, even if he was invisible, he had already blown his cover.

Robb frowned, chewing on his lip, and after a moment, knelt, formed a snowball between his hands, and nailed Jon straight in the face with it.

Cat sighed heavily as Jon jumped onto Robb and both children began fighting clumsily in the ground (they were only five years of age, after all). She handed over baby Sansa to a nearby maid with instructions to take her to the nursery, and started walking down the stairs hurriedly towards the courtyard. To her dismay, she realised her baby bump was starting to become a nuisance to her movement.

“Robert Stark!” she barked.

Her firstborn’s face paled, immediately dropping his chokehold on Jon.

“Uh-oh.”

“Haha, you’re in trouble,” Jon snickered from the ground. Robb glared at him with anger.

“You too, young man!” Catelyn scolded him. Jon’s face immediately dropped, as if a soft and adorable puppy had been beheaded with a blunt axe right in front of him. Now it was Robb’s time to snicker at his twin’s expense.

“But it’s his fault, not mine!” Jon whined, shooting up to his feet.

“He’s lying!” Robb shouted.

“No, you’re lying!”

“I don’t care whose fault it is,” Catelyn interrupted them both sternly before they resumed their fighting; both children immediately stood at attention, looking at her wide-eyed. At times Cat wondered if they weren’t, in fact, identical twins with just different colours. It was an exaggeration, to be sure, but their resemblance was so thorough that at times she would get confused with who was who, their distinctive facial features lost beneath their shared behaviour and body language. “You will stop fighting right now!” she continued.

“But mother!” they whined in unison, before shooting a nasty look at the other. It was like a mirrored image, further proving her point.

“Do you want me to confine you to your bedchambers and forbid you from playing with each other? Or will you make your peace yourselves?” she raised an eyebrow.

Both boys looked at each other warily. Sure, they might be fighting now, but they still were best friends, and being grounded in their respective rooms for the rest of the day appeared to be, to a five years old’s mind, a fate worse than death.

“I’m sorry,” they both said in unison, averting each other’s gaze. They clearly didn’t mean it, but they didn’t want to be grounded.

Cat raised an eyebrow. “Look at each other’s eyes and actually mean it.”

Both children groaned, and looked straight at each other.

Jon stuck his tongue out at Robb.

“Boys…” Cat said in warning before Robb could respond in kind. However, at the thought of facing their mother’s anger, both boys looked down, chastised.

“I’m sorry,” Robb muttered.

“Me too,” Jon said back.

After a few seconds staring at them long and hard, Cat nodded at them, a slight smile on her face. “Very well. Off you go.”

Both boys ran off immediately to entertain themselves doing Gods-knew-what, laughing and yelling all the way. 

She turned to the nearby guardsmen tasked with keeping an eye on the lordlings. “Should they start fighting again, take them to their separate bedchambers.”

“Errr, they share same bedchamber, m’lady,” Heward scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

… Oh. Right. “Then take Robb to his lord father and Jon to me,” she amended her orders without missing a beat. “I shall be in the nursery.”

“Aye, m’lady,” the guardsmen nodded.

“That’s not fair!” Jon shouted in the distance, upset at whatever change of rules Robb had done in the midst of their game to gain the upper hand. However, instead of fighting over it, Robb simply allowed Jon to do the same in compensation. Cat couldn’t help but smile.

Her twins had grown so fast. She felt like it had been barely a fortnight since she had nearly died bringing them to this world.

Robb, her eldest, looking so much like his uncle Edmure, was outspoken and responsible, if a bit stubborn and prone to take himself too seriously, as he was learning what it meant to be the firstborn and tried his best to live up to his duties. Jon, on the other hand, was cheerful and silly, always playing games and having fun, thought at times he had certain bursts of melancholy and contemplation that Cat had come to associate as part and parcel of the Stark bloodline; her husband had them from time to time, and her goodbrother lived brooding in the forests.

While she tried her best at avoiding to play favourites, she had to admit that Jon held a special place in her heart. Her firstborn would one day be a great lord, ruler of the largest of the Seven Kingdoms. Her daughter would marry a great lord and rule his castle, and her sons would be knights and princes and lords. But it was on Jon that the Gods smiled the brightest: he was free to follow his heart wherever it took him.

And Cat couldn’t be happier for him.

She wasn’t surprised to see her goodsister and her nephew at the nursery.

Little Anton Stark was barely over three years of age, and he looked the perfect mix between wolf and bear: a northman to the bone, he was dark haired, long faced, sturdy and brown eyed. He had inherited his father’s brooding disposition, but you would never know given how he doted on his baby cousin, all laughs at the buffoonish faces he made for her as his mother, Dacey Mormont, looked at them.

It never stopped marvelling Cat how beautiful and graceful Dacey Mormont looked when she dressed as a proper lady, instead of the riding leathers and chainmail she was wont to wear. With her love for sparring, vivaciousness and imposing height, at times it was easy to forget she was only eight and ten years old.

“What is the occasion?” Cat asked with curiosity. Such a sight wasn’t very common.

“The rest of my wardrobe is either with the washerwomen or the tailors,” Dacey shrugged, earning a chuckle from her sister-in-law. “Far too tattered and muddied to be worn at the moment. And you? You’re as big as a whale!” Wow, rude, Cat thought as she caressed her belly, self-conscious of its size. “How long until the baby is due?”

“Maester Luwin says that it should be within a few moons.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Absolutely a boy,” Cat scoffed. “No girl kicks like that; he’s going to be a knight.”

“Hmmm, you would think so,” Dacey replied, eyebrows raised, “but girls in the belly can be as rowdy as any boy, or maybe even more. Just ask my mother.”

“Sansa was nothing like this,” Cat protested lightly.

“Aye, but Sansa is even more of a southron than you, all soft and delicate. You’re carrying a little she-wolf there.”

The words were meant to be throwaway, but struck a nerve; despite her years at the North and her best attempts, northerners still considered her a southron flower, pretty to look at but worthless in the cold winds of reality.

True, northerners were a withdrawn people, distrustful of foreigners, but it hurt to see that despite being the Lady of Winterfell for almost six years, despite remarrying their lord under the sight of the Old Gods, despite raising her children to follow the northern customs in spite of her own, they had yet to see her as anything more than their lord’s southron wife. As if nothing she did was ever good enough.

To her credit, Dacey seemed to recognise her faux-pas.

“Err, no offence intended, my lady,” she apologised sheepishly.

“Since you apologised, none taken,” Cat said evenly, though not entirely honestly. “And you, sister? When are you due to have another child?”

“Let me get with one first,” her goodsister snarked.

“And what are you waiting for?” Cat asked.

“For my husband to stop either brooding in the Godswood or hunting in the Wolfswood for more than five minutes, to begin with,” Dacey rolled her eyes in frustration.

Cat knew her goodsister’s gripes all too well.

Benjen Stark was a rare sight in Winterfell, despite living there—a withdrawn and lonely man that preferred the company of the woods and the wilderness than that of his lovely wife. At first, Cat had suspected that Benjen preferred a man’s company, though further conversation with Dacey disclosed the opposite.

Still, for some reason he rarely ever did the deed, and at times he even interrupted himself in the midst of it, stopping and abandoning the bedchamber, leaving behind a very unsatisfied and frustrated wife. The fact that he had managed to father a son was almost a miracle, given how little time he spent with his wife.

“Every night he complains he’s too tired to do anything, but come dawn and he’s back off to the woods again,” Dacey complained. “The worst part is that he never allows me to accompany him. What, is he afraid his wife is going to ride better than him? Hunt more game?” the girl fumed. “He knows I enjoy riding and hunting as much as he does, but he still refuses to take me with him. I swear, at this rate I should just beat him into submission…”

“You’d win,” she pointed out earnestly. While Benjen Stark was no poor fighter by any measure, he was thin and lanky, while his wife was tall, muscular and aggressive. He’d be overwhelmed within seconds.

“Of course I would,” Mormont sighed. “He grieves for his family. I understand that. I’ve tried being patient with him and giving him space, but this is getting ridiculous,” she said, looking at the floor. After a moment of silence, she spoke again, her voice weaker than Cat had ever heard it. “What am I even doing? I shouldn’t have married.”

“Don’t say that,” Cat hurried to Dacey’s side, hugging her tightly. The northwoman didn’t budge at her embrace.

“It’s true, though. I wasn’t made for this sort of thing. I’m a Mormont. I battle, hunt, and ride. I’m not cut out for marriage. I’ve never been. What was I thinking? That I could be the wife of a Stark? Childish folly,” Dacey shook her head, her voice nearing the breaking point.

Cat wracked her head, thinking of where to begin to respond. Then, remembering where they were, she spoke.

“Your child. Don’t you love him?”

Dacey looked up to Anton, who had fallen asleep while hugging baby Sansa in her crib. She smiled lovingly, a tear rolling down her cheek. “Aye, I love him, so, so much. But…”

“‘But’ nothing,” Cat interrupted her firmly. Dacey looked at her with a frown, but Catelyn didn’t care. I’m the one talking now. “You say marriage isn’t your thing, and it never has. But I’ve seen you with Anton. I’ve seen how you hold him, how you look at him when he’s playing in the snow. You’re a fighter, yes. A brawler. A warrior. But you’re also a mother, and a damn good one at that. I know marriage isn’t easy,” – Try still being in love with your husband’s late brother, and you’ll see what I’m talking about –, “but that doesn’t mean we should give up when the odds are against us. No. You don’t have to stop being a warrior to be a mother. You don’t have to be one or the other. You can be both, Dacey. And if Benjen doesn’t like it…” Cat trailed off.

“... And if Benjen doesn’t like it?” Dacey prodded, her voice soft with emotion.

“I’ll join you in beating him in the courtyard,” she sentenced, so sure of herself she earned a chuckle from her fellow lady Stark.

“You should speak with your brother,” she commented later to her husband as they dined in her bedchambers.

Ned sighed sadly. “I’ve tried. It’s of no use. Despite my best attempts, Benjen feels like he does not belong in Winterfell.”

Cat frowned. “He’s a Stark. If he belongs anywhere in this world, it’s in Winterfell.”

“Aye. But he’s a third son. He has always wanted to leave for the Wall, to explore what lies beyond. He never cared much for anything else. Benjen feels confined and without any real purpose here, beyond breeding like a hound.” Not unlike many ladies across the Seven Kingdoms, Cat mused. She wondered if Ned realised it, too. “He’s adrift in a life he never wanted, and hunting and praying are a poor substitute for what lies beyond the Wall,” Ned spoke, deep regret in his voice.

“What about Dacey? Does he not love her?”

“He likes her. He’s fond of her. But love her? I don’t know. I don’t believe he does.”

“Couldn’t he try, perhaps, to include her in his hunting? Or to try to be a better husband, at least? Dacey feels frustrated and scorned, she told me herself this eve. And you know that woman, I’m willing to bet she’s an even better rider and hunter than your brother.”

“I’m not foolish enough to take that bet,” Ned chuckled, before sighing sadly for his brother. “He feels… unworthy, I think.”

“Unworthy? Of what?” Cat frowned in confusion. 

“Of being happy.”

“Don’t you think he’s exaggerating?” Why would he feel unworthy of being happy of all things? Cat wondered. What has he done to carry such guilt? “I understand he feels without purpose in Winterfell, yes, but he’s denying himself of the possibility of finding one by being so withdrawn and surly. He’s wasting a possibility of finding happiness with his wife, Ned,” she said worriedly.

“Do you think I haven’t told him that?” Ned chuckled wryly, not a single shred of humour in his laughter. “No matter how much I try, I cannot get through to him. He’s as unassailable as the Eyrie.”

Cat pondered on that as she drank from her tea. She could very well feel her husband’s grief at his brother’s depressed behaviour. Ned loved his only remaining sibling very much, and Cat could only imagine how she would feel in his place.

No, she didn’t imagine the feeling. She knew it all too well.

“Speaking about the Eyrie, have you spoken with Jon recently?” At her husband’s blank stare, she clarified, “Jon Arryn, dear.”

“Oh. For a moment there I thought you were referring to our Jon…” Ned muttered, before answering, “No, I have not. Why?” Suddenly, his eyes lightened in understanding. “Oh, the babe! Right, right. This has not been my brightest day. Was he already born? I should write him a congratulating letter.”

Cat shuffled herself awkwardly in her seat. “Don’t. The babe was stillborn.”

“Oh.” Ned frowned, struck by sadness at the news.

Poor Lysa, always so timid and delicate. How was she coping with such a tragedy? Was she doing any better than Benjen Stark did with his? She doubted it. When they were little girls, Lysa was so sensitive she was prone to long afternoons of crying at any tragedy, real or imagined. At least she has Petyr with her in King’s Landing, she supposed. A friend’s shoulder in which to cry upon was the best consolation.

The silence was broken by the guardsman at the door of their bedchambers knocking hurriedly.

“Magn Stark,” the guardsman called in the vulgar Northern tongue, an ancient and primitive croak that would forever elude Catelyn’s comprehension. “Mestre Luwin en dyr. Merien er.”

Ned scowled, annoyed at the interruption. “Fyl dral, Wylis.”

The elderly guardsman opened the door, and Maester Luwin, a small grey mouse of a man, shuffled hurriedly inside. From Luwin’s behaviour, she knew instantly they were bad news.

Dark wings, dark words.

“My lord, my lady,” he greeted, clearly unsettled from the scroll he carried in his hands. “A raven from King’s Landing.”

Without any further ado, he handed Ned the letter. Her husband read it quickly, his scowl dropping into a numb, flat expression.

Catelyn could only stare with apprehension. Before she could ask, however, Ned spoke.

“Balon Greyjoy has crowned himself King of the Iron Islands. He attacked the Lannisters and burnt their unsuspecting fleet during the night,” he stated flatly, lacking any outward reaction, but his grey eyes were dark and haunted with wrath. “Luwin, call the banners.”

Chapter Text

Banners from lords high and low rose against the dark and grey skies, the clouds of winter looming over the siege of Pyke. To say that the so-called Greyjoy Rebellion had been a failure would be an understatement, Ned thought at the sight.

Believing King Robert’s hold on the Iron Throne to be feeble and unpopular, Lord Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands had risen up in open rebellion to gain independence for his domains and crowned himself King of the Iron Islands, all in a misguided, foolish attempt to bring back the long-since-outlawed crimes of reaving, murdering, plundering, enslaving and raping defenseless villagers that the Ironborn endearingly called ‘the Old Way’.

His insurrection had started off promisingly when he struck a quick and decisive blow against the Lannister fleet, anchored at Lannisport, in an attempt to cut any mainland army from crossing into the islands and denying the throne a chance for a counterattack against his homeland. Unfortunately for Balon, his mighty Iron Fleet had been squashed by Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and the king’s younger brother, in a battle off the straits of Fair Isle. And so, the wooden wall upon which Balon’s defence depended had quite literally sunk into the sea.

The tide had irrevocably turned. The armies of the Seven Kingdoms had swarmed over the Iron Islands, taking control of all the ill-defended castles and towns and even some of the strongly-defended as well, and razing many of them to the ground.

Pyke wouldn't be as easy a prey, a keep tall and sturdy and near impregnable by way of common siege tactics thanks to its unusual layout. Scattered across three barren islands and many dozens of smaller stacks of rocks, it was almost completely off the mainland, only connected by a stone bridge to the stables, the kennels and the livestocks located on it.

“Your Grace, for as long as they keep control over the mainland, they will keep control over the food supplies stored there. They might have enough to last for years, even,” Lord Galbart Glover spoke, the leaders of the siege gathered in a war council in the royal tent. The lords of the North and the lords of the Stormlands sat at opposite sides of the round table while King Robert Baratheon, the first of his name, presided over the council.

Ned frowned. Balon’s rebellion had been idiocy of the highest order from start to finish, but at the very least he had shown some degree of foresight by stacking up his stores before attacking. That made matters more difficult. Just on its own, Pyke was hard to besiege. With full supplies, a siege would be virtually impossible.

“Thank you, Lord Obvious. Next time, try telling us something we don’t know already,” snapped Lord Bryce Caron, a brash, young and untested Stormlander lad that had come prematurely to his title due the untimely death of his lord father and elder siblings barely a few moons ago. The northern lords scowled dangerously at the insult at one of their own. A red-faced Glover was about to retort when the king interrupted before it could escalate.

“Careful,” King Robert Baratheon, a tall, muscular and powerful-looking man, warned. “You were still playing with wooden swords while we were fighting the Targaryens. Have you even killed a man with that blade by your side, boy?” Caron shook his head, shamed. “No? Then keep quiet and let the grown men talk,” the King sternly scolded him. He turned to Lord Glover, who was glaring daggers at the brash stormlander. “What do you propose, Glover?”

“We should use our trebuchets and sappers to take out the islets upon which Pyke lies,” Lord Roose Bolton interjected, his whispering silky voice belying the brutality of the method suggested. “It might take some time, indeed, but it will be a lasting solution.” Glover bristled at the recurring interruptions, but said nothing.

“There are innocent people inside the castle, my lord,” Lord Gulian Swann said, appalled at Bolton’s proposal.

“It is but a small price to pay for the eternal safety of our shores,” Bolton rebuked without blinking.

“Aye, there is no such thing as an innocent ironborn,” gruff Lord Alaric Flint voiced his support.

Ned stirred on his seat, uncomfortable by it all. ‘The Waves of Pyke’? Tywin Lannister would be so proud. Lord Roose Bolton was a most terrible foe to have, ruthless and remorseless as he was. Though in the six years Ned had ruled the North, Bolton had yet to prove seditious or treacherous at all (indeed, the man had been, so far, a loyal and steadfast bannerman), he would be a fool to trust him. 

But he needn't trust him; he had a fairly good idea on how to deal with him, disgusting as it was. He wasn’t looking forward to talking with Roose about it, though. It wasn’t because Ned believed the Lord of the Dreadfort would find his deal disagreeable; on the contrary, it was the exact opposite he feared.

“Or we could fire them at the bridges, instead? Isolate them in their islets and starve them out,” suggested Lord Willam Dustin, looking every bit as uncomfortable as Ned felt. His old friend was a good and honourable man; of course he would dislike the idea of murdering innocent people.

Once, Ned would have thought that to be a commonplace feeling. Oh, how wrong he had been.

“Our trebuchets don’t have a straight shot at the bridges,” Lord Lester Morrigen pointed out. “There’s too many towers and walls in between.” And though they could try to punch through them, it would cause too many unnecessary casualties, maids and servants caught in the crossfire.

“We could set them up in the ships and fire them from there.”

“Have you ever hit a bullseye on land from aboard a ship, my lord?” Lord Jorah Mormont raised a sceptical eyebrow, speaking sense with his gravelly voice. “The waves won’t allow us any aiming of the trebuchets. Most, if not all, of our projectiles would miss the bridges. And they are not infinite.”

“Fair enough,” Dustin allowed, bothered.

Robert frowned, clearly dwelling on Bolton’s idea, but after a moment, he shook his head. “While I appreciate the irony of those wretched Ironborn being buried in a watery grave, that would take far more time than we have. We can’t afford a protracted siege, either. Our supply lines are exposed to those fucking pirates so we can’t rely on them, and what little we have with us is running dry as it is. When it comes down to attrition, they will outlast us. No, my lords. We must assault.”

The words hung heavily on the tent, as the northern and stormlander lords looked warily among themselves. Sieges were one thing. But an assault was always a risky strategy, prone to backfiring should they be repelled. It was the very definition of ‘all-or-nothing’.

“That’s folly of the highest order,” Lord Caron stated imprudently. “Even a child knows that a man high in a wall is worth twenty trying to rush him. We would be slaughtered.”

“The only child here is you, Lord Caron,” Robert wheeled on him, a fire in his eyes. “Do yourself a favour and shut your fucking mouth once and for all.”

“Yes Your Grace, I’m sorry Your Grace,” Caron hurriedly spluttered, looking down to the desk intently. Ned felt a pang of sympathy; Lord Caron was just an eager boy, trying too hard to make a contribution to the council, but he was so woefully out of his depth it was painful. His arrogance didn’t help matters.

“With all due respect, Your Grace, Lord Caron has a point regarding the risks of an assault, even if his manners leave much to be desired,” Lord Swann interjected with a pointed look at the flustered youth he had taken under his wing. “We would be hopelessly outmatched if we tried to climb their walls, and building siege towers would take far too much time; time that you, yourself, Your Grace, said we don’t have. Of course, we can take down their walls with our trebuchets, but the breach creates a bottleneck that the Ironborn can exploit.”

“Only if we create just one,” Robert shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “But if we make three breaches, well, now that changes things, doesn't it? Normally, their garrison would be enough to hold the three breaches at bay with their shield walls. But these are Ironborn we are fighting; though their fierceness cannot be denied, they’ve never been disciplined fighters, especially when on the defence where there’s no plunder to be gained.” The lords listened to their king speak in rapt attention. When King Robert spoke of war, all men fell silent. 

“True enough,” the King continued, a man in his element, “an undisciplined shieldwall is still a fearsome foe in a bottleneck, and they’d make us pay a steep price for every inch we gain.” He grinned. “And that’s why we’ll thin their ranks first. We’ll stage a distraction with our ladders to make them believe we’re going to climb their walls so they go and stand on top of them to repel us, then bring the floor down from under them with our trebuchets and sappers. We have sappers working on their walls, right?” he asked Ned.

“Lord Reed and my brother Benjen are hard at work as we speak, Your Grace.” Over five years had passed, and the words still just felt wrong in his mouth.

“Good,” Robert nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll bury the ironborn underneath their bloody walls; then, our archers will let loose a couple of volleys of burning arrows through each breach to disrupt the formation of a shieldwall on the other side. We’ll go in hard and fast before they even realise what’s happening, we’ll bash in the heads of whatever cunt is dumb enough to survive the collapse and volleys, and we’ll take the forecastle before they can send in any reinforcements from the other keeps. We take out their food supplies, we make them our own, and then we’ll be able to outlast them.”

“Only the forecastle, Your Grace?” Bryce Caron piped in yet again. Most of the lords groaned or fidgeted uncomfortably. Lord Mormont facepalmed. Lord Swann looked up to the tent’s roof, asking his gods for patience. Lord Jon Umber muttered something to Lord Rickard Karstark, who snorted a laugh.

“You just don’t learn, do you, you dumb cunt…” Robert growled, livid with wrath at Lord Caron’s continuous overstepping of his boundaries and questioning of his king.

“N-no, Your Grace, it’s just that… Pyke would be left open to us. If we push a little more, we can take the castle,” he whimpered pathetically, digging his own grave even deeper. Lord Bolton had a glimmer of something eerily reminiscent of amusement in his eye. It gave Ned the creeps.

“Aye, but we would be fighting in their home,” Eddard answered in place of Robert, whose large hands were twitching with the temptation to strangle the youth’s life out of him. He should be thanking every God there is that Robert is no Aerys, regardless of how wroth he may get . “They know and control all the corridors and hideouts. We do not. We would be at a crippling disadvantage, and they would be able to pick us off in a bottleneck at the gates of their bridges, if not outright bring them down while our troops are trying to cross. True, they wouldn’t be able to win, but we could take far too many losses. It’s safer to take out their food supplies, to tighten the noose around their necks.”

“Thank you!” Robert exclaimed, slamming his fists against the table instead of Caron’s face, immensely satisfied that someone was thinking the same as him. Being raised together may have something to do with that, Ned thought. “Any questions?” Robert asked after a moment.

One man opened his mouth to speak.

“Not you, Caron, shut the fuck up.”

The man closed his mouth.

“Who will lead the armies into the breach?” asked Lord Swann instead.

“I will lead the middle personally. Swann, I want you to take control of the stormlander host on the northern breach.”

“It will be my honour, Your Grace,” Swann dipped his head.

“Good. Try and get Caron killed, will ya?” Robert laughed. It was telling of the poor impression the lad had made that most of the northern lords either chuckled or voiced their approval. Ned did nothing of the sort, instead looking with pity at the young stormlander lord, who seemed to wish that the earth would swallow him to escape the ridicule his rash eagerness had brought upon himself. “That leaves the Northern host on the southern breach. Stark?”

Ned nodded. No words were needed between them.

“Good. Morrigen, you’ve got the vanguard; staging the feint is yours.”

“I won’t let you down, Your Grace.”

Robert nodded curtly. “Glover, the archers are yours.” 

“It will be done, Your Grace,” Lord Galbart replied.

“Then we’re set. We’ll attack at dawn, with the sun on our backs. We’ll divide our armies in three arrow heads, we’ll breach their walls with our trebuchets and mines, we pour in, kill everyone in the forecastle, take control of their supplies, and wait for them to surrender,” King Robert recapped for them. “One last thing: no heroics, do you hear me? I won’t have any more good, brave men dying to put down scum like Greyjoy. He isn’t worth it. Is that clear?” 

Everyone in attendance nodded in agreement. 

“Then get to it. Not you, Ned,” Robert added as the lords stood up from their chairs to leave.

The northmen were the first to leave, always surly to spend time with the southerners. As the stormlanders left the tent, Lord Swann slapped the back of Lord Caron’s head, scolding him for his suicidal brashness. Soon after, only Robert and Ned were standing in the tent.

Silence engulfed the royal pavilion. It was awkward and tense. And surreal, so deeply surreal. 

There they were, lifelong best friends, together again after five years with naught a letter sent to each other. Perhaps it was only natural that they found themselves clad in plate and chainmail. Yet, things had changed since the Rebellion. Where once upon a time both men stood on equal ground, intimate as brothers and thick as thieves, now one wore a golden crown on his head. 

Where did they stand now? What could they even say to each other, when the man in front was but a stranger wearing a familiar face?

“You’ve got fat,” Ned blurted out, his voice sharp and wry.

Robert raised an eyebrow.

With a shared laugh, both men strode towards the other and embraced like long-lost brothers.

“Five years. Heh. It’s been far too long, Ned,” Robert said as they separated, sitting down in adjacent chairs.

“It is. Pity we meet again in these circumstances,” Ned sighed.

“What are you talking about?” Robert asked, a smile in his clean-shaved and handsome face. “This is great! We’re back on the road, leading armies, the two of us against tyranny! Just like the good old times!”

What? “The ‘good old times’?” Stark frowned, confused. “Robert, we were at war, fighting for our survival. Thousands of people died.”

“Bah, there’s always someone dying somewhere,” Baratheon shrugged flippantly. “At least during a war they do it for a greater purpose.”

Ned blinked, at a loss for words. He knew Robert to be a born warrior, and one that loved few things as much as a good fight, but he had expected that, after the horrors of the Rebellion, he would have tempered himself. I was wrong, it seems.

“But that’s enough about that,” the king changed the topic. “How have you been? Jon has only told me the bare minimum about the goings at Winterfell.”

“My wife’s soon to give birth for a third time,” Ned replied, a warm feeling in his insides at the thought.

Robert roared a laugh, leaning forward to slap Ned’s shoulder a couple of times with his massive hands. “Ha ha! That’s my man! Haven’t wasted any time, have you?”

“Well, the North is very cold, even during the summer. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to warm ourselves up,” he shrugged goodnaturedly. “And you? How are you doing in King’s Landing?” Ned asked with a light smile on his face, but it quickly vanished when he noticed how sombre Robert looked at the question. All the laughter in his blue eyes had died as soon as the capital was mentioned.

After a few seconds, Robert spoke.

“I’ll be completely honest with you, Ned… It’s not great. Being a King. I thought I had it hard when I was just the Lord of Storm’s End. But King’s Landing…” He shook his head. “There are times I wish I could burn the whole damn city to the ground, with all its deceit, treachery and scheming. Everywhere I look, all I see are false smiles and ill-concealed ambition, all of them waiting for the perfect moment to drive a dagger in my back. I don’t know who I can trust; probably no one, besides Jon.”

“You have your brothers, don’t you?”

Robert barked a dry laugh. “My brothers are a bitter bastard and a frivolous child, both even more useless than I am at the adder’s nest that is the capital. I never got along with Stannis, true, but this damned crown has poisoned things beyond reason. I made him Lord of Dragonstone, and he takes it as an insult!”

“To be fair with him,” Ned tried, “Dragonstone is a meagre reward in comparison to Storm’s End.”

“Of course it is. But Dragonstone is the Targaryens’ ancestral keep, after all. Who else could I have given it to, if not someone I could trust utterly? He managed to hold Storm’s End for over a whole year at siege, eating rats and leathers and gods know what else. Only Stannis could maintain control over a populace that has been ruled by dragons since before the Doom. For Gods’ sake, by giving him that title I even recognised him as my rightful heir to the throne, and instead he gets all angry about it and becomes even more of a cunt than he was before!”

“Haven’t you thought to perhaps reinstate him to Storm’s End? You’ve got a son of your own now, he should be the Prince of Dragonstone.”

“Joffrey?” Robert frowned, genuinely befuddled at the suggestion. “He is not even three and a worse crybaby than Renly ever was—and his cries were one of the reasons I preferred the Eyrie to Storm’s End, I swear. Besides, if I gave Dragonstone to Joffrey, I’m sure my bitch of a wife would find a Lannister lackey to serve as castellan, and trust me Ned, the last thing I need are more Lannisters in my life. Besides, I already gave Storm’s End to Renly; if I took it from him and gave it to Stannis, now I’d have two brothers hating my guts!”

That had been a misstep; assigning a faithful castellan to hold Storm’s End in the King’s stead would have been a more sensible move than granting it to a child. “But… surely Stannis would be pleased, right?” Ned could hardly wrap his head around it all. Got to try harder, then.

Robert snorted disdainfully. “There’s no pleasing Stannis, and I’ve long given up trying. He can fuck off in Dragonstone for all I care.” He breathed out a heavy sigh. “You should have taken the damned throne. You’d know what to do.”

“If half of what you’re telling me is true, I would have gotten myself killed within the year,” Ned stated bluntly.

“At least then I would have an excuse to bash some skulls in with my warhammer…”

“Touching.”

Robert grunted a humourless laugh.

Heavy weighs the crown. Robert, once a giant among men, had been cut down to size. He no longer had that glimmer of life in his deep blue eyes. His hair, once carefully trimmed, was starting to resemble his son Jon’s, an unkempt mop of dark curls. Once, his laughs were hearty and cheerful, but now they were bitter and dry. 

Only now, in the intimacy of friendship, did Ned see the soul-crushing weight of the despair Robert carried. Gruesome scars, cutting deep into his soul, left by the loss of Lyanna and of his short-lived firstborn, Eddard, Ned’s namesake, taken by a sudden crib death within a month of his birth. It was unsettling to see his friend, his brother from another mother, like this.

“Robert…” Ned began, trying to find the words to comfort his friend. “I can’t even fathom how hard it must be to be the king, but you have a duty to do. If you can’t do it for your own sake, then at least do it for the realm.”

“I would set the realm ablaze if it meant getting your sister back,” Robert sighed with deep grief, burying his face in his hands. “Gods, I sound like a Targaryen. What would she think if she saw me now?” he rued, hunched down in utter defeat.

“Does it matter?” Ned countered, not unkindly.

“It does to me.”

“She would want you to do better. She would want you to be better.”

“But how?” Robert’s voice quivered. “How can I be better, if I don’t have her with me? If I won’t ever get her back? How am I supposed to keep moving forward, if I will never see her face again? Why would I, even?”

“I don’t know the answers, Robert. But I know you have what it takes to be a good king. To be a great man. And I know she did, too,” he lied.

I loved her dearly, but she was wrong on a great many things. That was one of them. Just as Robert never truly got to know her, she never got to know him.

“I need you, Ned. I need you with me in the capital,” the king pleaded. All of his bravado was gone, revealing the pathetical whimper for aid it hid beneath. “Help me rout the vipers and vultures before they’re the end of me. Please.”

“If I went down to King’s Landing, I would only make it easier for your enemies to kill us both,” Ned pointed out with reluctance. He wanted to help Robert, he truly did, but he’d be as useless as nipples on a breastplate in King’s Landing. A different approach would be required. “You have Jon with you. I’ll help you both from Winterfell.”

“Right,” Robert replied unenthusiastically. “And when the situation reaches the breaking point, where will your swords be? Far away, in that frozen hellhole you call home.”

“Some battles are won with swords and spears. Others, with quills and ravens,” Ned said with a slight smile.

Maester Luwin had explained to them time and time again that his father and uncle were away fighting a war, just like they had done before their birth against the Targaryens, but Jon couldn’t understand why Aunt Dacey had accompanied them. She had always been kind to him, a willing accomplice to his and Robb’s mischiefs, and now she was gone. They were left only with their mother to take care of all four Starklings.

And now, his mother was locked in her bedchambers, screaming in pain. And they were alone, sitting at the other side of the door. Jon recalled how, last time, his father had comforted Robb and him, whispering reassuring words that had long since left his memory.

Though he tried his very best, Ser Rodrik was a poor substitute for their father. Maester Luwin, their other caretaker, was absent, inside the bedchamber with his mother.

“Your father is off fighting the King’s war. Your mother is fighting her own battles now,” he told them, his large grey whiskers shivering when he spoke.

“Well, she’s losing!” Robb exclaimed, distressed.

“Who is she fighting against?” Anton asked. “Is it the Targaryens again?”

“Isn’t there anyone nearby who can send reinforcements?”

That was when Ser Rodrik realised that the minds of children, all of them younger than six years of age, were far too literal for his martial metaphors to have any effect. With a heavy sigh, he stopped trying to comfort the boys, instead holding Sansa in his arms and rocking her; as a father of only girls, he knew exactly what to do when it came to her.

The three Stark boys, however, were left to their own devices. Robb was standing by the door, staring intently against it with all his might, willing everything to be alright, and, if Jon knew his twin at all, trying to figure out exactly what type of battle his mother was fighting. Anton was sitting on the ground, trying and failing to concentrate on the letters Maester Luwin was trying to teach him.

Meanwhile, Jon was looking out of the window, trying to block out his mother’s screams out of his mind. People went on and about with their lives across the courtyard, the sun still high in the sky. Columns of smoke arose from the many chimneys across the castle. A murder of crows flew above the weirwood in the Godswood.

He hid it well, but he felt he was close to breaking down crying in any instant.

Jon would never admit it, but he was very much a mam’s boy. As Robb was the heir to Winterfell, he monopolised their father’s time a bit too much as he always went to him for whatever he needed; and while Jon was a bit jealous at times, he never minded much, because he always had his mother to turn back to when he needed something. When he had a nightmare, she would always welcome him with open arms and comfort him. When he scraped his legs playing, she would patch him up herself.

But now, she was screaming in pain, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Robb disagreed. After a particularly loud scream, he turned and walked away from the door, then charged against it, trying to bring it down. 

It didn’t have the desired effect, for the door was sturdy ironwood and Robb was only a tiny boy of five years of age. It did, however, boom loudly upon impact.

“What are you doing?” Anton hissed.

“If no one’s going to help her, then I ’ll do it!” Robb declared, gritting his teeth as he struck the door again. And again. And again. The door rattled, but did not budge. 

“Stop!” their mother screamed from inside the bedchamber, her voice twisted in pain. “Stop right now!”

“See! She needs our help!” Robb told them, eyes wide and alarmed. “Come on, give me a hand!”

Jon was about to stand up and help his twin when their mother shouted again.

“No, Robb, I’m talking to you! Cut it out, gods dammit!”

Robb blinked, staring at the door blankly. After a moment, he huffed, and went to sit by Jon’s side.

“She’s going to be fine,” Jon muttered.

“How are you so sure?” Robb asked back, voice weak and vulnerable. 

Jon had no answer to give him. Tentatively, he offered his brother his hand to hold. Wordlessly, Robb accepted it, and their fingers intertwined.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, the screaming subsided, and silence reigned.

“What happened? Did she win?” Robb asked urgently after a moment.

Fortunately for Ser Rodrik, at that moment the doors opened and Maester Luwin came out, his long grey sleeves stained with blood, but a weary and warm smile on his face.

“Yes, Robb. She won. Come,” he gestured to all of them, “your mother wants you to meet your new sister.” When he saw Anton didn’t stand up, a downcast look in his eye, Luwin added, “You too, Anton. Don’t you want to meet your new cousin?”

“Can I? She’s not my mother,” Anton muttered.

“But she’s kin nonetheless, and she would be glad to see you as well,” Luwin explained kindly. After a moment’s hesitation, Anton stood up and joined them.

His mother’s bedchamber reeked of a foul smell Jon had never felt before and, quite frankly, would rather never smell again. If Robb’s grimace was any indication, he wasn’t the only one disgusted.

However, their attention was fixated on the bed. Their mother looked more haggard and tired than they had ever seen her, but she beamed with happiness. In her arms, she held a small bundle.

She said nothing, only smiling as her children and nephew crawled up the bed to look at the newest member of their pack. The new babe was a minuscule thing, wrinkled and purple, with a small tuft of dark brown hair on top of her head.

“A girl? I wanted a brother,” Robb frowned, slightly disappointed.

“Next time, I promise,” Cat caressed her eldest son’s hair with her free hand.

“She’s so ugly!” Sansa squealed, babbling her words. “I love her!”

“Does she have a name?” Jon asked. Unlike his twin, he was not in the very least disappointed with his new sister; instead, he was thrilled beyond words.

Cat turned to him, a thoughtful look on her face. “What do you think she should be called?” his mother asked him.

Jon already knew his answer.

“Arya. After our great-grandmother.”

Cat raised her eyebrows. “Oh? And why so?”

“Uncle Benjen has been telling us about her,” Out of the corner of his eye, Jon noticed how Anton, silent so far, perked up at his father’s mention. “He told us she was fearsome but kind, and that she hunted bears on the Wolfswood. A true she-wolf, he said. I would like my sister to be like that,” he answered honestly.

Cat looked at him for a moment, before smiling a soft, motherly smile.

“Arya it is, then. Arya Stark of Winterfell. Do you want to hold her, Jon?” He looked at his mother wide-eyed, before nodding gingerly. Carefully, Catelyn handed him the small bundle that was his little sister.

When the babe opened her little eyes and Jon saw his own grey eyes staring back at him, it seemed fair, in a way. Robb and Anton had Sansa, and now Jon would have Arya.

The first one of his siblings to look like him.

He would teach her everything: the best places to play, where the deepest snow drifts formed, the ones big enough that when he jumped in he sunk so deep it almost reached his neck. The best way to get treats out of the cook and out of chores and lessons. The best places to hide, and unlike Sansa he just knew that Arya wouldn’t be scared at all. She was going to be fearless, like her namesake.

The adults were going to scream after them the same way they did after Robb and Jon. Jon and Arya, they’d call. He liked the sound of that.

And he was going to protect her until his last breath.

He swore right then and there that he would always protect her, no matter how far he might be, or how difficult it was. 

Whatever it took.

It’s a promise. I’ll protect you, Arya. No matter what.

I should have cropped my hair, Ned thought, raising his close helm’s visor and gasping for fresh air as he slumped heavily against the nearest cobblestone, his sword scarlet with blood.

Their battleplan had gone without a hitch. A small stormlander host under Lord Morrigen’s command had manoeuvred in front of the walls with their siege ladders, attempting to climb over the walls. The ironborn, led by a Greyjoy lordling, had manned the walls with as many troops as they could, in order to drive back any offensive. The ironborn had been successful in that regard, but at the same time Lord Reed had lit up the mines underneath the walls, collapsing them and weakening the foundations on which the castle was built upon.

At the first hit with the trebuchets the southern tower collapsed, bringing down hundreds of defenders with it. As the walls collapsed further, Thoros of Myr, an eastern red priest that had made King's Landing his home, had been the first to charge over the centre breach, covered under a hail of burning arrows and with his sword set alight with wildfire. An inspirational sight, the forces of the Iron Throne followed soon after, flooding the courtyard of Pyke’s forecastle quickly and decisively.

The fighting to take control of it, however, had been very fierce, for the ironborn were never ones to lie down without a fight, even with their morale shaken and their lines thrown into disarray by Lord Glover’s archers. Ned’s whole body ached in exertion, and more than once he had come close to feeling the bite of his enemies’ steel. He was getting dangerously out of shape. That would not do.

Yet, he could sit easy now, for the battle for the forecastle was over, what little soldiers remained retreating into the keeps. The weary combatants roamed aimlessly across the courtyard, grieving their fallen friends and reuniting with those that had survived.

“Ned!” he heard Benjen call out his name, walking in long, quick strides towards him.

“Ben,” Ned wearily greeted. “Are you wounded?” he quickly asked with concern when he noticed the sheer amount of blood spattered across Benjen’s chestplate.

His brother shook his head. He hadn’t raised his own visor. “It’s not mine.”

“Dacey?”

“She handled herself even better than me! She’s incred— I-I mean, she’s alright,” he answered with a hint of dazed amazement in his voice. Ned had to suppress a laugh. Really? This is what you needed to finally notice her? His train of thought, however, died as soon as Benjen continued talking. “Lord Jorah isn’t, however. He took an arrow to the knee. We fear the wound might cripple him for life.”

“Go get maester Brus,” Ned ordered his brother immediately, referring to the Stark’s field maester, a spindly man no older than himself. While no one could characterise Ned’s relationship with the taciturn Lord of Bear Island as close, Jorah Mormont was a loyal and faithful bannerman, and his kin by marriage. “Tell Brus to treat him as if it were me.”

Benjen nodded, and darted off into the crowd. With a grunt, Ned stood up and looked around for the King. There was work to be done.

“Maron Greyjoy is dead,” Robert stated when the leaders of the army reunited in another part of the courtyard.

Ned frowned. “Who?” The Greyjoys were a large clan, with heaps upon heaps of siblings and cousins. He had no idea which Greyjoy ‘Maron’ was supposed to be. He might as well have been the last scion of the house for all he knew.

“Balon’s heir and the commander of the garrison. He was leading the ironborn in the walls,” Lord Morrigen informed him. Ned nodded, thankful for the clarification, and settled his jaw in thought. Second heir he buries in as many moons. His rebellion has cost him dearly.

“At least they won’t need to bury him, hah!” the Greatjon laughed. “We already did it for them!”

“Your japes are not appreciated, northman. He deserves to be treated with some honour in death, regardless of how he behaved in life,” Caron rebuked the Lord of the Last Hearth sternly.

The Greatjon blinked, then laughed uproariously, amused by the arrogance of a lad half his size and age to try and scold him. He could snap him like a twig.

“Lord Swann couldn’t get him killed, then?” Lord Karstark dryly asked the King.

Deep inside, Ned tentatively agreed with his distant kinsman. True enough, Bryce Caron certainly knew his way around battle, and had not disappointed at all. However, he was shaping up to be everything the northerners despised about the southrons: arrogant, frivolous, self-righteous, and with an inflated sense of his own importance.

“Not for lack of trying, he claims,” Robert grumbled, before turning to Caron. “You, boy, get hold of a white flag. You’ll be our envoy. You are to notify Greyjoy of his son’s demise, and offer him our terms. Namely, that he is to put down his arms, and bend the knee to House Baratheon of the Iron Throne. He is to give his new heir, Theon, as a ward to Lord Stark to be fostered in Winterfell.” Wait, what? Ned turned towards his friend, confused, but Robert paid him no mind, as he continued dictating terms to Bryce Caron, whose eyes were glimmering with the validation he so desperately craved. “He is to pay war reparations to House Lannister and Malister, numbered in twenty thousand gold dragons, and five thousand gold dragons respectively. If he refuses, I will storm this castle, and pass through the sword every single man, woman and child I can get my hands on. I will break its foundations, and raze Pyke to the ground. And finally, I will salt the ground so that nothing may ever grow again on this land. If he refuses, House Greyjoy will be destroyed without mercy, to serve as an example to the world that ours is the fury. Those are my terms.”

“Your Grace… You… You honour me, Your Grace,” Caron stammered with reverence.

“Yes, yes, yes, now get to it.”

The boy lord of Nightsong immediately darted to carry out his mission.

As he watched him leave, Ned stated, “They will never accept those terms. Greyjoy is going to murder him the moment he opens his mouth.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Robert replied, eliciting a laugh among the northern lords. Lord Swann shook his head in distaste, but said nothing. “If this is what it takes to get rid of that boy, then so be it.”

A brief moment of silence followed, as they watched how Caron admirably managed to not get himself slaughtered when he approached the gate and announced their terms.

“Would you go through with your threat?” Ned asked quietly, a dark and cold pit in his stomach, dreading the answer. If he says yes, then we are done here. Though the destruction of the Ironborn might prove more beneficial in the long term, I will not abide the murder of innocent children. Two small corpses wrapped in scarlet banners. Never again.

“Who do you take me for, Tywin fucking Lannister?” Robert sounded genuinely hurt at his lifelong friend’s doubt. Then again, after what happened in King’s Landing, Ned could be excused for his concern. I see no children, only dragonspawn. “Of course not. But Balon needs to believe I would, so he may see sense and surrender once and for all.”

“And if he calls your bluff?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Robert huffed, and Ned couldn’t argue with that.

Fortunately, they never got to face that dilemma, for Balon Greyjoy, it seemed, had been broken by his second son’s death on the walls, and agreed to the terms. He would swear allegiance to Robert on the courtyard, right then and there.

Balon Greyjoy was a different sort of man to what one would imagine the lord of the ironborn to be. He was not huge, heavily muscled, and with a tangle of hairs in place of a beard and a hairstyle, teeth rotten and missing, and with many a warscar in his face. And yet, while he was a very thin man, he was just as hardened and rough as an iron sword. He had a certain regal aura to him, the countenance of a man so devoted to his own self-righteousness that he would stop at nothing until the world bent to his will. Or, more succintly, a rabid zealot.

Despite everything, he cut an authoritative figure that still managed to inspire a certain amount of respect on who watched him when, at the sight of the allied lords, he spoke with deep hatred.

“You may take my head, but you cannot name me traitor. No Greyjoy ever swore an oath of fealty to a Baratheon.”

“Swear one now, or lose that stubborn head of yours,” Robert growled, a gilded and bejeweled crown of interlocking antlers atop his head.

A tense silence followed, as both Greyjoy and Baratheon stared each other into submission. No words were exchanged, only piercing glares that promised silent threats, neither of them flinching. Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into hours. Some men fidgeted with the pommels of their swords, as if waiting for a resumption of hostilities.

Eventually, the ironborn gave in.

Balon Greyjoy slowly, almost as if physically pained by the act itself, dropped to the floor and bent the knee. And then he spoke:

“I, Balon, son of Quellon of the Great House of Greyjoy, Lord Paramount of the Iron Islands, Son of the Sea Wind and Lord Reaper of Pyke, vow allegiance to your name and house. I vow to keep faith with you and your heirs until the end of time, to never cause you harm and to serve you with no malice nor deceit. My keep is yours. My servants are yours. My domains and my armies are at your service. My glories and my shames, my victories and my defeats, my life and that of my family, they all belong to you, for I am your man, to be commanded as you please. I do so swear it by the Old Gods and the New,” Balon proclaimed, clear and concise, hatred emanating from him like heat from a wildfire.

“And I, by the Grace of the Old Gods and the New, Robert, son of Steffon of the Great House of Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, Warden of the Blackwater Rush, and Knight of the Seven, vow to you that you shall always have a place by my hearth, and meat and mead at my table, and I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonour. I do so swear it by the Old Gods and the New, and confirm your rights to the tenure of the lands, estates, titles and rights held by your late sire,” Robert replied, as cold as a winter night beyond the Wall. “Rise, Lord Paramount Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands, Son of the Sea Wind and Lord Reaper of Pyke.”

Ned knew right then that neither of both men would uphold their oaths. Robert would never be a friend to Pyke. Greyjoy would never bow to the Baratheons any longer than he needed to, his fanatical self-righteousness spurring him onwards to a new rebellion further down the line.

Ned felt the urge to sigh, Greyjoy’s arrogance leaving a sour taste to the mouth. What folly does pride lead us to. It did not escape Ned’s attention the fact that Balon hadn’t sworn on the Drowned God’s name. For a zealot like Greyjoy, that made his vow void and null. There will be another war against Pyke, he knew. And we will be ready for it.

“Would that be all… Your Grace?” Balon said with barely concealed hostility, once the witnessing lords had all signed and affixed their seals to the newly written deed and its copies. Get the fuck out of my land, Ned read clearly between the lines.

Robert smiled an ugly smirk, clearly revelling in imposing himself on Greyjoy’s reluctant submission. “Unfortunately, no. Your son, Theon. He is to be Lord Stark’s ward, remember?”

“His hostage, you mean,” Balon spat, shivering with rage. “To ensure my good behaviour. You’ve killed two of my sons, and now you take away the last one I have left.”

“Only because you desired a crown of your own. Their blood is in your hands, Greyjoy,” Robert snapped at him. “And so will Theon’s, if you’re stupid enough to try again.”

Balon retreated back into his keeps soon after, a servant sent to fetch the boy. He didn’t look back.

The instant the heavy iron gates closed behind him, Ned turned towards Robert and stated:

“I won’t execute him.”

“Excuse me?” Robert wheeled on him, an aggravated frown on his face.

“I know you heard me perfectly well the first time, Robert. If Balon Greyjoy rises in arms again, I won’t execute Theon. I will not be party to the murder of innocent children for the crimes of their parents. He will be a ward, not a hostage.”

“Listen here, Ned,” Robert said, his voice rising with every other word. “I understand your reluctance to kill him, but if the dumb fuck he has for a father rebels again, you will execute that fucking boy, and you’ll do it BECAUSE YOUR KING COMMANDS YOU TO!”

Ned didn’t bat an eye. “You can command me all you want. I won’t do it.”

“Because your precious honour won’t let you?” Robert barked an humourless, scornful laugh, thick with disdain.

His honour had long since stopped being an impediment. Not that Robert would ever know. “Because it’s a waste. A mistake.”

“Oh, a mistake, you say? What would you know, Stark?!” Robert scowled, furious at his friend’s defiance. “What, do you have a better idea?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

Robert snorted in scepticism. “Enlighten me, then, before I decide to send the Greyjoy boy to Casterly Rock.”

“Tell me, who would rule over Pyke after you’ve crushed the Greyjoys for a second time? After you’ve taken Balon’s head and murdered his only remaining son?”

“Probably a Lannister just to spite you,” Robert said without any hint of humour in his voice. “What does it matter?”

“Think back on the history of the Iron Islands. How did the Hoares fare when they tried to promote tolerance, peace and commerce? Don’t you remember the Shrike?” He knew Robert had barely the faintest idea of what he was talking about. He never paid much attention to Jon Arryn’s tutelage on matters unrelated to warfare. “No greenlander can rule them. Only an ironborn can rule the ironborn.”

“Are you telling me to keep Balon Greyjoy alive?!” The King was incredulous. “Even after rising up in arms for a second fucking time?!”

“Of course not. You can crush his head in with your warhammer for all I care.” In fact, he would very much like to see that. “What I’m telling you is that you need to have a Greyjoy claimant of your own to place in charge of Pyke should it come to it. A trueborn heir to Pyke, raised on the mainland but mindful of his homeland’s sensibilities. Someone who can be both an ironborn leader and loyal to the King’s peace. A puppet, if you will.”

“And who do you have in—” Robert’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

Took you long enough.

Robert looked at Ned with an unreadable expression.

“He’ll truly be your ward, then? Not your hostage?”

Ned nodded, leaving no room for arguments.

“You have your work cut out for you, huh,” Robert grunted.

“He’s younger than we were when we left for the Eyrie for the first time. I’ll make a Stark out of him.”

Chapter Text

Lord Eddard Stark made his way across the streets of the city, one hand in the pommel of his sword and the other keeping his sling bag close, taking in the sights as he went.

A few months ago, Lannisport had been a most marvellous city, he had been assured by the servant the Lannisters were no doubt paying to spy on him. ‘The Red Jewel of Westeros’, he had called it; streets orderly and clean, the markets lively and bustling, life good and warm.

Now, this close to the docks, it was nothing more than an abandoned, hollowed out, burnt wreck.

Though Ned’s faith in the benevolence of the gods had long since waned, perhaps there was something to be said about their cruel sense of humour. There was some poetic irony in the current state of Lannisport, just as there was in Tyrion Lannister’s existence and the toll it had taken: a punishment for Lord Tywin’s ruthless arrogance.

You reap what you sow, he reflected.

Yet, what had the smallfolk sown for them to suffer this way? Ned could only feel pity for them, who had probably never travelled more than a hundred miles from the homes they were born in. They’d had truly rotten luck when it came to their lords.

First came Tytos Lannister, a toothless and spineless housecat who had let everyone around him take him for a fool. Though many merchants turned a profit out of Lord Tytos’s foolish generosity, Lannisport had fallen into mismanagement, disrepute and corruption.

Lord Tytos was followed by his eldest son. Tywin Lannister, the incumbent lord, had taken his father’s example to heart and overcompensated beyond reason, ruling with terror and an iron hand. The greying lion of the Rock knew neither mercy nor compassion, as the abandoned ruins of Castamere and Tarbeck Hall testified.

Though Lannisport had recovered from the state his father had left it in, rivers of blood had to flow for it to happen. The city lived in fear of the so-called Shield of Lannisport, who cared not for the needs of his own people.

He skirted around yet another pile of rubble. There was a boy sitting on it, working his way through the debris, trying to determine what could and couldn’t be salvaged. The attack had happened many moons ago, yet piles of rubble remained a common sight, with many littered around the streets, and just like the one he was passing now, each of them had a boy digging on them.

Apprentice craftsmen, he guessed. Or, perhaps, just like every other man in Winterfell knew how to find good game in a silent forest, or which trees made for good lumber and firewood and which were rotting on the inside, the inhabitants of Lannisport had a knack for knowing what resources could be reused and what had to be discarded.

Not much could be saved, Ned wagered. The shipyards, once so large and proud, the most advanced naval facilities in the Seven Kingdoms, were nothing but a charred wreck, and the neighbouring buildings hadn’t been spared either. The jewel the Lannisters took such pride in, the very heart of their trade, brought low. They would spend years fixing this mess.

The fire must have been immense.

It must have been, for at least a quarter of Lannisport was destroyed alongside their fleet. Unlike King’s Landing or even Oldtown, apart from the docks and the fleet itself, there wasn’t much wood to burn. For so much white stone and red tile to be littering the street…

It spoke of a level of devastation Ned had never wanted to see again.

Had put good work into never seeing again.

As ever, it seemed, there was more work to be done.

Which brought him to his current objective.

Normally, he would have waited for the celebratory tourney to begin before starting his interviews with other lords, but Ned knew Stannis Baratheon was not a man for pageantry. Yet, he was the king’s eldest brother, and the second in line to the throne; Ned could not let an opportunity to exchange words with him go to waste. After all, they should be natural allies; he only hoped Stannis would see it, too. But for that, he had to hurry if he wanted to reach Stannis before he left.

Which would have been much easier if the streets weren’t still too littered with debris for him to move ahorse. One of the working boys pulled a human skull from the rubble, and after a couple of seconds, threw it away. By his unfazed reaction, this wasn’t the first skull he had come across.

Nobody has cleaned the bodies, Ned realised, appalled. They still lie where they fell, over half a year ago. Yet, he couldn’t spare a second thought to it, for he had arrived at his destination.

The treacherous waters of the Lion’s Bay would not let the ships of the Royal Fleet to approach port, and so their commander had taken upon himself to oversee the resupplying himself. And so, Stannis Baratheon stood at the end of the pier, surrounded by crates, smaller boats and countless sailors going from here to there on orders from the Lord of Dragonstone. 

The King’s younger brother, of twenty-five years of age, looked like a man twenty years older, his short black hair on the top of his head prematurely thinning, and dark bags under his bright blue eyes. Yet, despite the tiredness of his face, he remained proud, unbent and sinewy.

“Lord Stark,” Lord Stannis greeted without any warmth upon catching eye of him, his jaw clenching.

“Lord Stannis,” Ned bowed his head respectfully. “I hoped I could speak with you before you left.”

“Then speak.”

Ned bit back a grimace. He knew Stannis to be a blunt and difficult man, both from reputation and personal experience. He also knew he was no friend to Stannis, but at the very least he had hoped the Lord of Dragonstone to be slightly more accommodating to the Lord of Winterfell and his elder brother’s closest friend.

True, last time they met he hadn’t been quite happy, but Ned had thought it was just due to the hardships suffered in the siege of Storm’s End, and Stark’s refusal to make Tyrell pay for them with his life. This time, though, Stannis had no excuse, and Ned wasn’t sure where he stood now. 

“I wished to congratulate you for your victory over the Iron Fleet,” Ned said politely and honestly, though he was reluctant to play that card so early in the game. He had hoped he could have opened with some small talk to sweeten Stannis. Apparently, that was not to be.

“I only did my duty,” Stannis replied flatly. “Just as you have done yours.”

“Regardless, defeating the Ironborn at sea is a feat very few men across history have achieved. You must be very proud.”

“I care not for how history regards me.”

Just take the gods-damned compliment. “Even so, allowing yourself to indulge in the satisfaction of a job well done is only natural,” Ned remarked diplomatically. It would do wonders for your attitude.

“There’s always more to be done,” Stannis replied, ignoring Ned’s suggestion.

“Isn’t there always?” Ned smiled wearily. “At least in war, discerning friend from foe is more straightforward.”

“More often than not,” Stannis agreed, eyeing Ned with an appraising look. It did not escape Ned’s notice, the intent of such a look. “Yet life is hardly ever as straightforward as we’d wish. To pretend otherwise is a childish folly.”

Ned sighed internally. “I am not your enemy, Lord Stannis,” he stated bluntly, dropping every pretence of diplomacy. If bluntness was what Stannis wanted, then he would give him bluntness.

Stannis was unfazed by Stark’s sudden change in demeanour. “Nor are you my friend.”

“Not for a lack of trying,” he couldn’t resist saying.

“Were you?” Stannis raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t notice.”

Perhaps if you took your head out of your ass…

“Perhaps I have done a poor job of it,” Ned allowed, “but I intend to change that. You are the King’s brother, while I love him like one. We both have his best interests at heart. We are natural allies, my lord.”

“If only Robert himself had his own best interests at heart,” Stannis grunted. “Yet, it would seem that all he cares for is eating, drinking and whoring his way into an early grave.”

“Then it is our duty to look after him.”

“And so I have tried.” The King’s brother was grinding his teeth in annoyance. “To no avail.”

“Robert has never been a man to let others tell him what to do, as Lord Arryn and I learned to our dismay.” Forbid Robert from doing something, and he’ll do it anyway out of sheer spite. “But that’s no reason to stop trying. Particularly now that the fate of the realm hinges on it. Robert might never thank us for our actions,” – and that seemed to have struck a nerve, given how Stannis stiffened at Ned’s words. Interesting, Ned noted – “but they must be done regardless. For the good of the realm.”

“For the good of the realm,” Stannis echoed, nodding thoughtfully. The Lord of Dragonstone looked away, his blue eyes coming to rest upon the waves that crashed against the rotten wrecks of the Lannister fleet. He said nothing else.

Ned saw no reason to break the silence himself. His words would not help him now. The King’s younger brother resembled a cornered snake, coiled and wary, and any further prodding might only anger him.

And he carried a fair amount of anger inside, hidden just beneath the surface. It was one thing to hear it from Robert, hardly an unbiased source, but seeing it for himself was another thing entirely.

Let him think it over, he decided. He’ll come around, given time.

When Stannis spoke, however, it wasn’t what Ned wanted to hear. “I will keep your words in mind, Lord Stark, but now I must take my leave. The trip to King’s Landing is long, and I’m loath to waste time.”

It took every shred of self-control he had to avoid groaning in dismay, but Ned nodded curtly. “I see.” A beat passed. “Do you intend to make a stop at Dragonstone?”

Stannis eyed him with distrust. “Perhaps. Why does it matter?”

“Your lady wife has just given birth to a girl, I heard,” Ned said, as he pulled forth his sling bag and opened it. Underneath a couple of pieces of used parchment, he found what he was looking for. “As a father of two young girls myself, I thought she might appreciate this.”

In his hands he held a small doll. It was a simple toy, made of wool and cotton, soft to the touch and squishy, but a good one for a little girl of any age. Without any further ado, he handed it to Stannis.

“I know it’s not the prettiest doll on the market,” Ned said, “but if my Sansa is any indication, your daughter won’t mind.”

Stannis didn’t answer for a while, as he held the doll gingerly, with a constipated look in his face, his blue eyes wide and jaw slack, mouth slightly agape.

Eventually, he cleared his throat, swallowing noticeably, “T-thank you, Lord Stark.”

Well, this is as good as I’ll get, Ned smiled tightly. “Safe travels, Lord Stannis. Give my best regards to Lady Selyse, and please do think on my proposal.”

The man nodded sharply, the doll still in his hands. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to hand it over to a servant. If anything, his grip had tightened. “Likewise, Lord Stark. Farewell.”

It was far from being the outcome he had hoped to achieve, but for all that Stannis still called him Lord Stark, Ned didn’t think he was imagining the way his tone had become just a little warmer. It didn’t escape him, either, that the look Stannis gave the doll was now one of awe. Though his words had failed him, appealing to the man’s newfound paternity had struck true.

Despite his surly and standoffish nature, it would seem that Stannis wasn’t immune to small kindnesses. And tangible as it was, it would be a permanent reminder, one that Stannis would always keep in mind when he saw the doll in his daughter’s hands. Perhaps, such a small gesture may well pay off in unexpected ways.

He observed wordlessly as Lord Stannis Baratheon boarded one of the smaller boats along the pier and departed. A soft, chilly breeze began blowing from the south.

I’ll make a friend out of Stannis Baratheon, yet.

Once he was sure Stannis couldn’t hear him anymore, Ned groaned.

Now he had to buy another doll for his newborn girl.

He really had to start planning ahead instead of improvising everything in the spur of the moment.

Deep inside the tunnels they had dug underneath the walls of Pyke, Ser Benjen Stark had found what he had been missing all these years:

A sense of purpose.

But the war was over and done, the Greyjoys subjugated once more.

And now, as they revelled in the festivities that came after, Benjen once again felt himself adrift, sunken and left to rot, just like the wrecks of the Lannister fleet that still rose over the waves, a sombre espectacle that he observed, leaning against a railing in the docks of Lannisport.

Lannisport, located at the feet of the colossal Casterly Rock, was unlike any city Benjen had ever seen before. To be fair, he had only ever been in White Harbour, but Lannisport outclassed it in every aspect.

Tall and refined white stone buildings lined the turning and twisting streets, their roofs covered with bright crimson tiles, and elaborate and intricate heraldic designs carved on the facade. Lofty palaces and their rich merchant owners were commonplace, and he had yet to see a single beggar. Banners of scarlet hung across the city, a lion rampant embroidered proudly in gold thread. 

Lannisport was, most likely, the richest city in all of Westeros, bar none. As far as he knew, King’s Landing, despite being the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, was a rotten cesspool of poverty and crime, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Oldtown, while probably the most beautiful city in Westeros, was long past its prime, weakened by the rise of new trade hubs in the east. But even that had done nothing to curb the bustling commerce that graced the city at the feet of Casterly Rock.

It had always struck him as odd that Lannisport, located on the western shores of Westeros, was a much more desirable trading hub for the Free Cities than White Harbour, which was a fairly short trip away from Essos. 

Well, with all the gold flowing from the Westerlands, perhaps the trip around Dorne is worth it, even if you’re a half a continent away, Benjen mused as he watched a merchant navy flying the Pentoshi banners manoeuvre its way across the shipwrecks on the bay.

But if the city was positively bustling with trade from all parts of the Known World on a normal day, today was another beast entirely: by order of the King, the city was to hold a tourney in celebration of the crown’s victory over the ironborn rebels, and knights from all across the realm were flooding the city, looking to take part in it. And Benjen knew that, not far behind them, so did merchants, prostitutes and thieves, all of them looking to gain some gold out of it all.

The banners rose high into the sky, a gathering of lords like the world had never seen. 

The grey direwolf in white. 

The gold lion in crimson. 

The black stag in gold. 

The silver eagle in blue. 

The golden rose in green. 

The silver trout in red and blue.

The red sun in orange.

And above all, the red three-headed dragon in black, waving tall and proud against the twisted, black stone towers melted by the dragonfire that had brought it to power.

“Close your mouth, stupid. Otherwise you’re going to eat a fly,” Lyanna told Benjen, a little boy of eleven, marvelled beyond reason by the magnificence of Harrenhal.

“Or a flying cock,” Brandon said.

Benjen blinked. “That’s not a real thing,” he said. A few seconds later, “They’re not real,” he insisted, his voice wavering with uncertainty. They couldn’t be real… right? 

“Oh, they are very much real,” Bran confirmed his fears with a worried look. Lyanna snickered to the side, though her attention was fixed on the arriving crowds as she tried to discern their other brother’s face among them.

“Cocks don’t fly,” Benjen protested.

“That they don’t, but you see, flying cocks are not real cocks. They’re just a type of tiny bird native to Sothoryos that happens to look like a cock, with a long pink neck and round wings.”

Benjen blinked. “Oh, Gods.” The mere idea sounded outlandish, but what did he know? He was barely a couple of moons into his eleventh year, while Brandon was a man grown of nineteen, wise and knowledgeable in all the mysteries of the world.

“‘Oh Gods’ is right, because, like everything from that accursed land, they’re horribly poisonous,” his brother stated, face as grave as their father’s. “Eating one can cause your flesh to boil and melt away from your bones, as your stomach consumes itself with your own juices and your blood turns to jelly.”

Benjen was shaken by what he had just heard, but at least he was comforted by the fact that they were half a world away from him. “T-that’s horrible, but I don’t understand why I should be wary of them,” he said. “T-they’re from Sothoryos, y-you said it yourself.”

“Yes, but a couple of years ago our beloved king had the brilliant idea to create his own exotic aviary,” Bran shrugged. “And it just so happens that the ship carrying the flying cocks sank by the Bay of Crabs. Why, I saw one just the other night!” Benjen’s stomach sank in sheer terror. “It tried to fly into my mouth. It’s what they do, they fly into the mouths of unsuspecting fools that keep them open. Good thing I closed it immediately, ‘cause otherwise I’d be on my deathbed right now! That’s why you have to keep your mouth closed. You don’t want to eat one, do you?”

“NO!” Benjen shook his head vehemently, then shot his hands to cover his mouth. Just to be safe.

Lyanna took one single look at Benjen’s horrified face and broke down, laughing uproariously.

“Oh, Gods, you actually fell for it!” Lya laughed. “Just how dumb are you?”

“You’re one to talk,” Bran smirked knowingly, “because I seem to recall you thought the cuntfaced men were real and were going to take you away while you slept.”

Lyanna’s laugh stopped immediately. “That’s a completely different thing,” she huffed, arms crossed, ears reddening.

“Is it, really?”

“Of course it is, shut up!” Lya, true to her nature, chose violence, whacking Bran over the head.

“Wait,” Benjen was confused, but careful enough to keep his hands over his mouth. “The flying cocks aren’t real?”

“Of course not, Ben,” Brandon laughed warmly, patting him on the shoulder, “I’m just dicking around.” After a moment, he added. “Do close your mouth, though. You look silly.”

Benjen shook his head, the ghosts of his past hounding his every thought. Even here, in Lannisport, he was unable to rid himself of the guilt he had carried for years.

His life seemed to be some sick, ironic joke the gods had decided to play. 

He had caused his family’s death, and now he had to repay them with new lives. 

He had left home to find a new purpose, and he had found one in war. But now, in peace, once again he was adrift. 

Robert Baratheon himself had knighted him, an honour Benjen duly accepted despite not following the Faith of the Seven, because doing otherwise would slight the King. But what purpose did his new spurs serve, when there were no enemies to fight?

He had travelled to Pyke and to Lannisport, yet the shadows of Harrenhal still haunted him.

“Benjen. We need to talk.”

And the wife he wanted to leave behind was standing directly behind him.

Ironic.

He didn’t bother to look at her. “What is it?”

He heard her sigh. “At least you could look at me when I speak to you.”

But she was wrong — he couldn’t.

It was physically painful for him, looking at the woman he had married. Not because she was ugly; far from it, Dacey Mormont was probably the most beautiful woman Benjen had ever laid his eyes on. But what she meant for him was unbearable.

She was marriage. She was parenthood. She was stability, peace and quiet. She was home.

She was all he never wanted, yet all he now had.

“The Wall is the other way, you know,” Dacey snapped at him. That got him out of his reverie.

“Excuse me?” he asked, mildly incensed, as he turned towards his wife, the waves of Lion’s Bay now behind him.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Dacey accused him. There was no levity to her tone that allowed a snarky retort to be made. She was angry.

And she has every right to be.

“I…” Benjen tried to protest, but gave up immediately. He wasn’t fooling anybody, not even himself. “I have,” he reluctantly admitted instead.

She didn’t seem surprised at his confession. Only annoyed and bitter. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“Enlighten me.”

“The same reason I spent my days back at Winterfell hunting or praying.”

His wife rolled her eyes. “I thought we were done with all that shit after Pyke.”

Her back against his, the war cries of the ironborn and the song of steel as they fought to take over Pyke’s forecastle. A single mistake on his part would have meant her death, and so he had fought, unyielding, to prevent her from being wounded. The same held true in reverse. A connection had been forged by the fires of war, their passion inflamed unlike anything they had ever experienced before. 

“We did,” Benjen recognised.

“Then? What happened? How did we go from that to…” Dacey gestured at them, standing at least six feet apart, no warmth whatsoever between them. “Whatever this is.”

“It makes no difference,” he said gloomily.

Dacey furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”

“It makes no difference,” he repeated a bit louder. “The smiles, the warmth, even the sex… They don’t change anything. And why should they? It won’t last. None of this is going to last.”

“Because you’re too stubborn to understand that your life can be something else than freezing your ass off at the Wall!” she threw at his face the time he’d expressed to her his boyhood dreams. “I wanted to be a warrior when I was little, and sail to distant lands and have adventures, but now I’m married. Life never turns out the way you expect it to do, Benjen. Just how stupid do you have to be to not understand that?” she spat, full of scorn.

“The Wall…”

“Fuck the Wall!” Dacey shouted, at her wits’ end. “We have a child , for gods’ sake! Does Anton mean nothing to you?”

“He means everything to me!” Benjen shouted back, and he meant it. “He’s my son, and I love him like I’ve never loved anything in my entire fucking life!” He paused for a few seconds, breathing heavily, then sighed deeply, running his hand through his hair. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t deserve him. Just as I don’t deserve you. Just as I don’t deserve anything but a black cloak. You’re all too good for someone like me.”

Dacey scowled. “What in the Seven Hells are you talking about?”

Lyanna. Brandon. Father. The Seven Kingdoms. Their blood, all of it, lies on my hands, yet no one must know. No one can know. I won’t endanger Jon. Not now, nor never. “I can’t tell you.”

His wife took a deep, angry breath. “Then try telling me something that actually makes some fucking sense for once,” she snapped.

“And would you be satisfied with what I said?”

“I want you to be honest, Benjen!”

There was a small pause.

“Alright,” Benjen incorporated himself, schooling his expression stoic. “I’ll be honest, then. I’m leaving for the Wall as soon as our third child is born,” he stated with brutal bluntness, without any remorse whatsoever; it was just a matter of fact. “I decided as much before our betrothal was announced. Before Ned even proposed the betrothal to Jorah. My mind has been set for years. Nothing you can say or do will change that fact.”

Dacey blinked, taken aback, struggling to process his words. “W-what…?”

“What you heard,” Benjen said. “That’s why none of this matters, Dacey. I’ll be gone before the decade. I won’t be here to be a father for our children. I’ll be gone long before Anton ever truly needs a father to care for him. What’s the point of caring, if it all will be utterly irrelevant? What’s the point of even trying to have a blissful marriage, if I’ll be gone soon, without ever growing old with you? Why should I invest myself in something that won’t last? Why should you ?”

Dacey had no answer for him. She only stared, her eyes wide and blank.

The silence extended for an indeterminate amount of time. Seconds? Hours? Who could say, really? Their heavy breathing, the sound of the waves, the noises of the busy city… 

Dacey opened her mouth only to close it soon afterwards, repeatedly. 

Benjen made no effort to break the silence himself. He had said all he had to say.

“Was there ever any chance?” she finally whispered, softer and more vulnerable than he had ever heard her, than he had ever imagined she could be. “For us?”

‘No’.

Say ‘no’.

Break her heart and be done with it.

It’ll hurt less when you leave.

Just say ‘no’, gods dammit!

But he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

For, despite everything, he did love the woman in front of him. He revelled in her voice when she laughed, admired her unyielding attitude in the face of adversity, and longed for her warmth in their shared bed during the long, cold nights.

But it was all part of a life that just wasn’t meant for him.

Family, love, happiness.

None of it was meant for him.

Perhaps in another life…

“I guess we’ll never know,” he said instead, voice strained, turning back towards the waves crashing against the harbour.

Their conversation was over.

He was only barely aware of Dacey’s footsteps as she left, sobbing, biting back tears.

As the herald proclaimed Ser Balman Byrch as the winner of the closely-fought bout that saw him face Ser Garth Greysteel, Lord Hightower’s second son, Ned couldn’t help but keep his gaze on him.

Everyone around him cheered as the joust took place, two great knights that counted themselves amongst the favourites of the audience and the bookkeepers meeting each other in the starting phases of the tourney, yet Ned Stark remained fixated on the herald that called the match.

If Robert had been commentating on the tourney with him as they did all those years ago in Harrenhal, he’d never hear the end of it. Lord Stark fell in love with the herald! he imagined his friend’s voice booming with laughter in his head. The herald himself was short and stout fellow with a bushy walrus moustache, hardly the kind of man to make the happily-married Lord Stark swoon like a blushing maiden.

No, the herald himself was irrelevant, for he wasn’t what drew Ned’s attention. His attention, instead, was squarely set on the intricate embroidery of gold thread that his bright scarlet satin velvet exhibited. The clothing was a marvellous piece of craftsmanship, so richly made that most lords in the realm wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Normally, that wouldn’t draw Ned’s attention; heralds at tourneys were often garishly and flamboyantly dressed, as they were just as much a piece of scenery as the banners. What truly caught Ned’s attention was that the herald was dressed in just the same way as the members of the audience.

Merchants or commoners, they were all richly dressed and bejewelled. The King’s tourney was located on the outskirts of Lannisport, and the parts of the city within eyesight glimmered with splendour and opulence. It was particularly striking, given what Ned had seen when he had travelled to the docks in the prior days.

But visiting lords and knights would never see the broken husk of a city that Lannisport became the closer one got to the bay, where bodies lay abandoned underneath piles of rubble, their flesh long rotten away. 

All they would see would be the most splendid city in all of Westeros, in which even the lowest of peasants was clad in velvet and satin and gold. The sheer cynicism of the elaborate showcase of power that the Lannister’s set up was galling, but not in the least surprising.

It made him wonder when exactly they had begun the preparations for the tourney. Tourneys took at least a couple of moons to prepare, yet just one month ago Ned had been on Pyke, fighting against the ironborn.

Perhaps the tourney was already being organised, and the Greyjoy rebellion had simply disrupted its holding; under such circumstances, repurposing the event for after the war was a rather sensible decision, as to not waste what money had already been expended.

That was the only explanation he could come up with, without it being a due cause of concern. The idea that the Lannisters had spent their money preparing a lavish tourney instead of actually taking the fight to the ironborn was upsetting, to say the least.

Not that he’d expected anything else. The westerlords had sat the war out, despite the rest of the realm coming to their aid. In fact, according to the rumours his soldiers had relayed to him, instead of helping the war effort, the Lannisters had taken advantage of the king’s absence in the capital to increase their hold on power, and Jon Arryn had been unable to stop them without plunging the kingdom into further instability.

Much of the coffers destined to finance the war had mysteriously vanished once in hand of the many convoys that displayed the golden lion. Coffers that, Ned suspected, had paid for the tourney.

“Wine!” Robert, sitting to Ned’s left, shouted at his squire, a lanky youth with golden hair. His nose was starting to turn red, and his crown was tilted on his head.

Ned’s brow furrowed. “You shouldn’t drink so much,” he advised, though he knew it to be futile.

Robert only looked at him, unfazed, gaze slightly unfocused. His beard had grown remarkably unkempt since they had returned from the campaign. “Try being married to a Lannister, and we’ll see if you manage to be sober for more than five minutes without wanting to kill yourself,” he muttered, shooting a nasty look at his wife, Queen Cersei, who sat on his left, her nose curled as if she was smelling something foul right in front of her. 

A couple of years younger than them, Cersei Lannister was an entrancingly beautiful woman, with golden locks that fell to her waist and a tall and slender figure, but the thinly veiled disdain and haughtiness that shone in her emerald eyes belied any illusions of a kind heart.

“WINE!” the king bellowed again, increasingly impatient.

The more time Ned spent on the royal balcony as a guest of honour, the more obvious it became to him that Robert’s ‘enemies’ were his queen’s family. Were it any other house, Ned would have dismissed it as mere marital strife without much consequence. However, given that Robert’s wife was the daughter of no other than Tywin Lannister himself…

Well, it tasted like vindication, to be honest.

Though powerful and rich beyond belief, the Lannisters had never been a beloved family, with their arrogant sense of self-superiority earning them very few friends, both within the Westerlands and throughout the rest of the realm. But under Lord Tywin, the worst excesses and tyrannies of his family were extending deep across the whole of Westeros like an insidious cancer, threatening to strangle the peace they had fought so hard to establish, all for the sake of their own prestige, power and profit. It had earned the House a well-deserved villainous taint to their name.

Many had already fallen prey to the lion. Derelict castles, exterminated families. Thousands murdered and raped as the city burnt, their desecrated bodies left to the crows. His own people left to rot in the streets while he bathed in the prestige brought by a gilded tourney.

Two small corpses wrapped in scarlet banners.

The only thing evil needs to succeed is for good men to stand idle, his father’s words resounded in his mind.

Ned knew not if he was a good man, but he knew he was done being idle. The isolation of the North might be a great asset, but it would never be enough on its own.

I’ll be damned if I let history repeat itself just because no one is willing to stand up against the Lannisters. They have to be cut down to size, Ned decided. For the good of the realm.

But he needed allies.

Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to look far. There were many who wanted to see the lion of Casterly Rock cut down to size, neutered and declawed, particularly if they stood to profit from it.

Ned cared not for their reasons. To keep his family safe, not only would he deal with monsters, butchers and opportunists, but he’d make them a great bargain while at it. One that would, ideally, stay their hand from driving a dagger in his back… or aligning themselves with the lions.

“Jory, go to Lord Tyrell’s pavilion,” he ordered his faithful retainer as they walked back to his tent after the King had proclaimed a brief break of an hour. “Tell him I wish to speak with him.”

“Tyrell?” Jory frowned.

“Aye.”

The young man seemed confused. “Forgive me, my lord, but may I ask why? ”

“If everything works out, you’ll know soon enough. Now get going, and get yourself an ale or two when you’re done,” he flipped a golden dragon to Jory.

His captain of the guard caught the coin in the air, and smirked. “Consider it done, my lord.”

Left without anything else to do but wait for the Lord of Highgarden’s answer, Ned turned back and entered the tent he shared with his new ward.

Theon Greyjoy had been something of a surprise. Instead of a brawny and quarrelsome bully, he was thin, sullen and nervous. Ned had supposed the boy’s sadness was due to his brother’s deaths and to having been taken away from his home so abruptly. Yet, there seemed to be something to his melancholy that suggested otherwise. He did not cry as Pyke faded in the distance.

When Ned had left Winterfell for the Eyrie, he had bawled his eyes out, and he still had his whole family waiting for him back home. He had left on good terms, into a welcoming new home. Theon, on the other hand, had lost his family, his home, and was now a hostage, yet he didn’t shed a single tear.

Currently, the boy was sitting idly on one corner of Ned’s pavilion, doodling idly on a spare piece of parchment, holding his head in his free hand with boredom.

“What are you doing, Theon?” Ned called out.

To his surprise, the boy jumped on his seat, eyes wide, as if he had seen a ghost, frantically trying to put his whole drawing setup where it belonged.

“I wasn’t doing anything, my lord! It was a spare parchment, no one was using it!”

Ned stared at him, puzzled by the boy’s reaction. “Hey, easy there,” he said with a reassuring tone. “You did no wrong.”

Ned made to put his hand on Theon’s shoulder in further reassurance, but stopped himself when the boy flinched at the gesture. A surge of anger inflamed him.

“I’m… I’m sorry, my lord,” the boy mumbled, looking down to his feet.

“No. It’s your father the one who ought to be sorry,” Ned sentenced, a deep hatred for Balon Greyjoy coursing through his veins. If that sorry excuse for a man dared rise again, not only would he allow Robert to bash his head in with his warhammer; he would happily grab the bastard by his arms and hold him still. He took a deep breath to calm himself before continuing. “I won’t hurt you, Theon. Not now, nor never. You’re safe.”

“But… I’m your hostage,” Theon said, eyeing him warily, but there was a glimmer of hope in his dark eyes. “Aren’t you going to behead me? If my father goes to war again?”

“No.”

“But the king…”

“The king can order me to do many things,” Ned said softly, “but I won’t follow any orders that mean you harm.”

“Really?” It was painfully obvious that Theon wanted to believe him. His eyes were wide and filled with so much hope that Ned’s opinion of Balon Greyjoy and the ironborn in general soured even more than he’d ever thought possible. Do they get a sick pleasure out of mistreating a poor boy? His right hand clenched into a fist. And here I thought the only benefits from this deal were political.

“Aye, I promise. You will be safe in Winterfell.”

Theon lowered his eyes for a few seconds, perhaps considering what he had just heard, willing himself to believe it.

“May I?” Ned asked the boy softly, gesturing to the chair next to him. A second later, Theon nodded, and Ned took a seat. 

After a couple of moments in silence, Theon turned to look at Ned. “What is Winterfell like?” he asked, with genuine curiosity in his voice and a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

The question didn’t exactly catch Ned by surprise, but he did allow himself a few moments to collect his thoughts before answering. “Winterfell…” he began, but paused again.

No words came to mind. How could he describe Winterfell to a kid who had never been outside the Iron Islands? Pyke was an impressive keep, but it paled when compared against the great castles of the mainland. Casterly Rock was nothing like Winterfell, and would have only misled the boy should it be used as a point of reference. Should he attempt to describe the grey stone of Winterfell? The number and form of its towers, and how their high slanted roofs pierced the sky? The sharp cold of the wind? The snowy fells after which it was named? The hills, the brooks, the forests, the wolves howling deep into the night?

Theon looked at him expectantly, waiting to hear from him the first impressions of his new home. 

“Winterfell is home,” Ned finally said. Home. Such a simple word that conveyed so much, so perfectly what Winterfell meant to him. And, gods willing, what it would mean for Theon Greyjoy. “I won’t lie to you, Theon. Winterfell is a cold, hard land.”

“Like the Islands?”

Ned chuckled softly. “Much worse than the Islands. It’s a land of green forests and grey skies, and so, so cold. Often, snow falls during summer days, and keeping the hearth alive is a necessity rather than a commodity. And in winter…” Theon shivered at the thought, and Ned smiled. “But the people are warm and kind. Noble and generous. Honest and steadfast. They’re good people. They’ll treat you kindly, provided you, too, are kind to them.”

“My father dislikes kindness,” Theon said with a frown, eliciting the same reaction from Ned. “He says kindness is for weaklings too afraid of taking what’s theirs by force.”

“And how did that turn out for him, hmm?” Ned asked pointedly, once again trying to keep his anger in check. Theon somberly nodded, understanding his point. “Kindness is not a weakness,” Ned said, voice soft but intense. “It’s one of the greatest strengths a man can have. It’s doing what’s right.”

“I thought being honourable was doing what’s right, my lord?”

Ned smiled, internally rehearsing what he’d tell his children when they asked the same question. “Doing the honourable thing and doing the right thing are often one and the same, yes. But not always. Sometimes, doing what’s honourable and what’s right are at odds with each other. Life isn’t black and white, like the tales would have you believe.” And hadn’t that been a painful lesson to learn. “And when that happens, you have to make a choice: do you do what’s honourable, even though you know it’s wrong? Or do you do what’s right, even though it might bring dishonour to you and to your House? It is not a choice to be taken lightly, Theon, and you must learn to—”

He was interrupted by Jory entering the pavilion, his face guarded and unreadable.

“My lord, Lord Tyrell agrees to meet with you,” he stated.

“Great!” Ned leaned back on his seat, smiling with satisfaction. “When?”

“Now.”

Ned’s smile vanished from his face instantly. He blinked in confusion.

“Now?” he croaked, completely taken aback.

“Now,” Jory confirmed, a grimace in his face.

“... Huh.” This has taken a turn for the better , Ned thought as he stood up from his seat. He turned to Theon, who was looking at him wide-eyed in confusion, a hint of sadness in his face. “I’m sorry, Theon. We’ll continue talking when I return.”

“What am I supposed to do until then?” Theon asked, reluctant to go back to his drawing.

Ned looked him up and down. He was a skinny boy, lacking in muscle. Well, that could be fixed. “Did they teach you swordplay back at Pyke?”

Theon grinned sheepishly. “A bit, yes, my lord.”

Ned nodded. “Jory,” he said, turning to his retainer, “take him out and see what he’s got.”

“Aye, my lord. Come, boy,” his late friend’s son told Theon, not unkindly. “How are you with a sword?” he asked the boy as his lord left the pavilion towards his meeting.

“I think I’m alright, but my uncle always told me I was better with a bow,” Theon replied, excitement tentatively glimmering in his eyes. Jory nodded in impressed approval, the last thing Ned saw before the flaps of the tent closed behind him.

At times it stung Ned to see just how much Jory resembled his father Martyn, so long gone, buried under the red sands of Dorne. Still, this was not the time for reminiscence, he decided, setting course towards the Tyrell pavilion. 

He knew that the following audiences he’d hold would have a transcendental effect on the future of Westeros, so important and far-reaching as they were. It was in his hands to make this world a better place.

The streets of tourney grounds were always an interesting place; the veritable maze of tents and pavilions of lords and knights from every corner of the land had been set up outside the city gates. While it was modelled after a war camp, the mood couldn’t be any more different. It felt, indeed, very much like an enormous party. Knights drilled and practiced, squires drank and jested, merchants wandered across the streets of mud and gravel trying to sell their wares, and prostitutes looked for coin.

Fortunately for his interests, Ned reflected as he passed a bow-legged whore flirting with a pair of eager squires, Lord Mace Tyrell was not a man known for his political wit… Or for any type of wit, for that matter. ‘Lord Oaf’, he was often called when people thought themselves away from Mace Tyrell’s hearing.

He would make for an easy sell, Stark presumed, as the golden and ornate pavilion of the Lord of Highgarden appeared in the distance. Which, of course, means he won’t be the one to meet me.

The guards at each side of the tent’s entrance nodded at his sight, signalling him to step in immediately.

Just as he expected, the person sitting on the chair on the other extreme of the pavilion was very much not Lord Mace Tyrell. He was older, smarter, thinner, and decidedly not a ‘he’.

“The honourable Lord Eddard Stark in the flesh,” Lady Olenna Tyrell greeted him, holding a cup of wine in her small, wizened hands. “Hmph. I expected you to be taller.”

“My lady Tyrell,” Ned bowed his head in deference, feigning surprise. He had to throw every bit of guile he had out the window. This woman is a schemer all the way to the bone. If I want to gain something out of it, I must play my cards very close to my chest. “It is my honour to finally make your acquaintance.”

“You’ll regret doing so within the hour, I’m sure,” Olenna replied disinterestedly. “I am a busy woman, Lord Stark. My eldest grandson, Willas, is going to make his debut on the lists in a few hours, and I need to be there to mock my oaf of a son when he inevitably gets unhorsed.”

She was underestimating him. Good. After all, what did she see when she looked at him, strangers as they were? A barbaric northman, famous for being Robert Baratheon’s closest friend, all brawn and no brain, though with a reputation of being a honourable and just man.

In other words, not only an unequalled fool, but one that could be played like a fiddle. She believes herself to be the smartest of the two. I would be wise to not attempt to disabuse her of such a notion.

“I wish your grandson the best of luck in his first tourney, my lady,” Ned replied politely. “Who is he riding against?”

“Your brother,” Lady Olenna said to his surprise. Benjen is in the lists? Ned had absolutely no idea. And didn’t that say something about how their relationship had degenerated since the war against the Targaryens? He’d better not cripple or kill the heir to Highgarden, though, because if he does… He dreaded thinking about it. 

“My brother Benjen…”

“Spare me the small talk, Stark,” the Queen of Thorns interrupted him bluntly. “Why are you here?”

“My lady, pardon me for the offence, but I was expecting to speak with Lord Mace,” Ned lied blatantly.

While Mace Tyrell was an impressionable man and easy to manipulate, his bluster, pomp and sense of self-importance was far too much for Ned to endure. At the same time, everybody with half a wit knew that the true ruler of Highgarden and the Reach was the wizened crone that sat in front of him. Ned could manipulate Mace Tyrell to his heart’s content, but if he didn’t have Olenna Tyrell on his side, it would all be for naught. And Olenna would rather die than letting her fool of a son take care of important diplomatic negotiations with the Lord Paramount of the Winterlands, he assumed.

“He’s busy,” she replied laconically.

“Surely he could make some time for the Lord of Winterfell,” Ned added a pinch of arrogance to his words for good measure.

“He could,” Olenna conceded before narrowing her eyes, “but the seven hells will freeze over before I let him talk to you.”

Ned felt vindicated in his assumption. “Why would that be, my lady?”

“The fool worships you,” Olenna grumbled in annoyance. “He’d probably give you everything you ask of him on a silver platter just to please you. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

He blinked. Now, that was not what he was expecting. “... What? Why would he... err… admire me?” This time Ned did not feign confusion; it was all genuine.

“He’s alive because of you, you know. When you lifted the siege of Storm’s End, Stannis Baratheon wanted to chop his head and place it on a pike to rot, and he would have been in his every right to do so. Yet, you stepped in his defence. He was your enemy and you saved his life. My son can be a single-minded oaf, but he’s not without gratitude. Thanks to you, he was able to return home to his family. And, if it weren’t for you that day, little Margaery wouldn’t exist. He even said before she was born that if she were to be a boy, he would call her Eddard.”

Eddard Tyrell. Ned had utterly no idea how he was supposed to answer that. “I… I feel honoured, my lady,” he eventually croaked, rather pathetically. The name had a fanciful sound to it, in all honesty.

“You shouldn’t,” Olenna rolled her eyes, annoyed. She saw Ned, so far, as a mere distraction to her, another mindless highborn fool that babbled on about honours and good wishes that she had to endure.

Just as he intended.

“Just tell me what you want before I die of old age,” she let out an irked sigh.

“As you wish, my lady. You see, the crops of the Reach are bountiful, and winter is coming. The North, on the other hand, has many resources available that cannot be found in other regions. A rapprochement between Highgarden and Winterfell could only be beneficial to both of us.”

“I agree, yes,” Olenna said plainly. “We both stand to gain more by working together than by letting things continue their due course. The exact terms upon which we find agreement, however, remain to be seen.”

“My heir, Robb, and your granddaughter Margaery are of an age, my lady,” Ned suggested with a boldness that would have both horrorised his younger self and made Brandon proud. But he needed to be bold; after all, Ned wanted, by making Lady Tyrell an unreasonable demand that she wouldn’t meet and he didn’t want, to lure her into revealing what she wanted so he could then scale it down to what he truly desired and trick her into believing she had won the barter.

Still he was unsure if he would be able to carry his plan out to fruition. Perhaps he had overreached, and doomed himself to failure. Brandon was always better at this sort of thing, Ned brooded. He always knew what to say to get what he wanted.

To say Olenna Tyrell wasn’t amused by the idea would be an understatement. Indeed, for a moment Ned had the impression that the elderly woman would jump at him at lightning speed and strangle the life out of him.

“So what? ” she acidly replied instead. “What am I supposed to say to that? ‘Oh, thank you for stopping the fool of my son from getting his head chopped and put on a spike, here, take my granddaughter’s maidenhead’? You presume too much of yourself, Stark.”

“My lady, forgive me if I have overstepped my boundaries.”

“Overstepped? You’ve done more than that. If you were anything less than Lord Paramount of the North I would kick you right out of my pavilion myself.”

He believed her capable of it. “Then why don’t you?”

“Because unfortunately for me, we stand to gain more by dealing with you than by not doing so. I already said that. Are you deaf, boy?” Olenna tilted her head. “What we want is direct access to your ironwood supply. The Florents have done their damndest best to assert a monopoly over all the ironwood trade that leaves the North towards the Reach, and sabotage whatever meagre scraps they’re forced to give us.”

“Quite the bold claim, my lady.”

“One I know for a fact to be true. Ever since the Targaryens were overthrown, we’ve been treated as pariahs for standing strong by their side. Our enemies take this as carte blanche to do what they please to further damage us,” the Queen of Thorns replied with contempt. “After all, is the king going to defend those who fought against him? Against his goodsister’s family?”

Of course not. Even if Robert wanted to – which he didn’t – , the Lannisters would never allow another great house to flourish if it meant it could become a rival to their hegemony. And no other house threatened the golden lion of Casterly Rock as much as the Tyrells of Highgarden.

“What we do not want, however,” Olenna continued, “is a marital alliance with the North. I don’t care if it’s damn near unbreakable, your ironwood is not worth my granddaughter, and if that’s your price, we won’t pay it,” she said, with sincere affection in her inflection. “Mace wants to make her queen, you know.” Her tone was unreadable, ungiving of her thoughts on the matter.

“I wouldn’t hold out much hope for that. Not only would the Florents make life impossible for the Baratheons if they learned about it, but the King himself has been rather insistent about wanting his heir to marry a Stark, just as he was once supposed to do,” Ned made sure to put on an annoyed grimace. 

Olenna took the bait. “You don’t seem much delighted at the prospect of your daughter being queen.”

“I would rather not hand my daughter over to the lions.”

Lady Olenna Tyrell stared intently at Lord Eddard Stark, her cunning eyes boring deep into his own. Ned made sure to drop the naïve and half-witted lord act immediately, staring back at her with the same intensity she had in her green eyes.

A long moment of silence passed by before she called out of the tent.

“Left!”

At once, one of the two tall and muscular men that guarded the entry peered into the tent.

“Yes, m’lady?” he asked with a comically reedy voice, absurdly mismatched to his brawny and masculine appearance.

“Practice swordplay with Right. As loud as possible. Make as much of a ruckus as you can.”

If the man was confused, he did not show it. Ned certainly wasn’t. Wise move.

“Yes, m’lady,” ‘Left’ nodded, and then he was gone.

Only as soon as the song of steel, the yells and curses both twins shot at each other and the cheering of an impromptu crowd erupted, did Olenna Tyrell allow herself a small smirk towards Ned.

“It would seem you’re not as much of a fool as I dreaded you to be. Good. Now we can talk.”

“‘Not as much of a fool’? A high compliment, coming from the Queen of Thorns herself,” Ned rebuked, an ironic smile on his lips.

“Careful, now, or I will take it back,” Olenna warned him, but it was lacking the contemptuous edge she had had through the whole conversation. She was, indeed, taking him seriously. That, in and of itself, was already a considerable victory . “Please, do explain yourself before the Spider has the opportunity to spy on us.”

“A stag sits on the throne, yet it’s the lions who rule. King’s Landing and the Realm dances to Lord Tywin’s tune.”

“Probably ‘The Rains of Castamere’, gods know he’s fond of that one,” Olenna snarked under her breath. Ned had to agree; Lord Tywin had a morbid fixation on the gruesome massacre he had brutally executed in his youth, and never lost an occasion to remind the world of it.

“He has filled all the high positions of power and bureaucracy with Lannister bannermen or lackeys,” Ned continued without missing a beat. “They are virtually unopposed, establishing a chokehold that threatens to strangle the hard-fought peace so many have bled to protect. For the good of the realm, they need to be stopped.”

“And what do you propose for that purpose?”

“An alliance,” he stated. “Before the North and the Reach.”

“Now that’s a concept,” Olenna snarked dryly. True enough, the relations of the North and the Reach were as distant as their lands. Not even before the Conquest did they interact with each other out of their own initiative, instead just through any shared relations with a third party.

An error I seek to remedy.

“The North is already allied with the Riverlands through my marriage with Lady Catelyn Tully, and with the Vale through her sister Lysa’s marriage with Lord Arryn. We already present a powerful block, but with the knights of the Reach riding by our side, we would be unbeatable.”

“So you do want my granddaughter’s maidenhead for your son, huh,” Olenna muttered contemptuously as she sipped her wine with distaste, having understood   the purpose of bringing up the aforementioned marriages to the conversation.

“What I want, my lady, is an alliance with House Tyrell to contain Casterly Rock and guarantee the peace. A union by marriage between the heir of Winterfell and a daughter of Highgarden would only secure such a pact.” Nevermind the fact that it was most likely the best possible match for Robb, barring any daughters Robert might have in the following years.

“And for what intent, hmm?” Before Ned could reply, she cut him off. “Oh, yes, yes, I know, to contain the Lannisters. And how exactly would you do that? Do you intend to march on the Westerlands, and drive Lord Tywin out from under his literal rock? You would break the King’s Peace you wish to protect. On what lawful charges would you act against him? There are none, Stark. Your dear King Robert pardoned him for his atrocities against the Targaryens. As things stand, it’s undoable. Your plan is merely hypothetical, ideal for war but redundant in peace. There is no need for it.”

“No need for it? I disagree.”

“Oh? And why would that be?” Olenna tilted her head, but Ned couldn’t tell if she was truly interested in his answer or just indulging him like a child. Still, he hadn’t come this far to get the entirety of his plan rejected just because the woman wasn’t willing to agree to a betrothal, so he appealed to the most basic instincts of House Tyrell.

“You said it yourself, my lady. House Tyrell currently is a pariah, given your past loyalties to the dragons. Good marriages must surely be hard to come by,” a fleeting, barely noticeable shadow passed through the elderly lady’s visage before she managed to squash it. He had hit a nerve. Good. “Furthermore, House Florent is already linked by marriage to House Baratheon via Lord Stannis; I would expect them to lobby vehemently against any thawing of diplomatic relations with House Tyrell. After all, they’ve already damaged your ironwood trade out of mere spite. Just how far would they go to stop your house from reentering the high politics?” Ned paused, letting his words sink in. “However, House Stark can vouch for you. We can help each other, and reduce the Lannister influence from the inside.”

“And if you had it your way, we would have lost our most precious daughter to the North in the process.”

“One among many roses, I am sure.” House Tyrell was not lacking in cousins and cadet branches, after all.

“None more treasured than her,” the Queen of Thorns rebuked him, then snapped her tongue. “We won’t agree to a betrothal, nor a military alliance, and that’s final. We won’t compromise ourselves that deep into the long term, when for all we know Tywin Lannister can slip down the stairs tomorrow and break his neck, or that bitch he has for a daughter can die in childbirth.” She paused for a moment, mayhaps to pray for that to happen. “What we will agree to, however, is the rapprochement of trading and diplomacy. We might not be allies, Stark, but that doesn’t mean we cannot be friends.”

“The same, I believe, can be said about the children,” he insisted. “They may not be betrothed, but they can be friends. They can continue the friendship between our houses. Perhaps it could, in due time, lead to fosterages and life-long ties that—”

“You just won’t let it go, will you?” Lady Tyrell harrumphed in annoyance, cutting him off. “Fine. They’ll keep correspondence with each other. Happy? Now shut up about it and let us speak terms.”

The day before the war broke out, her goodsister had told her that she didn’t have to choose between being a lady and being a warrior. She had told her that she could be both, that she could embrace who she was: the latest in a long line of fearsome she-bears of Mormont tradition, mothers who held their babe to their breast with one hand and an axe on the other.

And so she tried. The Greyjoy Rebellion had been, in a way, the counterpart to her life back home. In Pyke, her motherhood had been irrelevant. As she mowed down ironborn after ironborn with her twin axes, no one cared for the fact that she was a married woman, or a mother. All they cared for was her skill with her weapons and her ability to slay the ironborn.

After five years as Lady Dacey Stark, she had stepped back into her life as Dacey Mormont of Bear Island.

And they had won. Balon Greyjoy defeated, the crown’s forces were now settling back into their lives.

I guess we’ll never know.

But not her.

What was her life even supposed to be? Was it motherhood back at Winterfell? The exhilarating dance of battle she had experienced at Pyke?

Both?

Neither?

Neither had felt entirely right for her. Through motherhood, she felt as if she was betraying who she really was, as if she was betraying that little girl who cared for nothing other than besting her little sister Aly in the courtyard.

Yet, in the battlefield, she felt like she was forsaking Anton, her little wolf that looked so much like a bear, that observed the world quietly with his smart brown eyes, whose rare giggles lit up even the darkest of days.

In her attempts to follow her goodsister’s advice, she had ended up… nowhere. 

Adrift in limbo.

“You look worse than I do, cuz,” a man’s gravelly voice startled her, making her turn towards its source. “What is it?”

She couldn’t help but feel immensely guilty for Lord Jorah’s wound. Her cousin had been so intent on keeping an eye on her during the battle that he had gotten careless for his own safety, and had fallen victim to a stray arrow. The arrowhead had pierced his knee, yet it hadn’t come out the other side. Despite the maesters’ best attempts, his wound had festered.

There had been no other alternative but to cut his leg off.

“Nothing,” Dacey faked a smile. “How are you holding up?”

“The worst has passed,” he said with a shrug. “The pain has been diminishing, and Lord Stark was kind enough to get me this wheeled chair to carry myself around these parts.” He patted the chair’s armrest for emphasis.

“Has it been difficult?”

“Well, not so much once you get used to the fact that you’re never going to walk again. After that, it’s just smooth sailing,” Jorah replied with no hint of bitterness, just calm resignation. His mask suddenly fell apart. “Or it would be if there was at least one bloody ramp in this accursed city!” he suddenly yelled in frustration, shaking his wheelchair.

Dacey chuckled in spite of herself. “Stairs must be a nightmare.”

“Oh, they’re my new mortal enemy,” Jorah shook his head. “I’m going to lose a fortune setting up ramps all across the keep.”

“Is that going to be necessary?”

“Unless you expect me to crawl all across the keep, then aye,” he said with an eyebrow raised, smirking.

“No,” Dacey shook her head, but she had to admit the thought amused her, “I mean, just how long are you going to be stuck on that thing?”

“At least, until my leg is sturdy enough to resist some kind of replacement. A stick, most likely. Still, I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’m old, girl.”

“You’re not that old,” Dacey protested.

“Old enough nonetheless. At this point, it’d be easier to adjust my life to a wheelchair than to learn to walk again. Which reminds me…” Jorah trailed off, turning around and unslinging a long, narrow package from the back of his wheelchair.

Dacey’s eyes widened in shock, looking horrified at her cousin, who was tearing the packaging apart. “No,” she muttered softly. “No, I- I cannot…”

“Yes, you can,” he said firmly. “This is yours now.”

In his hands he held Longclaw, the ancestral valyrian bastard sword that had been in House Mormont for generations, handed down from parent to child, always owned by the Lord or Lady of Bear Island. The ruby red eyes of the pale-stone, bear-headed pommel stared deep into her soul.

Life was an amusing thing. More than once she had dreamed of wielding her uncle’s valyrian sword, but she knew that privilege was always meant to be her cousin’s. And now that he was offering to give it to her…

“I… I can’t…” Dacey tried and failed to answer.

“If not you, then who? I will not walk again, girl, let alone fight. A sword such as this is lost on a cripple such as me.”

“But… you’re the Lord of Bear Island, cuz. It belongs to you.”

“It belongs to whomever I damn well say it belongs to”, he stated stubbornly, “and I say it belongs to you.”

“I can’t accept it, Jorah,” she repeated, her voice wracked with awe and emotion.

The crippled lord wouldn’t have it. “Nonsense. What am I supposed to do with Longclaw, crippled as I am? Hang it over the fireplace and let it gather dust? Use it as a walking stick? No. Valyrian steel was forged to be used, and in your hands, it will. You’re a good warrior, Dacey. Give it the life it’s meant to have. I will not take a ‘no’ for an answer,” he stated, kindly yet firmly, handing the sheathed sword to his younger cousin.

“I…” Dacey’s hands were trembling as she grabbed hold of Longclaw, unsheathing it slightly to admire the distinctive rippled patterns of valyrian steel. “... Thank you”, she let out finally, nodding. “When he comes of age, I will give it back for your son to hold.”

“Right,” Jorah scoffed. At Dacey’s quizzical expression, Jorah rolled his eyes. “I’m old, crippled and widowed. I doubt I’ll be having a son anytime soon.”

“You’re thirty five, Jorah. You’re still of age to marry again and have a child.”

“And who would want to marry a cripple, hmm?” Unexpectedly for her, Jorah’s voice was completely lacking in bitterness.

“A cripple who is the Lord of Bear Island.”

Jorah shivered in dread. “Gods, that just makes it worse.”

“What are you talking about? It’s not rich, but Bear Island is a good, sturdy place to call home.”

“Most maids do not dream of living their days on a wooden keep on an island in the middle of nowhere, wielding axes to scare wildlings off.”

“Most maids are idiots, then,” Dacey declared firmly, earning a chuckle from her cousin.

“Perhaps they are. Now, are you going to tell me what it is that has you so downcast, or are you going to keep stalling in hopes that I’ll just forget about it?”

A shiver went down Dacey’s spine. “W-what?” she asked, her voice trembling perhaps-not-so-slightly. “I-I already told you that I’m fine.”

“Right, and I’m a knight with two fully-functional legs who’s going to win this tourney and marry a beautiful and wealthy highborn lady,” Jorah said sarcastically. Dacey tried to protest, but he paid her no mind. “I’m the closest thing you ever had for a father, girl,” Jorah raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You can’t lie to me.”

That was depressingly true. Dacey had never met her father, and no amount of rumours regarding her parentage would ever change that simple, heart-breaking fact. Perhaps her mother Maege was a skinchanger who bedded bears, as her sister Aly used to say. Perhaps she’d had a lowborn lover, or even a wildling one. But what difference did it make, in the end? She was still a fatherless child.

But she had a cousin, over fifteen years her senior. He had taken her under his wing, teaching her much of what her mother, Maege, had been unable to. Jorah had been her sponsor, her backer, her confidante and her accomplice. Whenever she needed someone to speak to, to help her make sense of her tangled thoughts, her cousin had always been there for her.

Just as he was there for her now, one more time.

Dacey sighed, defeated.

“It’s Benjen”, she said finally, biting her lip.

“Problems in paradise?” Jorah asked good-naturedly.

“What paradise?” Dacey snorted bitterly. “Our marriage is a sham. He barely looks at me. He refuses to spend time with me. And now—” she gasped, suddenly realising she was crying. “And now he says he will leave for the Wall as soon as we have a third child.” She dried her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m half-tempted to forbid him from my bed, just to spite him,” she spat sourly.

“Would that make you happy? Truly?”

“What should I do, then?” she asked bitterly, raising her voice slightly, “open my legs and pump out two babies and be done with it? Because if you think that I’m happy being some sort of brood mare, I’ll cut your other leg off.” She raised her left hand, still clutching Longclaw, a few inches, as if to add weight to the threat.

Jorah shook his head.

“Tell me, do you love him?”

“How could I not? He’s a Stark. I grew up near worshipping the very ground they stepped on. When you told me I was going to marry one of them… it was the happiest day of my life. I was so naïve,” she scoffed, tears running down her cheeks.

“That was not what I asked, Dacey,” he said firmly. “Do you love him?”

No.

What has the man ever done for me?

He ignores me, he barely looks at me, he refuses to spend time with me, he’ll abandon me as soon as I have a third child… He’ll abandon his own children!

No, I don’t love him! Of course I d—

“I do,” she croaked, now weeping openly. “Gods help me, I do.”

“And does he love you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Then let me be the one to tell you that he does. He really does.”

She almost scoffed. “And how would you know?”

“I saw how he looked at you in Pyke. I’d recognise that lovestruck gaze anywhere. It was the same look I had when I looked at Lyra.”

Lyra Glover. Jorah’s first wife, a petite girl, sister to Lord Galbart. A sweet and kind woman, who had been unable to give him any children. She had died following her third miscarriage, not long before Dacey was married off to Benjen Stark. Lyra and Jorah’s marriage, though childless, had been happy and loving. Her cousin had been an absolute wreck after her death.

Still…

“So what if he does love me? What does it matter? He’s going to the Wall. I can’t change his mind. I can’t. In the end, it doesn’t make any difference.”

“It makes every difference,” Jorah corrected firmly. “Nothing lasts forever, girl. Everything has an end. And that’s why life is so beautiful. That’s why we treasure so dearly those moments deep in the night, when all we have and all we care about is holding each other in our arms. Because tomorrow will be another day, and you’ll have to leave that embrace. Because those moments won’t last…” Jorah sighed sadly. “Because sooner or later, one of you is going to die, and that moment might be the last one. We just have to do the best out of what little time the Gods seem fit to grant us.”

She didn’t know what to say. “I…”

“Should we stop trying to make sense out of our lives, just because one day we’re going to die? Should we give up and await our inevitable demise?” Jorah didn’t wait for her to reply. “Of course not. Death might be the end, but what happens before it is what makes it all worth it.”

“Are you telling me that I shouldn’t care about Benjen going to the Wall?”

“I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter the length or the ending of your marriage. What matters is what you do while you’re with him, and if you make each day count. Not a day goes by in which I don’t wish I had done more with Lyra,” he stated with a wistful smile. “But she’s dead. Dead and buried in the crypts below Deepwood Motte, and I can’t even visit her tomb. But your Lyra, he’s out there. He’s still with you. And he will be with you for some time, before he leaves and never comes back. Enjoy him while you still have him with you. Otherwise, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.”

“I…”

Jorah looked directly at her eyes, a world of grief behind his soft smile.

“Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”

“You summoned me, Lord Stark?”

He wished he hadn’t.

But sacrifices had to be made. Deals with the devil must be struck, to keep him from turning on you.

“Aye, I did, Lord Bolton. We haven’t had the opportunity to speak with each other ever since the rebellion ended.”

Roose Bolton was much like a sword without a hilt: there was no safe way to handle him, for you would always cut yourself. Playing up a character as he did with Lady Tyrell would do him no good. With his cold, dead grey eyes, Bolton would be able to see through even the best mummer.

“No, we haven’t, my lord,” Bolton duly agreed. “Your courier told me you had a proposal for me.”

Straight to the point. Good. Truth be told, Ned was thankful for it; he had wracked his brain for any possible smalltalk to have with Lord Bolton, but the mere concept of it was unnerving beyond reason.

The Boltons used to flay their enemies and wear their skins as cloaks, Old Nan used to tell him, and no cloak was as precious as the one fashioned from Stark skin.

“I have,” Ned nodded, suppressing the shiver that threatened to go down his spine. “You see, Lord Bolton, it is no secret that our houses have a long history of enmity and strife. Through the centuries, the Kings of Winter and the Red Kings of the Dreadfort waged countless wars for the supremacy of the North. Yet now, you have followed me forth to two wars in less than a decade, and served with nothing less than loyalty and faithfulness. I am proud that we have left our past behind us.”

That was a blatant lie that neither of them was stupid enough to believe. Although it was true that Starks and Boltons hadn’t fought each other in a war for centuries, that didn’t mean they weren’t rivals, their conflicts fought all within the framework of the realm’s peace. At the best of times, Winterfell and the Dreadfort had a cold indifference to each other.

“House Bolton stands loyally by Winterfell’s side. So it has been, and so it will be,” Bolton lied so smoothly, Ned almost believed him. Almost. Only a fool would trust a Bolton.

I don’t need to trust him. I need him to be content enough that he won’t stab me in the back.

“We stand together, we fight together, and we die together,” Roose’s face was indecipherable at Ned’s words. “But that does not mean Winterfell and the Dreadfort have been true friends to each other.”

“I do not understand, my lord. You said it yourself that our ancestral enmity is long dead,” Bolton frowned, feigning confusion.

“It has,” Ned said with as much conviction as he had love for the Lannisters, “but lack of enmity does not equal friendship. I intend to change that.”

“And what do you have in mind?” Bolton sounded genuinely curious. Ned knew it to be a farce, however. The Lord of the Dreadfort, cold and calculative, must have surely realised it as soon as he entered the pavilion, if not as soon as he was summoned. Otherwise, he would have declined Ned’s invitation.

“Your son, Domeric. How old is he?”

“He’s eight, my lord. A most accomplished young boy. He enjoys reading history, and shows great promise on the saddle,” he said, with as much emotion and affection as if he were talking about a particularly well-behaved hound. Is that what passes for fatherly affection for him? Ned was aghast. First Balon Greyjoy, now this?

He now knew one too many lords who held their heirs’ lives with little regard.

“Have you considered having him fostered?”

“I have,” Lord Bolton didn’t miss a beat. “Nothing has been agreed to, however. His mother, Bethany, wishes to send him to Barrowton with his aunt, and I do not see any reason to disagree. The Redforts in the Vale are also an option. Unless my Lord Stark has a different proposal…?”

“I do,” Ned retched internally at the man’s eagerness. Although, on second thought, perhaps taking Domeric away from Roose’s parenting could prove to be even more beneficial than he had initially thought. “I offer to you that Domeric be fostered at Winterfell. He will be raised alongside by sons, and once he’s old enough, he will serve as my squire. He will be joined to Winterfell by friendship and brotherhood.”

“Only by friendship?” Bolton shrewdly asked. “Surely, our bonds can be much tighter than mere friendship.”

Ned pursed his lips, fighting down the bile in his throat at the idea of not only marrying his baby girl to a Bolton, but of using her as a bargaining chip.

“Your son is young. My daughter, even more so,” he eventually stated with distaste. “But they will grow together. We shall see.”

Fortunately for him, Lord Bolton did not call further attention to the suggestion, but his cold eyes had a new glimmer to them, evidence that he was pleased by it.

“That’s my proposal to you, Lord Bolton,” Ned stated, then recounted for both of their sakes. “Domeric shall be fostered at Winterfell. There, he will become friends with my sons and heirs. At Winterfell, he’ll grow into a fine young lordling, worthy heir to the Dreadfort. At Winterfell, perhaps he’ll find love.”

Ned paused, and observed Roose Bolton’s ungiving, pale face before concluding, soft as a whisper.

“And at Winterfell, Domeric will be safe from your bastard.”

If Lord Roose Bolton could ever be caught off guard, Ned surmised that was one such moment. After a long, pregnant silence, Bolton spoke.

“What do you know?” he asked, quieter than usual.

The First Night had been outlawed for over a century. By law, any transgressor was a rapist, and should be punished as such.

“Enough,” he stated laconically.

Ever since Ned had returned to Winterfell after Robert’s rebellion, he had set up his own web of spies and informants; honest, good and hardworking men of many walks of life that shared a loyalty to the Starks, and reported the happenings across the North directly to him.

To be honest, at first he had done it because he wished to learn firsthand how the smallfolk were affected by his edicts and ruling; to see if his policies were having the intended effect, or, on the contrary, if they failed due to unforeseen circumstances. 

Yet, this way he had found out many unsavoury things about his bannermen that might be of use if he ever had the need to strong-arm them, such as Lord Galbart Glover’s unorthodox sexual appetites, or Lord Halys Hornwood’s whole brood of unrecognised bastards… or Lord Bolton’s practice of the First Night, among other crimes.

Many other crimes.

Lord Bolton seemed to mull on the revelation, his brow frowned in contemplation. Eddard wished not to know what he was thinking, but just in case, inched his hand closer to the small dagger by his lower back, hidden from Lord Bolton’s sight.

“And what will you… do with such… knowledge?” The man eventually asked. His voice was as soft-spoken as always, but now it had a dangerous edge to it.

“Our houses have been foes for millennia. Let us put an end to the strife once and for all. Let the North enter a golden age unlike any other, heralded by a Stark and Bolton diarchy.” The blackmail was left unspoken. Gods, is this the kind of man I have to be? he despaired internally. “Are we in agreement, Lord Bolton?”

Roose Bolton stared right at him with his cold, dead eyes. They were glimmering with something reminiscent of approval. It made Eddard feel sick inside.

“Aye. We are, Lord Stark.”

“How did I even get here?” Benjen whispered, stunned.

“You weren’t terrible at it, I suppose.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Benjen looked down to Ned, eyes wide. “I’ve always been terrible at jousting. I was shit at it. You know that. Jousting had always been Brandon’s thing, not mine.”

He looked up at the stands, running high and long across the walls of Lannisport, filled to the brim with eager and rowdy spectators.

He spoke again, more panic seeping into his voice with each word. “How haven’t I embarrassed myself yet? How have I won the tilts? And how the fuck am I at the final fucking joust of a fucking tournament, Ned?! ”

Ned shrugged nonchalantly as he secured his brother’s saddle straps. “Beginner's luck?”

Benjen’s squire, Asher Forrester, the second son of Lord Gregor of Ironrath, had gotten himself pissdrunk in a drinking game with the other squires last night and failed to appear for his duties, so Ned had stepped up, without giving a care to how unprestigious it was for a great lord to do such menial tasks.

Benjen didn’t answer, busy as he was hyperventilating and panicking while he stared at the other side of the grounds.

There, sitting on his magnificent white horse, was Ser Jaime Lannister, the eldest son of Lord Tywin of Casterly Rock. He was clad from head to toe in an intricately designed golden armour, mixing both the style of his white Kingsguard enamelled plate with rounded lion head pauldrons that honoured his Lannister blood. His helmet was fashioned after a lion’s head, his eyes peeking through its snarling, fearsome mouth. Truly, he was an impressive, imposing sight.

Benjen’s vision was narrowing, his breath accelerating by the second.

“And I’m riding against Jaime fucking Lannister.”

“Hey.”

“Oh gods I think I’m hyperventilating.”

“Benjen.”

“Oh gods I’m definitely hyperventilating and I’m panicking and I’m going to die and—”

“Hey, hey, hey, Benjen! Look at me!” Blue eyes met grey ones. “You are going to be alright,” Ned reassured him. “It’s just a joust. Silly southron entertainment.”

Benjen felt positively panicked, but he gulped forcefully. After breathing deeply and exhaling a few times, he managed to calm himself.

Somewhat.

“Why didn’t we go straight back to Winterfell as soon as the war was over?” he asked with a trembling voice.

“There were some things I had to do first.”

“Aye, but why am I here?”

“Because you’re stupid.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckled mirthlessly.

In all honesty, he didn’t want to go back to Winterfell. What awaited him there, if not the promise of the same repetitive, pointless existence he had led until Balon’s rebellion? He didn’t want to go home.

He wanted to live life as he was meant to do, and being unable to leave for the Wall yet, competing in a tourney at Lannisport had seemed just like the opportunity he was looking for.

What he hadn’t expected was to actually win .

In his first tilt, he had unhorsed Willas Tyrell, the heir to Highgarden, a boy greener than the flowery surcoat of his house. The youngling had hit the floor hard, but he’d recovered quickly with no injuries, and had chivalrously conceded him the victory without any further combat. Ser Hosteen Frey and Ser Ryman Frey had followed, both falling off their horses without much effort on Benjen’s part (in fact, Benjen would wager Ser Ryman had been riding drunk), and both beaten in the melee that ensued. 

He came close to being beaten when he faced off against the splendid Ser Baelor Hightower, but against all odds, fortune favoured him and Hightower had been the one to fall to the ground. Gallantly, Hightower had yielded to him in recognition of his good hit.

And now here he was. On the final joust of the tourney.

“Ser Jaime of House Lannister, Knight of the Kingsguard,” called the herald. “Ser Benjen of House Stark. Come forth and prove your valour.”

“Try not to get killed,” Ned said as he handed Benjen his lance, made of a brittle wood that would stand no chance in a true fight.

“You have to take the fun out of everything, don’t you, brother?” he japed as Ned returned to his seat of honour in the tribune, trying to assuage his nerves. He was unsuccessful, his hands trembling on his lance.

Benjen urged his horse to the royal pulpit, where he and his foe presented themselves in front of the King and Queen, and dipped their lances. Ned, sitting by the King’s right side, nodded at him encouragingly, but Lord Tywin, by his daughter’s left, only levelled him a cold stare that made Benjen shiver with the promise of terrible retaliation should Stark maim, injure or worse his golden son.

If he had been nervous about riding against Jaime Lannister, now he was nigh unmanned by the dangerous glare Lord Tywin had shot him. Benjen knew Tywin Lannister would wipe all of House Stark from existence and raze Winterfell to the ground if he so much as scratched his son by accident; what would he do if Benjen killed him? He didn’t know the answer, and he did not want to find out. He did know, however, that he had done more than enough damage to his family for a lifetime. He’d rather lose than risk Lord Tywin’s wrath.

The king, instead of wishing them a good bout, only nodded at them absent-mindedly, very much unhappy at the boiled water that filled his goblet instead of wine.

With a grimace, Benjen brought down his helmet’s visor, and trotted back to the west end of the lists. The herald sounded his trumpet, and the crowd exploded in cheers and shouts of anticipation, wishing their favourite victory. As a darkhorse contestant, Benjen was quite popular amongst the audience, but Jaime Lannister was in his home turf.

Reluctantly, Benjen dug his heels upon his trusty destrier’s flanks, starting at a slow trot that slowly built up into a sprint. Ser Jaime’s white steed approached just as swiftly, his rider’s magnificent armour clattering with the motion, and his lance pointing straight at Benjen’s shield.

Both lances broke against their opponent’s shield in an explosion of wood and splinters. Neither rider fell, instead riding forth to rearm themselves before facing off again.

“Lance!” he ordered his new servant, a young stable hand Ned had commanded to take his place. He observed warily at his foe on the other side of the list, as their horses charged once more.

He’s going to move his lance at the last second, Benjen thought with certainty. He’s going to go for my head. It was a sure tactic to bring down your foe, although one so dishonourable it was commonly scorned upon by knights. Then again, he was facing Jaime Lannister. What honour did the Kingslayer still have? He would be a fool to put it beyond him, especially when such dishonour would bring him victory. Only a few yards separated them when Benjen raised his shield to protect his head.

It turned out to be a mistake. Ser Jaime’s lance never shifted place and landed right in Benjen’s now unshielded flank, but the steel held true and his foe’s lance was deflected before snapping in half. Benjen’s lance, on the contrary, hit squarely in Lannister’s shield.

Not that it mattered: the impact of Lannister’s strike had taken him dangerously off balance. Despite his best attempts to the contrary, Benjen was unable to stabilise himself on the saddle and fell cleanly to the ground with a loud thud.

The sky is so blue, he observed as he laid flat on his back, trying to catch his breath.

Although he had fallen, winded and his left side very much aching, Benjen knew himself blessed; had the lance’s angle not been perfect, it would have pierced the steel and driven itself deep into his gut, rather than be deflected by the curvature of his chestplate.

Before he could rise to continue the fight, Ser Jaime was upon him, still high atop his horse.

“Yield,” he ordered, pointing his sword down at him.

There was no point resisting or trying to fight back.

“I yield, my good ser,” Benjen replied, as he reincorporated himself with some difficulty. “Victory is yours.” And the audience exploded in cheers.

Kingsguards were sworn to celibacy, so it was always a reason for gossip whenever one of them won a tourney and the time came to crown a Queen of Love and Beauty. Once the herald had handed him the wreath of flowers, the Kingslayer, perhaps most sensibly, rode his horse towards the royal pulpit.

“My queen, you seem to have misplaced your crown,” Ser Jaime proclaimed gallantly, as he tipped his lance towards his sister.

Queen Cersei’s face was a perfect mask, dignified, unreadable and still as stone, a tremulous smile the only sign she had listened to him. “You honour me, my good ser. I thank you, and shall wear it in your name.” Sitting besides her, the King rolled his eyes in disdain.

Benjen raised his eyebrows in amusement. It was a deft move on the part of the Kingslayer to put any rumours about possible unallowed romantic liaisons to rest by crowning as Queen of Love and Beauty not only his queen, whom he was sworn to serve and protect, but his sister as well. Some members of the audience voiced their disappointment, surely feeling robbed of the gossip.

Oh well, he shrugged as he left the lists for his thankfully-nearby pavilion, already unstrapping his uncomfortable vambraces. Benjen winced when he took out his breastplate, catching sight of the huge bruise that tinted his skin where Jaime Lannister’s lance had struck him. Still, it was not a bad showing. Not everyone can say they finished second place in a tourney, let alone their first one.

Had he won, he intended to crown his own wife as Queen of Love and Beauty, but it seemed that it was not meant to be.

And to think a few days ago we were fighting like cats and dogs.

A day after their discussion on the Lannisport docks, Dacey had come into his tent, a determined look on her face. He had expected her to deservedly rip into him for his irresponsibility. To call him a craven and a fool. To vent all her frustrations on him, if not outright punch him senseless.

What he did not expect, however, was for her to cross the tent and kiss him savagely, as if her life depended on it. Where her words had been unable to breach the walls he had built around himself, her touch had finally succeeded.

“Tomorrow you’ll leave for the Wall,” she had told him, holding his head with her hands to maintain eye contact as they rolled on his bed in a fit of passion, “but today we’ll live.”

Another crime to pay penance for at the Wall.

He had stolen Dacey Mormont, beautiful, brave Dacey Mormont, from the man who was meant to marry her. He was living the life another man was meant to have. He had condemned her to a life of unfulfillment, insatisfaction and unhappiness, robbing her of the chance of marrying a man who could love her as she deserved in return and grow old with her.

And yet, he could no longer bring himself to walk out of it as he had done so many times before. His resolve to reject what he felt himself to be unworthy of had collapsed at last, eroded by years of suppression. His voice failed him when he tried to speak up, and no further words had been exchanged between them that night, only groans and moans of pleasure.

In the end, he came to realise during the following days, he no longer cared whether or not he was worthy of this life.

So what if he didn’t deserve Dacey Mormont? They had married in front of the heart tree of Winterfell’s godswood, and he had fathered her child. He was still going to leave for the Night’s Watch once his third son was born, as was his due punishment, but in the meantime, he would enjoy her as long as he had her in his arms, for the nights at the Wall were cold and lonely, and Dacey was warm and lovely.

And speaking of warm and lovely, he thought when his wife entered his tent, her face flushed and a determined look on her dark eyes.

“Forgive me for not bringing you your deserved crown, my lady,” Benjen stood up, a tired smile on his sweaty and dirty face.

“You are my champion all the same,” Dacey smiled as she cupped his head and met his lips. After a moment, she pulled out and made a grimace as she looked at her hands, clammy with his transpiration. “Eurghh…”

Benjen chuckled. “That’s on you. You should have waited until after I had cleaned myself up.”

“I’d rather be covered with muck and grime from head to toe than waste any more of what little time we have left,” she stated, her cheeks even redder than before, but kissed him again, deeper and more intently. They took as long as they felt like exploring each other’s mouths, savouring each other as if it were their very first time.

It didn’t take long before Dacey’s tongue began wrestling against his, faster, almost hungrily as she pushed him back against his chair. Benjen’s breastplate was knocked off the edge with the impact, making a loud noise as it hit the ground.

“Whoah, careful there,” he mumbled without sparing a glance towards his fallen armour, his hands eagerly running up and down her hips.

“I don’t care,” Dacey panted, her breathing shallow as she straddled him. “Take off your pants.”

Their twins, Harald and Lyarra, were conceived on that day. When he took sight of them, Benjen insisted ‘they only count as one’.

Chapter Text

From his vantage spot on the great hall’s top balcony, Ned looked out over the inner courtyard as Cat settled the last few stragglers from Greatjon Umber’s party. Normally, that would be a task for the steward, Vayon Poole, but Cat had taken it upon herself to see to the needs of their visitors as they dismounted, a display of authority and control over her own household that no lord could ignore.

The arrival of the Lord of Last Hearth marked the last of the most important lords of the North, and with him here, Ned would finally be able to set his plans in motion.

He allowed himself to indulge in looking at his wife as she ordered men twice her size with complete confidence, as if she had been born to command. And perhaps so she had, House Tully's greatest lord in the body of a woman. There was no wilting southron flower left in her, if there ever had been. She burned as bright as the colour of her hair, and Ned felt such pride as Cat refused to be pushed around by the lords, unafraid to stand up to surly Lord Rickard Karstark or massive Lord Greatjon Umber when they had muttered unflattering words about her southron faith and newly-built sept.

He had long known himself to be a blessed man, to be married to such a wonderful woman, but now, as he saw her come into her own, Ned felt his insides burn with desire with an intensity he had never known before. He could barely restrain himself anymore, such a sweet temptation Cat’s love was. Though Arya had fatigued her immensely, Maester Luwin had already declared Cat to be fully fit and healthy to bear a child again. It was quite fortunate, too, because given how they had been going at it like hares ever since he had returned to Winterfell, she would before the year was through.

He’d missed it. Cat’s embrace, Robb’s and Jon’s laughter, Sansa’s giggles, the summer snows softly falling over the castle—he had missed it all during those moons away.

Yet, despite how good it felt to be back home, he was so, so tired.

The whole war didn’t exhaust me half as much as a few weeks in Lannisport.

Would Brandon have struggled as much as he did, striking deals with both Tyrells and Boltons all the while keeping an eye on the Lannisters?

No, Ned knew. Of course not. He’d have barged inside of Casterly Rock and dragged out the old lion to die by his tail, politics be damned.

And he would have gotten himself killed in the attempt, just as he did in King’s Landing, that small insidious voice in the back of his head replied. So what difference does it make? 

The worst part was knowing the voice was right. 

Brandon was not a man wont to compromise, but compromise was what he needed to do, if he wanted to keep his family safe. 

Though Lady Olenna had skillfully pulled at the threads of his entire scheme to contain the Lannisters with a Stark–Tyrell alliance, the conversation with her had been a complete success regardless of it. It was a blessing in disguise that the Florents were so spiteful and well-connected with the new regime. With the shipments of grain coming from the South, the North would have a safeguard against the coming winter, and a non-negligible surplus during the summer.

But the situation with the Boltons had left him with a sour taste in his mouth. If Roose Bolton had been an ordinary man, then perhaps the entire affair could have been avoided.

But Roose Bolton was no ordinary man. And, perhaps what’s worse, neither was he an ordinary Bolton.

If he had been anything like his father, the late Lord Reccared, Ned would have dealt with him with iron, blood, and no remorse. A brutish tyrant, Lord Reccared Bolton had terrorised his ancestral lands for years until his vassals had revolted to overthrow him in favour of his young son. However, Lord Reccared had died of a stroke the night before he was to meet the rebels in battle, and the revolt had disbanded, their aims achieved in a round-about way. It was all rather convenient, now that Ned thought of it.

Roose, unlike his father, ruled over a peaceful land and a quiet people with a steady hand. He was mild-mannered, and something of a hypochondriac, given his odd fixation with regular leechings and their supposed benefits on his humours and health.

The Leech Lord, some named him in mockery, but with the reports his informants had gathered, Ned saw no reason to laugh. On the contrary, the name seemed oddly appropriate.

Just like the leeches he favoured, Roose Bolton was a bloodthirsty, implacable man that latched onto whoever he could suck the most out of and drained them dry.

Which, in a way, made things rather straightforward when it came to dealing with him.

My deal must always be the better deal. I cannot afford to be outbid.

And to achieve that, there could be no room for half-measures. He could show no weakness nor hesitation.

Yet, he couldn’t avoid it; his heart wasn’t made of stone. And it weeped in anguish and grief at the thought of what he had to sacrifice for an undivided North. To appease the Boltons.

And oh, how he hated dealing with them. Ever since the Age of Heroes, the Boltons had been a vicious clan, just waiting for an excuse to march on Winterfell with their sharp knives and wooden crosses. Across the centuries, they had been the only house amongst their bannermen that the Starks had never married into. The Boltons were the stuff of nightmares, even more so than the ancient and eldritch evils of Old Nan’s tales, if for no other reason than the fact that they were real.

And, in a way, Roose Bolton was the worst his house had to offer. Not only had Bolton cruelty bred true in Roose, just as it had done with his father and grandfather before him, but the man was, unlike them, terrifyingly cunning and clever.

And Ned was handing him his daughter. 

His soft, sweet, delicate baby Sansa, who cried as often as snow fell, in whom he had yet to see even a flash of steel. And despite Cat explaining that she was young and that she would harden over time, Ned dreaded she wouldn’t.

Or worse: that she would have to suffer for it.

After all, none of his other children had this problem. Even as a gurgling babe, it had been glaringly obvious that Robb was a force of nature, and Jon, who was so similar yet so different, when he set his mind to something he couldn’t be moved. And Arya... 

By the Gods, little Arya!

If Sansa was soft, like the most delicate Myrish lace, then Arya was Valyrian steel. She had fought her way out of her mother’s womb, early enough that it had sent both Cat and Maester Luwin into a panic, and even as they worried and fussed over her, little Arya thrived, never content to remain still in her cot, determined to move and unwilling to stop. 

She would take over the world; he’d barely been back long enough to get to know his littlest girl and he was already certain of it.

And Jon would help her do so. Even now, he encouraged her tirelessly, taking her all over the castle with him and showing her everything there was to see in Winterfell, even when he wasn’t supposed to. More than once Cat had walked into the nursery to find Arya’s crib empty, only for Jon to appear with her an hour or two later. It was enough to drive his poor wife to her wit’s end.

Speak of the devil, Ned smiled when he caught sight of Jon, trying to sneak Arya into the great keep through the servant’s door. The poor boy was struggling to carry a bundle half his size, which wasn’t helped by how unruly and rowdy the babe was.

Yet, Ned’s smile was sad.

His sweet summer children. How would they fare when winter came?

It matters not, Ned decided with renewed vigour, for winter will not find them unprepared.

Ned looked out over the horizon. The sun had almost set.

It was time to meet with his lords.

And so, taking in a deep breath to steel himself, Ned turned away and entered the building.

He wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable pushback he would no doubt face. Northerners were a strong and steady lot, and for that Ned was grateful; he’d take a stubborn and sceptical northerner over a scheming and two-faced southerner any day. At least he could count on their loyalty. But the same stubbornness that made the northern lords such valuable and steadfast allies also made them very resistant to change.

And change was long overdue.

Lord Eddard Stark walked into the main hall, a massive room that held eight long rows of trestle tables, four to each side of the central aisle. Though the hall could seat five hundred people with ease, at the moment it hardly counted sixty men or so, all of them clustered in front of the dais. Guards wearing the Stark livery stood watch at each side of each gate.

They were all there, all the major houses; Umber, Karstark, Cerwyn, Bolton, Dustin, Glover, Hornwood, Mormont, Ryswell, Flint and Manderly, and the better half of the minor ones.

He greeted some of the men as he made his way over to the high table, shaking hands with one-legged Lord Jorah Mormont and evading a bone-crushing bear hug from the massive Lord Hugo Wull, and sat down at the high seat, the old stone throne of the Kings of Winter of centuries past.

“Lord Stark!” the Greatjon called, his voice echoing through the mostly-empty hall. He was sitting the furthest from the Lord’s high seat, and closest to the ironwood doors, as befitting a man who had only just arrived at Winterfell. He still wore his riding leathers. “Is this how you treat your honoured guests?! We’ve been riding for days on end, and upon our arrival you can’t even be arsed to serve us a flagon of ale?!”

“My Lord Umber,” Ned smiled lightly, “you need only look behind you.”

The Greatjon swivelled on the spot, coming face to face with a tiny maid who held a silver platter with roasted ham, baked onions and mashed potatoes, bread and salt and ale to help it along. The poor maid looked utterly terrified, and she bolted from the hall as soon as she put the platter in front of the Greatjon, followed by the amused laughs of some of the lords.

“HAR!” Lord Umber barked a laugh, grabbing the flagon of ale and downing it in one fell swig. “All’s fine, then, Ned, all’s fine.” The other servants stepped in, serving the lords their meals.

Ned, however, had no appetite, playing with his food moreso than actually eating it, but was mindful to eat just enough to keep his vassals from noticing it. It wouldn’t do if they thought him nervous or indecisive.

He’d only achieve his goals if he forced his lords to bend and kept them bent. He couldn’t give a single inch.

Particularly to one certain Lord Ludd Whitehill.

He was keenly aware that the scheme he had concocted heavily favoured Lord Whitehill’s bitter rivals over his house, and the Lord of Highpoint was not the type of man to take it lying down; on the contrary, as a man twice his age (and size), he would try to bully his young overlord into compliance, and for that, Ned was ready. Lord Whitehill’s ensuing humiliation would be turned into an example to the other lords.

Besides, he greatly doubted that Lord Whitehill would find much support or sympathy among the gathered lords.

The Forresters, after all, were held in high esteem all across the North, for they controlled the majority of the ironwood forests in the wolfswood and were skilled craftsmen and fair dealers. Lord Gregor Forrester, too, was an honourable and just man, well-liked by his peers and beloved by his subjects, who called him ‘Gregor the Good’. Despite their modest name, the Forresters were well regarded by all.

Not so the Whitehills. Though no one could deny their craftsmanship, they were haughty and shifty, and had squandered their wealth by preferring short-term gains over a long-term sustainable business model, mismanaging their ironwood trade at every turn. Nowadays, Highpoint was a half-ruined castle overlooking a vast wasteland where no ironwood grew. And to complete the picture, they followed the southron Faith of the Seven instead of the old gods, a predilection the other lords didn’t look on kindly.

Furthermore, in many ways, Lord Ludd Whitehill was the complete opposite to his bitter rival Lord Gregor. He was a pig-headed man, stubborn, spiteful, petty and arrogant. Very few respected him, and even less liked him. Even now, surrounded by his peers, he was ignored in favour of the gregarious Lord Gregor, while he brooded and fumed at the perceived snub.

No, Ned knew. No one would come to Whitehill’s defence. Not even Roose Bolton, Ludd’s direct liege lord, since he had already bought him off.

The scraping sounds of emptying bowls grew louder, and as everyone finished their meals, Ned raised his right hand, calling for their attention. The room fell silent immediately.

“My lords!” he began. “As I’m sure you’re all tired and weary after this war and no doubt wish to return home, I’ll make this quick.” 

Here goes nothing.  

“After Greyjoy’s rebellion, and seeing firsthand the destruction that Lannisport is still recovering from, I have been forced to come to a conclusion: Brandon the Burner was a fucking imbecile.”

Greatjon Umber couldn’t suppress his bark of laughter, and even Roose Bolton, for one fleeting instant, looked nonplussed (inasmuch as Roose Bolton could look nonplussed, anyways). Disparaging one’s own ancestors before a gathering of lords could hardly be considered proper or orthodox, but Ned couldn’t think of a better way to impress the need he was trying to address.

“I know that many of you didn’t bother coming to the farce that was the tourney at Lannisport; and let me tell you that, if I could have gotten out of it, I, too, would have ridden home instead,” he continued, to the laughter and cheers of his lords. “But while I was there, it occurred to me how fortunate it was that the Greyjoys decided to attack the Lannisters instead of us.”

That put an immediate end to their good humour. Ironborn raids were no laughing matter for northerners, who had suffered them for millennia.

Ned’s voice grew grave. “And if they had, we would have been unable to stop them. And who would have rode north to help us throw the bastards back to the sea?” Absolute silence. “You know well that King Robert and I love each other like brothers, but I would not count on him to come to our aid should we need it. Marching North is no small feat. When have they ever joined their swords to ours, when our homes have been threatened by the wildling kings beyond the Wall? It grieves me to say it, my lords, but the hard truth is that to the rest of the realm, we are just not worth the hassle of such a long march.”

Some lords growled or cursed in contempt. The Greatjon, in particular, looked dangerously mutinous, one single push away from drawing his sword and renouncing his vows to the Iron Throne.

“Therefore,” Ned forged on, “it is up to us to defend ourselves from those who would threaten our land and our people. And so we have for centuries, pushing back all invaders who have set foot on our land, from north, south and east. But the truth is that there is still a gap in our defences, and as the Warden of the North and your liege lord, I would be failing my vows to you if I allowed it to remain open.”

“What do you suggest, my lord?” soft-spoken Lord Medger Cerwyn asked.

Ned straightened himself out further, willing himself to project as much authority as he could. “The North is the size of the other six kingdoms in Westeros combined, and yet, we have no permanent fleet protecting us, while the other kingdoms have four. My lords: we need our own standing fleet.”

There was a moment of silence as the lords considered his words. Lord Wyman Manderly’s eyes sparkled like gems as he realised what a boon to his standing such a move would mean. However, not all the lords were as enthusiastic as he was; most seemed doubtful, if not downright apprehensive.

In fact, Manderly’s glee was such that Ned was surprised that Lord Willam Dustin was the one to speak first, and sense to boot. “My lord, the costs of such an endeavour would be…” the Lord of Barrowton trailed off.

Ned had to concede that point. “Aye, it won’t be cheap. Especially considering that we have two shores to look after, and no way to cover them with only one fleet.” It was a strategic nightmare, that was what it was. If only the Neck was navigable… “No, we must build two fleets of similar strength that are able to stand up by themselves.”

Ned could feel the shudder of the assembled lords. Probably because he, too, shuddered slightly at the thought.

“And how do you pretend we finance it?” asked Lord Alaric Flint of Flint’s Finger. “For years your father tried to collect the coin for it to no avail.”

“Things have changed. Under the dragons, we were respected, aye, but to the rest of the realm we were hardly an afterthought, a backwater province they could afford to ignore with no consequence. Now, we sit by the right hand of the new King, and command respect accordingly. It is well known that if it weren’t for our intervention, Aerys would still seat his accursed arse on the throne.” 

That was a half-truth. Aerys’s act of war, the murder of Lord Rickard and his heir, had been against the Starks and the Starks alone, and it was only in his madness that he deemed fit to include Robert Baratheon in his ultimatum to Jon Arryn. Regardless of the outcome, the North had marched in aid of no one but themselves.

“Respected?” the Greatjon scowled. “You said the southron lords care not a rat’s ass for us!”

“I said that they will not march North to help us, no,” Ned agreed, “but they’ll hand their coin willingly, given the right incentive.”

“Pardon me, my lord, but what incentive?” Old Lord Rodrik Ryswell frowned. “We are a proud land, but a poor one.” Resigned, bitter and gruff mutters echoed their agreement.

“I beg to differ,” Ned stated firmly. “This isn't a poor land, my lords, but a fallow and neglected one. Over the years, I’ve scouted out numerous ventures across the North. Besides our well-known ironwood trees, or animal resources such as leather, hides and wool, I’ve been informed that over a hundred mines lay abandoned, most of them of rare precious minerals such as emeralds, marble, amber or jasper. Mayhaps even diamonds.”

“They were abandoned for a reason, my lord,” Lord Rickard Karstark intervened with a huff, his long brown beard shaking. “We have long, cold winters and raids by wildlings and ironborn savages to worry about. Why should we spend what little coin and men we have on such nonsense? Leave the stones to those effete southrons and decadent merchants.”

Ned smiled. “Exactly, my lord of Karstark, exactly!” Lord Karstark, however, was perplexed by Lord Stark’s reaction, for his words were clearly meant to be dismissive. “The North is not lacking in riches, but they remain uncultivated. We do not want them for ourselves, but neither do we trade them to those that do. Can you imagine how much would those ‘effete southrons’ and ‘decadent merchants’ pay for what we have to offer? How much wealth could we amass over the years, if we only traded?” 

Certainly, the North would never be as wealthy and prosperous as the Reach, the Westerlands, or the Riverlands in peacetime; it was a cold, harsh land, with a hardy soil and no guarantee of survival come winter, and no amount of canny trade could ever hope to change that… but it needn’t be a backwater, either.

With a light smile, Ned continued. “Did you know that a single one-carat emerald of average quality, as common a piece as you can find in the market, sells for over twenty five gold dragons? Amber prices, depending on the piece’s size and clarity, can reach well over five hundred. And ironwood, rare as it is across the known world, can be worth even more when sold to the Free Cities.”

Now that got their attention. The northern lords seemed shocked and disbelieving at the thought.

“Is this true?” Lord Dustin asked faintly.

Ned nodded, and made a small gesture with his left hand. At his command, servants sprung forth from a side door, and handed each lord three pages of parchment.

“The first page is a list of prices I compiled myself while browsing the markets of Lannisport. The second are the same prices, but as compiled by Lord Arryn in King’s Landing, while the third is from Oldtown, as given by the Citadel itself, both at my request, so they’re as current as can be. As you can see, there’s some fluctuation, given their respective regions, but I believe it’s more than enough to give ourselves an idea of just how much we could charge for our goods.”

His lords, perhaps for the first time, were all at a loss for words as they all digested this new information. Even Lord Bolton, unflappable and distant to it all, appeared perplexed by the thought of the North being much richer than they had all believed for centuries. Indeed, some lords, like Jorah Mormont or Wyman Manderly, now looked at him with something that bordered on reverence.

“Looks like you’re as rich as a Lannister,” Lord Galbart Glover nudged Lord Gregor Forrester. Though the words had been whispered, the silence that hung over the hall carried them all across the room, and they struck deep in all who listened.

Lord Gregor looked at Glover like he had grown a second head, and then that second head had grown another one of its own, which had then blew a kiss in his direction; the poor man was close to fainting, terrified at the idea of having such wealth in his hands. On the other hand, Lord Ludd was red-faced and fuming, keenly aware that his house had squandered their own share of ironwood long ago.

“So you see, my lords, we are not lacking in riches. We simply have yet to exploit them and trade with those who are willing to pay for them.”

Lord Rodrik Ryswell frowned. “My lord, you certainly have done your research, but you seem to forget that dealing in petty luxuries is an activity far beneath our dignity.” Some lords nodded their agreement, but most were still too enamoured by their prospective wealths to care.

“So said House Westerling,” Ned countered, “and because of it, they are now the proudest beggars in the realm.” Lord Rodrik kept quiet as he pursed his lips, thinking on it and, Ned hoped, seeing the wisdom of his words. “It’s a rather simple situation, my lords. Either we take the initiative and engage in trade with the rest of the known world on our own terms, or we wait until they take notice of our unexploited wealth and foreign troupes of merchants and swindlers arrive to bleed us dry, with nary a groat for our troubles.”

“Hear, hear!” The Greatjon rumbled, banging on the table for emphasis. “Those merchants and traders believe us dim-witted! Here is what I say to them!” He spat, earning cheers from his peers. “They better bring their brown pants, because we will beat the shit out of them at their own game!”

Ned allowed his lords to cheer the Greatjon's words for a moment or two before speaking again. “A Northern Fleet will be expensive, aye, but it is no longer out of our reach.”

“Fleets, you mean,” young and savvy Lady Lyessa Flint of Widow’s Watch pointed out.

“My lady has the right of it,” Ned bowed his head in her direction, conceding his mistake. “Fleets.”

“My lord,” Lord Manderly interjected, “may I ask which ports will serve as the headquarters of said fleets?” If his eyes had been sparkling before, now they were positively beaming like beacons in the dark. If things went according to plan, the morbidly obese man could very well bathe in hundreds of thousands of golden dragons in a matter of years. If his poor heart didn’t give up on him anytime soon, that is.

“White Harbour, naturally, will be the headquarters of the eastern fleet, as it has the most protected and extensive naval infrastructure in the North. For the western fleet, I believe Dunfort, by the Fever’s mouth, is the most logical option.” Lord Flint might take offence, though.

Just so: Lord Alaric was about to raise his voice in protest, incensed at the snub of his own keep in favour of one of Barrowton’s minor bannermen, but Ned cut him off before he could begin.

“Should we face the Greyjoys again, Cape Kraken would be in the frontline of such a conflict, and make it all too easy for them to carry out a surprise attack. After all, they managed to burn the Lannister Fleet right underneath the shadow of Casterly Rock. This fleet will be the only way we can protect our shores, and the only thing stopping the ironborn from killing thousands of innocent people. Please do forgive me if I have offended you in any way, my Lord Flint, but when it comes to the wellbeing of our people, I’m not taking any chances.”

Lord Flint only grumbled in response, upset, but the small shrug he made told Ned that he understood his liege’s point and he would accept it without any further complaint. Manderly smiled pleasantly, relishing the strengthened position he would have with the eastern fleet under his command and all the trade entering the North through White Harbour. Lord Lukas Marsh of Dunfort, meanwhile, was thoroughly flabbergasted by this turn of events, blinking rapidly in incomprehension. His liege Lord Dustin, on the other hand, looked slightly confused, as if wondering if there was any ulterior motive for choosing Dunfort, of all settlements on the western shore, to be the headquarters of their fleet. 

There wasn’t. Dunfort was just extremely well located, protected as it was by the narrow Saltspear. Cape Kraken, on the other hand, could set vantage points along the coast; a system of watchtowers and beacons that can sound the alarm the moment ironborn ships are spotted and call Dunfort for aid.

“Each shore will see to the construction of their respective fleets. My Lord Glover, my Lord Karstark, I believe both of you have under your domains large forests of tinder suitable for shipbuilding, do you not?”

“Aye,” Lord Karstark grumbled in his deep voice, while Lord Glover merely nodded his assent.

“Each of you will supply your respective shores with wood. Lord Manderly, you will send what shipbuilders you can spare to Barrowton to help them get started.” The Lord of White Harbour bowed as deeply as he could with his ginormous girth. That is to say, not very much, but it was heartfelt. “I will grant subsidies to those in need to kickstart our operations and help us along the way,” Ned added. “Please, consult any details regarding their sum and payment with my steward at your earliest convenience.”

He didn’t mention he had asked the Crown for a sizable loan; profitable though their future ventures might be, their profits remained in the future, and he needed hard coin now. It was a most ironic twist of fate that Lannister gold would pay for the walls that would curtail their threat.

Ned allowed himself to lean back on the throne of his ancestors, looking at his lords as they excitedly chattered amongst themselves. He smiled with no little satisfaction. Though they had been sceptical at first, now when confronted with the facts they were putty in his hands, willing to do anything to attain the wealth this new approach promised. But a major issue still remained: the Northern lords were all men of war. Their knowledge of stewardship was limited to martial affairs, and even then some were found lacking. Yet, if the North was to prosper, it was of the utmost importance they managed their new endeavours properly. Should this enterprise fall into mismanagement, the consequences would be dire for them all.

And who better than the Lords Forrester and Whitehill to illustrate such a point?

“There is another matter I wished to notify you of,” he began once again, and silence followed his words. “While at Lannisport, I struck a very lucrative deal with Lord Tyrell to provide Highgarden with ironwood. In exchange, he will send large grain shipments North to help us keep our people fed and bolster our stores for the winter. The terms of this deal have already been agreed.”

There were some mutters across the tables. Some were excited at the prospect of the Reach’s bountiful grain filling their storages, but most were apprehensive, and for good reason: the ironwood trade was a very thorny issue, given the vivid hostility between the two largest providers.

“My Lord Forrester. My Lord Whitehill. As between the two of you you control most of the suitable ironwood forests in the North, this concerns you both, so step forward, if you please,” Ned beckoned both lords to stand on the central aisle. They duly obeyed.

Standing in front of him, Ned wondered if both lords could be any more dissimilar. Where Lord Whitehill was fat and wide, Lord Forrester was lean and sinewy; Ludd Whitehill had strawberry blonde curls and a clean-shaved face, inflated and with a second chin, while Gregor Forrester had closely trimmed dark hair and beard that was starting to grey, and hard, chiselled features. 

And Ludd was fuming at having to stand side-by-side with his bitter rival, while Gregor kept perfectly stoic, pointedly ignoring Whitehill.

“Lord Ludd,” Ned began, “the ironwood craftsmanship of your house is highly prestigious across the realm, and Lord Tyrell has explicitly requested that you provide Highgarden with a handful of your artisans. They are to establish their own guild at the capital of the Reach, and teach the Reachmen to work the ironwood. Rest assured, you will be handsomely rewarded.”

As he heard his words, Lord Ludd began smiling an ugly, self-satisfied smile, leering derisively at Lord Gregor, as if goading him into complaining. To his credit, the Lord of Ironrath refused to bite the bait.

Normally, the sight would be grotesque enough to ruin Ned’s day, but Lord Stark knew that it would not last. He took a small degree of pleasure at the idea of how his next words would wipe the smug look from Whitehill’s face.

“Lord Gregor, your task might not be as glamorous, but it is just as important. Your house is to supply the Reach with the raw ironwood materials they require. Though the individual, untreated log is not worth as much as the finished product, I believe that, over time, the fruits of your efforts will grow to become as rich as Lord Whitehill’s.” 

That was a bold-faced lie. While the Tyrells would be paying the Whitehills a significant sum to move the artisans to Highgarden, it would only be a single payment. And while it would swell Highpoint's coffers sevenfold, far more than what the Forresters would receive for their first shipment, under Lord Gregor’s steady hand, Ned didn’t doubt that in time the Forresters would grow just as fat as the Manderlys. After all, the first shipment was just that—the first. Of how many, that was entirely up to the Forresters and their stewardship.

It was a perfectly reasonable plan, all things considered. After all, the Whitehills had squarended their ironwood forests generations ago and therefore, they were unable to provide the ironwood shipments House Tyrell desired. And Ned would not promise the Tyrells terms he didn’t believe he could keep… Or, more precisely, terms he didn’t trust Ludd Whitehill to keep.

What other alternative did he have? Have Lord Gregor give them ironwood saplings and wait for a new forest to grow? He didn’t have the time for that. Or was he to rob the Forresters of their rightful share of the ironwood trees just so Whitehill could play too? It would be a lawless and illegitimate act, and it would only turn his lords against him at a time where what he needed the most was an undivided North.

And all of that... for what? So the Whitehills could have another forest to ruin? Ludd Whitehill was lucky he was getting this much out of the deal, considering the way his family had so horribly mismanaged their resources over the past seven generations. In fact, he was lucky he had even been considered in the first place.

The deal was heavily skewed in favour of the Forresters, and everyone in the room knew it. Not least of them Ludd Whitehill himself, whose face was frozen in a rictus of distress, horror and wrath.

Ned couldn’t spare the slightest bit of sympathy for the man’s plight; though he had nothing against House Whitehill itself, a man as unpleasant and vexatious as Ludd deserved being taken down a notch. As far as Ned was concerned, Ludd Whitehill had no valid grounds to complain.

Oh, but complain he did.

“What? My lord…! How…?! How can you do this?! This is outrageous!” he blustered, stammering over his words in sheer indignation, his fat face turning red. “It’s unfair!”

It just couldn’t be that easy, could it? He sighed internally. Though he wasn’t surprised in the very least at the complaint, Ned made sure to put on a good show of befuddlement. He had set up the farce, after all; might as well play along.

“My lord, your reaction puzzles me. Mere seconds ago, you appeared to be rather pleased as to the terms agreed with House Tyrell.”

“Mere seconds ago, I hadn’t yet been witness to such rotten favouritism!” Whitehill bellowed, and the temperature of the room dropped.

“This is no favouritism, my lord, but the only logical option,” Ned stated firmly, but with practised gentleness, careful to keep a conciliatory tone. “Your share of the suitable ironwood has been steadily decreasing for generations, and though I do not doubt your stewardship, the truth of the matter is that your domains are simply ill-equipped to meet Highgarden’s demand.”

“They’ve decreased, aye, because they have stolen our rightful share!”

Protests erupted across the hall, accusations of slander and lies being thrown at Ludd. It was a blatant display of how much the northern lords favoured the Forresters over the Whitehills, yet Ludd, drunk on his wrath, remained oblivious to it all.

Ned raised his hand in a half-hearted attempt to stop Lord Whitehill. “Lord Forrester has been a most faithful bannerman—” 

“And so have I! Twice I’ve followed you into war, and this is how you reward me? With so blatant a slight?! No, I see what’s going on here quite clearly! You’re favouring him only because Forrester’s your second cousin!” Lord Ludd snarled.

He is? Ned idly wondered. Though, now that Whitehill mentioned it, he seemed to recall that his great-aunt, Alysanne, daughter of Lord Beron Stark, had married Lord Geralt Forrester, Lord Gregor’s grandfather. Huh. That would explain the resemblance.

“After all, what have the Forresters ever done to deserve any honours?! Nothing! They’re two-faced, backstabbing thieving bastards!” Whitehill spat, pointing a spiteful, grubby finger at Lord Forrester.

Ned had to scratch his nose to hide his smile. Good. Keep digging your own grave, my Lord Whitehill.

“Don’t lay the blame on me for your own mistakes, Whitehill,” Lord Gregor swatted Whitehill’s hand away, scowling.

“Mistakes?! What mistakes?! It’s you that’s the problem, Forrester! You take the best land, the lion’s share of the water, the best contracts, and now you’re taking the best of this deal too!” Ludd Whitehill’s voice rose until it was almost a shriek. “Our artisans have honed their craft over generations! They’re far superior than yours, as are our loggers and foresters! But you have to take everything from us, don’t you?! Aye, I’ve made mistakes, alright! I should have fought for what’s rightfully mine!”

Now that caused an outrage. Screams and cries rose up to the roof, none louder than the Greatjon’s bellow.

“YOU DARE THREATEN SOMEONE UNDER LORD STARK’S ROOF, WHITEHILL?!”

The lords had turned mutinous. Lord Glover, in particular, appeared murderous, and had to be held back by Lord Ashwood and Lord Karstark, though given the look on their faces they’d sooner join Glover than stop him.

Indeed, it seemed as though the only lords still silent only numbered three: Lord Forrester, for a man who’d just been threatened, showed remarkable poise and composure, only glaring with icy contempt at his enemy. Lord Bolton only seemed mildly displeased by the whole situation, but his cold, dead eyes bore into his bannerman with unfathomable intent.

And then there was Lord Stark himself, who idly caressed his bearded chin, deep in thought as he belatedly realised that, perhaps, Whitehill’s complaints weren’t entirely without merit. Ironrath was located deep in the northern Wolfswood, while Highpoint was to its eastern periphery, where forest gave way to the barren moors and fields of the Lonely Hills.

The Forresters have always been able to produce more. They always had the better land, and the Whitehills over-harvested in an attempt to keep up.

That had been Ludd Whitehill’s mistake, and his father’s and his forefathers’ before him, for as long as this quarrelsome Whitehill-Forrester enmity had existed. In their attempt to become the leaders of the ironwood trade, they had pushed too hard what meagre resources they had and lost it all, turning an insurmountable material disadvantage into a crippling failure. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but feel a small pang of sympathy.

He rapidly pushed it aside. What matters is the fact that they have no resources left, not what led them to such a state, Ned thought, ever more certain he had made the right choice. Anyone who can be goaded by pride and profit into driving their House into the ground cannot be trusted with something of this importance. Much less when it’s Olenna Tyrell the one sitting on the opposite end of the table.

In the meantime, Whitehill had kept screaming and ranting, face red, short of breath, enraged beyond wit and reasoning, mouth moving faster than his mind. It was a most perilous situation.

For Lord Whitehill.

Ned was forcefully called into attention when he saw Whitehill turn to face him, eyes blazing and wild.

“Did you know that when the Mad King killed your father, he wrote to each and every one of us, declaring House Stark to be attainted, and called for us to rally against you?! I could have marched on Winterfell and seized it before you even knew! I had the numbers, too! I had them mustered! What did Winterfell have to protect it?! Nothing but a dying bitch! I could have done it! I wanted to do it! But I didn’t!” Whitehill declared, too far gone in his wrath to realise the words coming out of his mouth. “I didn’t!"

A deathly silence took hold of the great hall, nothing but the forceful panting of a faltering and sobering Lord of Highpoint.

It was only due to the sacred laws of guest right that Lord Whitehill lived to realise his catastrophic blunder, instead of finding himself torn to shreds by the enraged Northern Lords, but the way they hovered nearby spoke volumes of their desire to do as much. All it would take was a sign from their lord, and Ludd Whitehill would cease to be within the minute.

But Lord Eddard Stark gave no such sign. He stayed silent, silent and still as the statues in the crypts.

And then he stood up, slowly walking forward. With every step he took, Ludd Whitehill flinched and cowered more and more, keenly aware of his deadly mistake.

“Aye,” Lord Stark rumbled dangerously. “You could have done it, just as anyone else here. Yet, for some unfathomable reason, it would appear you actually gave thought to the matter, something no other lord did. And even if they had, they do not have the brazen audacity to then try to claim a reward for doing the bare minimum that is asked of a bannerman. What you speak of, my Lord, is treason.”

“M-My Lord… I- I am innocent! I have done no treason! I have committed no crimes! I didn’t do it! I didn’t!” 

“The fact that you did not is the only reason why your head remains atop your shoulders. I cannot judge you for crimes you did not commit. But you won’t go unpunished.”

“My… My Lord…” Whitehill whimpered, his blustering bravado long gone.

“Your part of the Tyrell deal is henceforth forfeit. Lord Forrester: as of now, all the duties and benefits accorded by the deal with Highgarden rest solely upon you, and all their profits are for you alone to receive. Administer it wisely. Let not a single groat of it ever grace Highpoint’s coffers.”

Lord Forrester smiled his own ugly smirk. “Nothing would please me more, Lord Stark.”

Whitehill opened his mouth, but no words came out of it, as Lord Stark cut him off sharply.

“Now leave, Lord Whitehill. I will not suffer your presence any longer. You are not welcome in Winterfell.”

Stark guardsmen closed in on Whitehill, ready to carry him out by force if necessary, but for the first time since the assembly began, Ludd Whitehill knew his place. Lowering his head in shame, he turned around and walked towards the great hall’s gate, followed by the hateful hisses and curses of his peers.

“And that ‘dying bitch’ was my mother, Lord Whitehill,” Stark spoke again, voice harsh and cold as winter, bringing silence to the great hall. “Lady Lyarra Stark, brought low by the crabs in her belly and finished off by the news of the monstrous deaths of her husband and her firstborn, and the abduction of her only daughter. Remember her name, Lord Whitehill, because if you dare disrespect it again, it will be the last thing you do.”

Chapter Text

> 290.

“You wished to see me, father?”

His father, not raising his eyes from the letter he was currently reading, nodded curtly, lazily holding a cup of hippocras in his left hand. He was still wearing the riding leathers he had on when he had arrived back to the Dreadfort earlier in the morning.

Silence hung on the dark and smoky solar, the dim torches held by skeletal human hands and the fireplace behind the lord’s desk being the only sources of light in the room.

Domeric fidgeted slightly before his father, who had only just returned after more than six moons away. “It’s good to see you,” he said tentatively.

“You are to be fostered at Winterfell,” his father stated, without giving any sign he had listened to Domeric’s words. He didn’t even look up to meet his eye.

Domeric didn’t flinch at his father’s bluntness. He would be lying if he said he’d never longed for some warmth, or perhaps a few kind or encouraging words, but he knew all too well that his father was a cold, silent man. And he knew that he loved him in his own way, despite his inability to express it.

Or at least, that was what his mother said, and she had never lied to him.

And his mother had told him he was to be fostered at Barrowton.

With a frown, he spoke, “Mother told me—”

“Your mother is not up to date with the latest developments,” Lord Bolton interrupted evenly. “You will go to Winterfell, and will be raised alongside Lord Stark’s trueborn children. Are we clear?”

“I…” Domeric stuttered, confused. “Ah…”

“Domeric.” His father crumpled the letter he had been reading into a ball and threw it offhandedly to the fireplace behind his chair. His father’s cold grey eyes met his own, younger and warmer, but just as pale nonetheless. “I need not stress the importance of this assignment. Do I?”

“No, father,” he nodded.

And it was true; Domeric was young, yes, but well-versed in the history of the North. He was all too aware about the complicated and bloody history of war and antagonism that House Stark and House Bolton shared for thousands of years.

It was to his great frustration that the wars never seemed to end, an endless cycle of violence fed by an insatiable desire of vengeance against the other. House Stark killed a member of House Bolton, so House Bolton flayed a member of House Stark, so House Stark killed a member of House Bolton, and so on and on and on, until the Wall fell and the world ceased to be.

Several times, as he read the histories Maester Tybald had given him, Domeric wondered why they were utterly unable to find a lasting peace and put an end to all the bloodshed. His mother had laughed softly, and told him he would understand once he grew up. His father hadn’t even deigned fit to answer.

This was their chance to put an end to it all.

This was his chance to put an end to it all.

“Good,” Roose Bolton replied. “You’ll leave in a fortnight. Walton will escort you. Much is riding on this, Domeric. The future of our House will be decided by your actions.”

“I won’t let you down, father,” Domeric promised with a nod.

“No,” his father made a strange, awkward grimace, his mouth stilted in an unnatural, eldritch angle. Domeric knew him well enough to know it was meant to be a smile. “You won’t.”

Winterfell was a permanent fixture in the histories Domeric read, the backdrop against which oaths, sieges, conspiracies and murders happened. In his mind's eye, Winterfell was never all too different from the Dreadfort: located in a dark, forested place, covered with white snow even in the warmest of summer days; imposing walls rising high, an ageless monstrosity of stone, worthy home of the vicious warlords that had been the Kings of Winter of old.

The fortress that rose on the horizon was everything he had imagined and more, so much more. Indeed, it made the Dreadfort, a majestic keep in its own right, feel almost inadequate in comparison. The size of a small city, the capital of the North was encompassed by two curtain walls of the castle as tall as the Dreadfort’s highest tower, with a deep and wide moat filled with water between them making Winterfell virtually unassailable.

That explains much, Domeric mused. Assaulting the castle would be suicide.

The terrain upon which Winterfell was built had never been levelled, old brooks canalised or replaced with streets of cobblestones and lined with buildings of uneven heights, connected by covered walkways and bridges, the smell of mud, timber, smoke and life all around.

Ringed inside an inner citadel rose high above him was what Domeric presumed to be the Great Keep, a massive, heavily turreted bastion that dwarfed the whole castle under its height and scale. Not far away, outside the inner stronghold, was an old, squat, crumbling keep, made to appear shorter than its size due to its unimpressive ancient First Men design and its proximity to the colossal broken tower next to it.

It is often the consolation of lesser men to pass judgment on things they don’t understand, his father always answered whenever Domeric asked him about the truth behind the claims his history books made about his ancestors; tales about wars, massacres, torture and bloodshed. I will not have my son be ashamed of his House or the customs it has honoured since times immemorial, he sentenced.

And yet, his horse had barely stepped through the drawbridge on the east gate when he was overcome with a shame he had never felt before.

I shouldn’t be here.

He could feel the eyes of the populace of Winterfell’s winter town glaring at him with distrust, if not outright contempt. What had he ever done to wrong them, but share his surname and his colours with the Red Kings millennia since dead who had besieged, starved and razed Winterfell to the ground?

He knew that House Stark was not blameless in the wars of the past; Maester Tybald had gone to great lengths to emphasise that no one was blameless in history, and House Stark was no exception. The direwolves had, after all, asserted their dominance of the North by subjugating every rival king in the land by right of arms, a hard and slow process that had been paid with the blood of millions across the aeons.

But they never flayed their enemies, Domeric brooded, keeping his gaze down, nor wore their skins as cloaks.

By the other end of the large inner courtyard, in front of the Great Keep’s heavy ironwood doors, stood the Stark family.

Lord Eddard was as average a man as there had ever been one, with a long, unremarkable face framed by a straight brown hair and a full beard, but the solemnity with which he carried himself made him appear larger and more imposing than he was. Next to him stood his wife, Lady Catelyn, a Tully of Riverrun by birth and a beautiful, high-cheeked woman with bright auburn hair. Next to them, barely standing still were two boys of the same age, one with an auburn mop and blue eyes and the other with dark brown curls and grey eyes, but both equally excitable and clad in white and grey; Domeric supposed they were Robert and Jon, Lord Eddard’s twin sons, but he’d be damned if he could tell which was which.

Two younger children, one boy and one girl, stood besides them, the boy half covering the girl’s frame with his body. The girl was auburn haired, and looked at him with her blue eyes wide open, full of curiosity, but the boy was dark of colouring, and his brown eyes had nothing but open distrust. Domeric had no idea of who they were meant to be, nor who was the tall, thin man with blue eyes that stood by Lord Eddard’s other side, or the towering, fierce and elegant woman next to him. Given the bear clasp holding her cloak together, Domeric wagered her to be a Mormont. He could be mistaken, but she appeared to be with child.

Standing somewhat aside from the Starks was a boy slightly older than Domeric himself, dark eyed and dark skinned, with messy black hair, and a sullen expression, a golden kraken emblazoned in his black doublet.

A Greyjoy? Domeric frowned, confused by the presence of the realm's most recent enemy in the midst of Lord Stark's household, but before he could dwell on it, his horse came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard. He dismounted with practised ease, and walked towards Lord Stark. Once standing in front of him, Domeric dropped to a knee.

“Lord Stark,” he greeted in a deliberate imitation of his own father’s soft but firm voice. It came out weird and stilted, and Domeric flinched internally.

“My Lord of Bolton,” Lord Stark nodded, his grey eyes unreadable. He didn’t seem to notice Domeric’s trembling voice. “I bid you welcome to Winterfell. I hope it will be of your liking.”

In response, Domeric voiced the two words that would have sent his father, the real Lord Bolton, into a fit of black rage, frothing at the mouth. He only hoped he knew what he was doing.

“I’m sorry.”

It felt as if the whole courtyard had been deprived of air by so many people gasping, either surreptitiously (as Lady Stark did) or not (the mistrustful boy exclaimed a disbelieving ‘What?!’ before being shushed by the towering Mormont woman). Even the excitable twins stopped fidgeting to look at him attentively.

Lord Stark blinked, confused. “For what crimes? You are not to blame for the actions of your ancestors,” he stated kindly, but his voice was firm and strong, reaching every corner of the courtyard, as his eyes made a sweeping gaze. “It bodes poorly for us if we continue to be constrained by the chains of the past. The North remembers, aye, but we cannot move forward if our eyes remain forever fixated on the past.”

To emphasise his point, he extended his right arm to Domeric to help him stand. With barely a moment of hesitation, Domeric accepted his hand and Lord Stark swiftly raised him from his knees.

“Welcome to your new home, Domeric Bolton. Come, let me introduce you to my family.”

At this point, perhaps, it might be better to stop expecting things about other people. He would probably live longer, too.

He had been mistaken about Balon Greyjoy. He had been mistaken about Theon. And now, too, he had been mistaken about Domeric Bolton.

The Greyjoys, he expected to be brawny and bullish, as Ironborn are often thought to be. Hairy messes of muscles and rage, iron and blood, and with the pungent smell of salt water clinging to them like flies to dung.

But both Greyjoys had been lean and well-built. Personality wise, Balon was as unpleasant as only a rabid zealot bent on restoring an ancient custom of pillage, rape and murder could be (that is to say, quite). Theon, on the other hand, was quiet and bright, but brooding and mistrustful, likely due to the lack of affection he had suffered on Pyke. It would be a long and arduous process to get through the walls Theon had built around himself, but Ned was determined to be the father the boy deserved and needed.

Domeric Bolton, meanwhile, had been more or less the exact opposite. Appearance-wise, he was very much Lord Roose Bolton’s miniature, plain and pale, with dark, limp hair and eerily pallid eyes. Certainly, no one could doubt the boy’s parentage. That much, Ned had expected.

But he was surely caught off-guard when Domeric Bolton bowed and asked for forgiveness for the crimes of his ancestors; for the blood shed by the Red Kings of the Dreadfort, and for the many Starks that had met a grisly demise by their hands.

And Ned wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or suspicious.

Such a gesture was sure to ingratiate him to Winterfell, a place that had no love for House Bolton. And Domeric had just publicly taken distance from his forefathers, condemning them as aggressors.

And Roose Bolton would never command his heir to do something like that. He was an ambitious and cunning man, no one could deny that, but never one to compromise his pride.

Which meant that Domeric had done so out of his own volition. But why? 

Either Domeric was genuine about his regret… Or he knew exactly what the reaction to those words would be, and acted accordingly.

The latter scenario did not bode well for the future.

Still, Ned supposed, it’s some consolation that Domeric will be fostered here. With him in Winterfell, he would be able to keep a close eye on Domeric Bolton, and stamp out any perversion or cruel behaviour before it could ever truly take root. Perhaps he would be able to finally break the cycle of Bolton cruelty and cunning.

And if he failed, then at the very least Ned had an extremely valuable hostage.

“Tell me, Robb, what do you know about House Tyrell?” his father asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. They were alone in the Lord’s solar, lord and heir.

Robb frowned. Maester Luwin had been teaching him, Jon and Anton about the Great Houses of Westeros, but they had been on the topic for barely over a moon, and he had found out that, unlike Jon, he didn’t exactly have the best memory for things unrelated to warfare. 

It’s not my fault they’re so boring, he brooded mulishly, but his father was looking at him expectantly, and Robb didn’t want to disappoint him. And so he answered carefully, mulling every one of his words before saying them as he chewed on his lip.

“They’re the Lords of Highgarden. They rule over the Reach…” What else, what else… “They… uh, claim descent from Garth the Gardener, but they never ruled as kings.” He racked his brain in search for some more information when, suddenly, everything fell into place with a snap. “Oh! They served as stewards to the Kings of the Reach, but when the last Gardener king and his heirs were killed on the Field of Fire, they surrendered Highgarden to Aegon Targaryen. He rewarded them by raising House Tyrell to Lords of Highgarden, and Lords Paramount of the Reach!” he finished with a wide grin.

“Right you are,” his father nodded, a satisfied look on his face. His approval filled Robb with pride. “I want you to write a letter to them.”

Of cou— wait. What?!

“You want me to do what?” Robb asked, taken aback.

“I want you to write a letter,” his father repeated patiently. “Addressed to Highgarden.”

“But… I’m just a child.” And despite how much it hurt his pride to say it out loud, it was true; he was barely halfway through his sixth year of life. The largest responsibility he had ever undertaken was not messing the armoury up when he stored back the wooden swords with which he sparred, which was a responsibility he always fulfilled with the utmost zeal, even though Jon had seemed to make it his new life goal to frustrate him at every turn.

“And so is the person you’re writing to.”

Robb tilted his head in confusion. Huh?

“You aren’t writing to Lord Mace” — phew — “you are writing to his daughter, Lady Margaery. She’s a year younger than you.”

“Ohhh!” he drawled, nodding in understanding. Of course, it all made sense now!

… Wait, no, it didn’t. At all. “Why?”

“I reached an agreement with Lady Olenna Tyrell—”

“The Queen of Thorns?” Robb interrupted, unable to stifle his curiosity. Old Nan had told him tales about the sharp tongued Lady Dowager of the Reach, each of them wilder than the last.

“Aye. Don’t call her that, though, it’s disrespectful,” his father admonished him pointedly. “As I was saying, I reached an agreement with her about a rapprochement with the Reach.” At Robb’s blank stare, his father changed his wording. “We’re to become friends, if you will.”

Not that he was opposed to becoming friends with the Tyrells, but… “And what does that have to do with me?”

“One of the things we agreed on was that Lady Margaery and you would keep correspondence with each other in order to strike a friendship and foster closer relations between Winterfell and Highgarden.”

Oh. Politics… Robb winced a little. Bringing politics on the table was the surest way to get him to stop paying attention to his lessons, to Maester Luwin’s great despair.

His father noticed his reaction.

“You don’t like politics?” His face was unchanged, but Robb thought he sounded disappointed.

He nodded, red-faced and ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

“Easy, boy. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I haven’t taught you politics so far, and even if I did, at six I doubt it would make any difference; you barely care about much else than swords and knights as it is.” He’s got me there, Robb conceded. “We’ll start having weekly lessons about this when you’re seven. For now, though, I want you to take this quote in mind, so pay attention: ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means.’”

Robb frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“That’s what I want you to explain to me by your seventh name day. I’ll give you a hint, though: try switching the words’ places.”

‘Politics is the continuation of war by other means’...?

“They’re not so different as you might think, you know,” his father stated casually before Robb could dwell on it any further. “And just as Alyn the Oakenfist broke the Plankytown to aid in Daeron’s conquest of Dorne, you will do your part in our increased cooperation with House Tyrell. Can I count on you, Robb?”

“Of course, father. I won’t let you down,” he vowed eagerly.

His father smiled warmly at him. “I know you won’t. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.” His words made Robb swell with pride, and he felt like he could take on the world.

Then Robb remembered he still had a letter to write and he had no idea how to go on about it.

“And… what exactly should I write?” he deflated, awkwardly fidgeting with his doublet’s collar.

Robb wasn’t exactly sure what he expected for an answer. How could he even start to forge a friendship with some girl he had never even met? Should he write her some poetry? Talk with her about the gods, even though he followed the Old Gods and she most likely followed the Seven? Engage with her in a detailed and comprehensive discussion of Daeron I’s campaign against Dorne? Sure, that last one was a long shot, but a boy could dream, right?

He knew not what he wanted for an answer, but he hoped it was some hint about how to proceed. But no, his father did none of that. Instead, he did something truly, mind-shatteringly horrible in reply:

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. Introduce yourself? Ask her some questions about Highgarden and her family? There’s no need to overthink it. For me, it’s politics. But for you, it’s just making a new friend. I’m sure you’ll think of something. Bring me your letter by the end of the day, so I can give it to Maester Luwin and send it.” His father smiled playfully at him. “Now off you go, go have fun before the sun comes down.”

War is the continuation of politics by other means, and politics is the continuation of war by other means.

The phrase had stuck in Robb’s head like an arrow, and kept him from finishing the incomplete letter sitting upon his desk, instead twirling his quill between his fingers as he contemplated on it, the dim light of his candle filling his room with dancing shadows.

War is politics by other means, and politics is war by other means.

It made some sense, he supposed.

War always had (or should have) a purpose beyond the honours and glories it bestowed upon their heroes, and what was that purpose if not political? Thinking back on the rebellions against the Targaryens, the rebels had always had a certain goal that, to be achieved, required open warfare because they were unable to achieve them by peaceful means.

The Defiance of Duskendale was one such example. By taking Mad King Aerys captive, Lord Denys Darklyn hoped to gain further privileges and standing that the Hand of the King, Lord Tywin Lannister, had refused him.

But all he got out of that mess was getting himself and his whole house slaughtered, Robb frowned. True, Lord Darklyn might have used warfare as an alternative to his political ambitions, but that didn’t mean he was wise about it. Seriously, what did he expect would happen? That Aerys would just agree to his demands and not retaliate? Even I know better than that…

The Blackfyre rebellions, too, were backed by lords, the so-called almighty vassals such as Houses Yronwood, Peake, Reyne or Bracken, that were unhappy with the Targaryen monarchy, and expected further gains from Daemon than from Daeron; perhaps, even, becoming the new overlords of their regions. Political change, brought upon by force of arms.

And where warriors are unsuitable, politicians fight their own battles, Robb thought with some satisfaction at the progress he had made on his assignment. Paradoxically, he felt his satisfaction simultaneously deepen and turn into dread as it dawned on him. Father wants me to be both.

But if politics and warfare were, indeed, so similar… then why shouldn’t he think of politics like he thought of war? Skirmishes, shock tactics, flanking movements, sieges, deceit, trickery…

His train of thought was interrupted by his bedchamber doors opening abruptly. Robb jumped on his seat and turned to see his younger, mismatched twin staring at him questioningly.

“What are you writing?” Jon asked immediately, walking towards him and trying to get a look into Robb’s letter.

Play it cool, Robb.

‘Oh, I’m just doing special Heir-to-Winterfell work; nothing you should concern yourself with, L I T T L E brother. Go play with the other children.’

Oooh, that’s perfect. Alright, now say it.

“N-NOTHING! GET OUT! LEAVE ME ALOOOOOOONE!” he shrieked instead with extreme vehemence, flapping his arms around like a madman.

… Crap.

Robb tried to swat Jon away, but his twin evaded him, his attention fixed on the parchment he had on his desk.

“Ooh, what are they? Letters to your girlfriend?” Jon mocked.

“I don’t have a girlfriend!”

“Then who are you writing to?”

“Margaery Tyrell,” Robb informed him, then immediately regretted it when he saw Jon’s eyes twinkle mischievously. Double crap.

“So you do have a girlfriend!” Jon grinned evilly.

Robb’s face reddened. “I don’t!”

“You do!”

“No, I don’t, stupid!”

“Then why are you writing to Lady Tyrell, eh?”

“Because Father told me to!”

At that, Jon frowned.

“Why, though?”

“Politics,” Robb summarised in a single word. ‘Heir-to-Winterfell work’. He wasn’t sure he understood anything beyond that, too.

“Sounds boring,” his twin grimaced.

“Well, it could be worse,” he shrugged, thinking back on the reflection he had had before Jon had so rudely interrupted him.

Jon looked at him like he had just told him politics were not that boring. It was just that insane. “‘Could be worse’? But you hate politics! Gods know you’re driving poor Maester Luwin up the walls…”

“I’m… not so sure anymore, to be honest,” Robb pursed his lips. “Father told me that war is the continuation by other means. And the more I think about it, I think he’s right.”

“He’s always right,” Jon waved off as he threw himself into his bed. “Still, what about it?”

“It’s just that… Well, the way he says that, it makes it sound like they’re different sides of the same coin. As if one cannot be without the other, because they’re one and the same, I guess,” he paused, thinking. “Y’know, like war is politics fought on a battlefield, and politics are war fought with words,” Robb especulated. To be honest, he didn’t feel like he had yet struck gold on that matter, and even if he did, he still had to lime the rough edges.

“Hmmm. Makes sense,” Jon said, staring at the roof.

“At least, thinking about it that way makes it more fun.”

“Maybe,” his twin agreed noncommittally.

Robb looked at him suspiciously.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you to finish your letter to your girlfriend" – Jon put a teasing emphasis on the last word. Robb rolled his eyes in annoyance – “so we can go play with Theon and Domeric. Theon says he wants to show us a game from the Iron Islands, and he swears it’s going to be fun, and mother says it’s a good opportunity to become better friends with them, so why not?”

Robb shrugged. His father’s wards had, despite his initial doubts, proven to be friendly people and fun companions in the moons since they had arrived; he wouldn’t refuse to hang out with them outside of their shared lessons. “Sure,” he said, turning towards the letter on his desk. “Just give me a minute.”

A beat.

“Or two.”

Another beat.

He scratched his chin with his quill.

“On second thought, I can finish the letter later.”

Dear Margaery Tyrell,

My name is Robert Stark, but everyone calls me Robb. I live in Winterfell with my parents, my younger twin Jon, my little sisters Sansa and Arya, and my cousin Anton. I’m the eldest of them all, so one day I’m going to be the Lord of Winterfell, too. Winterfell is cold but very pretty. How is Highgarden?

I’m almost seven, and I would like to grow up to be a good lord one day. I like riding and practising swordplay, but Ser Rodrik, our master-at-arms, says we’re too young to use steel swords yet. What do you like to do?

Yesterday, my father’s ward, Theon Greyjoy, showed us a game from the Iron Islands called the ‘finger dance’. It was fun, until my mother arrived and made us stop. She was very angry, but she’s usually very kind. How is your family?

I hope to hear from you soon.

Robb Stark.

Dear Robb Stark,

Thank you so much for your letter! I’ve never received a letter directed to me before, so this is very exciting and new to me. Winterfell is so far away, too.

Highgarden is very big and beautiful. We always have bards and singers coming and going to Highgarden, and tourneys are very common, too. Do you have singers and tourneys in Winterfell, too?

I live with my three elder brothers, Willas, Garlan and Loras, and I have many many uncles and aunts and cousins, too. I like when Willas reads me stories. I also like playing hide and seek in the briar maze with Loras. Some of my older cousins pick on Garlan because he’s fat, but he’s always very nice to everyone. My brothers usually do swordplay with each other. I would like to join them, but my mother says it’s not ladylike. I also like riding horses. Have you ever gone hawking?

I’ve never heard about that game. When I asked my grandmother about it, she said it was a silly thing Ironborn do when they drink too much. It sounds like fun. Why do grown-ups dislike fun?

How long do the letters take from Winterfell to Highgarden? I wrote this letter on the third day of the sixth moon. When did you receive it?

Looking forward to your reply,

Margaery Tyrell.

> 292.

Jon circled his opponent, shield raised and his sword poised to strike at any second, like a wolf stalking his prey. His prey, however, was undaunted, and only looked back at him in defiance, shieldless, holding his sword in both hands and his guard open like a fool’s, his sword resting lightly by his leg.

He’s got something in mind, Jon knew, as he eyed his brother warily. Robb, ever since he had begun taking personal lessons with their father, was rapidly developing an ability to think outside the box. It was not like him to present an obvious vulnerability without having some sort of trap sprung beneath it.

The odd part, Jon reflected as he waited for his brother to make the first move, was that they actually shared the lessons; their father, as a second son himself, knew very well that it would be irresponsible to teach rulership to his heir only, when he might die in an untimely manner without ever reaching the lordship, like uncle Brandon had. Despite that, Robb was somehow getting far more out of the lessons than Jon, filled with an ambition and willingness to experiment he simply lacked. It annoyed him, somewhat; he had gotten used to being the clever one.

Seeing that Robb wasn’t going to take the offensive anytime soon, Jon made a tentative strike. Robb immediately parried Jon’s lunge, and with a quick twist, he made a strong riposte that Jon only barely managed to block with his shield.

Taking advantage of the fact that Robb had no shield, Jon quickly remised, swinging his sword against his twin’s legs, but he sidestepped backwards, suddenly out of Jon’s range, his strike missing by mere inches.

“ROBB!” Ser Rodrik barked, interrupting their sparring cold. “Where is your shield?”

“I… It slows me down, Ser,” Robb replied, scratching the back of his neck. “With both hands I can give my swing more strength.”

“Aye, but it leaves you twice as vulnerable,” Ser Rodrik’s whiskers shook with each word that left his mouth. “We’ll practise two-handed swordplay when you’re older. For now, I want you to use a sword and shield. Go get yours.”

“Can’t we practise the techniques Karlon has been teaching father?” Robb asked.

Ser Rodrik’s mouth turned into a fine line, before replying curtly, “When you’re older. Go get your shield.”

Robb frowned, but didn’t argue any further. If Jon knew his twin at all, he was brooding something along the lines of ‘Just how old do you want me to be?’, given that Ser Rodrik had been saying those words for over a year.

Karlon was a crannogman who had suddenly showed up one day last year and promised to teach them new unorthodox ways of fighting, like the dual wielding a sword and a knife, or the more lithe, swift-footed moves of the crannogmen; all of his drills were more focused on endurance and speed than the usual slow and methodical westerosi swordplay, and the boys had been eager to try them out.

However, Ser Rodrik hadn’t taken well this perceived usurpation of his duties as master-at-arms, and had redoubled on his trusted sword-and-shield fighting, to the lads’ dismay. So far, the only ones whom Karlon had had the opportunity to teach to had been their father and uncle Benjen, who used the courtyard whenever their children were busy in Maester Luwin’s lessons.

Unfortunately for the old maester, the boys more often than not stopped paying him any attention whatsoever the moment the singing of steel filled the courtyard, instead running for the windows to steal a peek at the complex and agile swordplay the elder Starks were attempting to master, all the while trying to carve every single moment into their minds to emulate them later.

The results were less than stellar, and all they’d got to show for it were more bruises than they were proud of.

“What are you waiting for?” Jon yawned to his still frowning and very much unshielded twin, leaning on his wooden sword with a teasing smile on his face. “A written invitation by your girlfriend?”

Robb rolled his eyes. “For the last time, Lady Margaery is not my girlfriend.”

“Oh, really? Then what is she?”

“She’s just a friend.”

A pause. Further down the courtyard, Domeric and Theon fought fiercely with each other while Ser Rodrik observed.

“... Who is a girl.”

An even longer pause. Domeric blocked Theon’s swing with his wooden shield, but caught off-footed, was unable to follow up on it.

“... With whom we write to each other frequently.”

Jon raised his eyebrows, utterly unimpressed.

“... I’m not helping my case, am I?” Robb eventually sighed, facepalming.

“Just go get your shield already, Florian. I’m itching to kick your ass.”

“You’d wish, little brother,” Robb grinned, then turned towards the equipment. “Now, where did I leave my shield?”

Without anything else to do but wait, Jon only stared lackadaisical as his twin rummaged through the available equipment set aside, searching for the shield he had proudly painted himself.

However, he would have no such luck, for Jon had hid it in Robb’s own empty tomb in the crypts last night when his brother was too busy reading his girlfriend’s letter instead of playing with him as he always did.

No, he wasn’t jealous. You’re jealous!

“Hmmm, uncle Benjen’s shield will do,” Robb muttered under his breath after a moment.

“Stop right there, criminal scum!” someone barked behind Robb with as much authority as a boy of seven could manage, making him jump in surprise. “Nobody breaks the law on my watch!”

Jon blinked at the sight. His cousin Anton was clad in a mishmash of oversized and uneven plate armour from head to toe, taken straight out of the armoury. Not even the slightest hint of skin was visible, all the pieces overlapping each other. How the boy was even able to withstand its weight was beyond Jon’s comprehension.

“Err…” Robb failed to reply, his eyes wide open in confusion like a deer caught by a hunter, his uncle’s shield in his hands.

“I’m confiscating your stolen goods, now pay your fine or it’s off to jail!” The boy sentenced, extending his hand to receive his father’s shield.

The heir to Winterfell stared at the seventh-in-line, eyebrows raised and his lips in a thin, flat line. “What.”

Jon couldn’t resist. “Theon, Dom! Take a look at this!” he called out, laughing at his brother’s befuddlement.

Distracted by Jon’s call, Domeric turned his head and lowered his shield, just in time to get his arm whacked by Theon’s blunt steel sword. The Bolton lordling cursed, then looked curiously at the iron-clad child. “Anton, what are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his sore arm.

“Shut it, flayer!” The boy snapped with hateful hostility. Domeric froze, and Jon felt his own blood heat up in anger at the unprovoked insult shot at his friend. “This doesn’t concern you!”

“Anton…” Robb growled in warning. His twin was just as incensed as he was.

“I am not Anton, you feeble mortal! I… am… Iron-Man!” He proclaimed imposingly, voice booming with authority and grandiosity.

The twins shared a look.

Jon whacked his cousin’s head with the flat of his wooden blade, leaving Anton’s great helm ringing loudly.

“... Ouch.”

“Anton!” Ser Rodrik shouted. “Stop messing around with the armour pieces! They’re not toys for you to play with!”

As Anton’s attention was grabbed by Ser Rodrik’s stern scolding, Domeric muttered, “He dislikes me still.”

“Bah, don’t mind him; he dislikes everything,” Robb waved off. Then, frowning, he added, “Except Sansa.”

“And uncle Benjen,” Jon added. “He follows him around like a puppy.” Jon loved his parents dearly, but what Anton did was just clingy.

“Gods, that’s one ugly puppy,” Theon grimaced, earning a small chuckle from his companions. I’d like a puppy, Jon entertained the thought briefly.

“He called me ‘flayer’,” Domeric scowled, clearly upset.

“He always took Old Nan’s wild stories too close to his heart for his own good. Next thing we know, he’ll be telling us the White Walkers are real,” Robb rolled his eyes, and his companions chuckled. “You’d think that after two years with you here, he’d change his tune.”

Domeric Bolton had been a peculiar addition to the Stark household. The offspring of a house with a traditionally ‘difficult’ relationship with theirs, at first Jon doubted he would find himself a good fit in Winterfell. However, the boy had quickly endeared himself to the rest of the household with his quiet, polite and friendly personality. Along with Theon Greyjoy, who had arrived barely a few moons before him, they had formed a closely-knit group with the twins, all four of them becoming permanent companions in their lessons, sparring, and most importantly, fun.

Sansa delighted in having Domeric read to her her stories of kings, princesses and valiant knights with his soft and smooth voice. Arya thought him as ‘not as good as Jon’ (which the dark-haired boy made sure to rub in Bolton’s face whenever possible) and enjoyed his complicity in her burgeoning mischiefs, and cousins Harry and Lya and little Bran had all once thought that Domeric was their kin before being explained otherwise (not that it made any difference, Jon wagered). Even baby cousin Maisie, barely over a moon old, laughed and gurgled in presence of the heir of the Dreadfort.

But not Anton. The boy only shot mean, hateful glares at the Bolton lordling, clearly unhappy with his presence, if not his outright existence.

“I mean, to be fair with the kid, your house did flay people,” Theon pointed out.

Really, Theon? Jon facepalmed internally. They all glared at the Greyjoy, unamused.

“... What?” he exclaimed, instantly on the defensive. “They have a flayed man in their banners!”

“Aye, and you Greyjoys call yourselves seafarers and got fucking destroyedat sea by land army general Stannis Baratheon. Your point being?” Domeric snapped dryly.

Theon’s ears turned red as the twins snickered, but instead of jumping in a rage at the insult as he used to do back when he had just arrived, he crossed his arms, looked down and kicked a pebble.

“Yeah, fair enough, I guess…” he grumbled, then looked up at Domeric, scratching the patchy, thin fuzz that was starting to appear in his cheeks, doubt in his dark eyes. “Still… is it true? Y’know, the collections of skins and the bloody dungeons and all that?”

Domeric paused for a moment, his eerily pale grey eyes shrouded with contemplation.

Jon couldn’t help but shift awkwardly where he stood, unsure of whether he wanted an answer. Robb, too, looked equally uncomfortable.

“To be perfectly honest,” Domeric eventually stated, his voice firm and final, “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Now, can we get back to sparring, please?”

Dear Robb,

Why didn’t you tell me before that ‘Domeric’ was Lord Bolton’s heir? I always thought he was one of your Mormont cousins or a baseborn kinsman. Aren’t House Stark and House Bolton supposed to be ancestral rivals, like the Blackwood and the Brackens in the Riverlands, just waiting for an excuse to kill each other? Why would the heir of the Dreadfort be fostered at Winterfell if that were true?

I might be mistaken. I only have Willas’s old books to guide me on that, as Maester Lomys refuses to give me more books about the North, and instead tries to have me learn more about the other, more ‘important’ (his words, not mine) kingdoms. I asked my grandmother for help, but she agreed with Lomys.

Perhaps I have been focusing too much on the North, but it’s because it’s so interesting! The other kingdoms are more or less the same as Highgarden, but the North is like a completely different realm altogether, like Old Valyria or Old Ghis. The smallfolk from the North even speak a completely different language from the one the ones from here do!

My grandmother even said I was distracting myself too much by writing to you and that I should stop for a while! I was angry with her, because it was her idea in the first place! Fortunately, Garlan is on my side and will send the letters to Winterfell for me and tell the maester that he’s making inquiries about the ironwood on father’s behalf. Maester Lomys is very absent-minded, so I don’t think he’s going to question it.

I don’t like lying to my grandmother, but I also don’t want to stop talking with you. You’re my friend.

Be a dear and kick Theon in the shins for me.

Margaery.

PS: My brothers call me Maggie; you can too, if you want.

Dear Maggie,

It was true – but that was centuries ago, and things have changed since then. Domeric is one of my best friends, and my father keeps constant correspondence with Lord Bolton. My cousin Anton is the only one in Winterfell who still harbours dislike for the Boltons. It’s very frustrating.

My sister Sansa is the complete opposite to you; she dreams of going south and visiting the heartlands of chivalry. My aunt Dacey has been trying her best to convince her real life is not the same as in her songs, but her results have been lukewarm at best. 

I blame Domeric, to be honest, for indulging Sansa so much. She always asks him to read her all the stories of brave knights and fair ladies over and over and over again, and he’s just flat-out unable to say no to her. To be fair with him, though, Sansa’s puppy eyes are no joke.

That’s strange. Why would your grandmother suggest that? Grown-ups are so confusing at times. Every time I think I have them figured out, they go and do something completely unexpected. At times I get the feeling that even they don’t really know what they’re doing.

I always knew I liked Garlan. ‘The Gallant’, indeed. I would love to meet him, too. Maybe spar with him.

I tried doing my lady’s bidding earlier today at the courtyard with my wooden sword, but I missed and hit Theon in the balls. He’s still mad at me.

Robb.

PS: Will do.

> 293.

“And then, heart torn and broken by the loss of his beloved Lady Ariana, brave Ser Aramys leans towards the lady’s still body and with a kiss, swears his undying love.”

Silence.

“I said, leans towards the lady’s still body and with a kiss, swears his undying love,” Sansa scowled, eyes still closed.

“Do I have to?” Anton whined.

“Yes.”

Her cousin grumbled, but surely enough, his lips met hers in a chaste kiss of uncharacteristic softness. Anton was as rowdy and rough as only a boy of eight could be, but for Sansa, he’d always be gentle.

For a brief moment, Sansa wished to put Theon’s bawdy words into action by opening her mouth and sliding her tongue between Anton’s lips, but before she had garnered the courage to do so the kiss had come to an end.

“You didn’t say your line,” Sansa chided him without opening her eyes.

A long-suffering sigh. “With this kiss, I swear my undying love,” he repeated, flat, stilted, reluctant, with all the enthusiasm of a man having his nether parts leeched.

Sansa saw the opportunity in front of her and took it without hesitation. “You’re supposed to say that before the kiss.”

“... and?”

“You did it wrong. Do it again.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” he cursed.

Sansa was quick as a whip. “Language,” she admonished him.

Anton made an obscene gesture instead; Sansa needn’t open her eyes to know it. 

And still, he complied. “With this kiss, I swear my undying love,” he intoned, his voice solemn and earnest. And when he leant for the kiss, Sansa didn’t hesitate.

Anton leapt backwards, eyes wide, lips glistening. “What th—”

Sansa gave him no chance to speak. Jumping to her feet, she stood on her bed, arms stretched out like a preacher, and proclaimed:

“And then, a miracle occurred! For the strength of his love was such that it moved the hearts of the gods, and unwilling to keep the lovers parted forevermore, they breathed life back into the body of Lady Ariana! And so it was that love overcame death!”

Anton rubbed his eyes. Whatever surprise her unchaste kiss had caused had been buried under mountains of abashed vexation. “That’s stupid,” he said flatly.

“You’re stupid,” Sansa pouted, dropping her arms.

Anton walked straight into her trap. “No, you’re stupid,” he retorted mullishly.

“Have you no shame, ser?” Sansa stage-gasped. “To name a fair maiden such?”

He was no ser, but he had shame. “I…” Anton’s eyes widened and his ears reddened.

Sansa giggled. “Forgive me for teasing you so, but I cannot help myself,” she said. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered.”

“Lucky me,” Anton muttered under his breath, but she knew him enough to tell he was fighting a smile of his own.

Such was their way. No matter how silly her flights of fancy might be, Anton would always be there to make them come true, the songs and tales that enamoured her given form by his action and word, sparing no expense nor effort despite his caustic distaste.

And so, Anton played out the parts of hero and villain, knight and knave, while Sansa, naturally, played the role of the fair maiden – and narrator, too.

Truth be told, she thought herself a poor storyteller. No one, not even Old Nan, told her stories as good as Domeric did, as his soft and silky voice was a delight to hear, but Anton didn’t like him, and so she had stopped inviting him after her cousin had refused to play along unless he left.

Truly, Sansa would never understand Anton’s dislike for the Bolton lordling; he was kind and good to her, just as Anton was. Why couldn’t they get along? Yet, heedless of her efforts, they did not, and so Sansa played with Anton alone.

Florian and Jonquil, Aemon the Dragonknight and Naerys, Galladon of Morne and the Maiden herself, you name it; they had played them all. Uncle Benjen had once japed that she and Anton ought to open their own mummer’s troupe. ‘The Company of the Lady and the Knight’, he dubbed them.

“Why would we perform,” Sansa had replied, “when we can be so in real life?” 

After all, she was already a lady herself, and Anton would one day become a knight, his northern faith notwithstanding; Uncle Benjen had been knighted by King Robert himself, after all. Why couldn’t Anton follow in his father’s footsteps? But that was far into the future; in the meantime, play would suffice.

Even if Anton spent half of their time arguing against the next twist the story would take.

“There is no way in fuck I’m doing that,” he stated bluntly, stopping their next story dead on its tracks.

Just as they were approaching the climax, too! And now his whining had killed the build up she had worked so hard to establish. Sansa shook her head.

“You will, because that’s how the story goes,” she explained slowly and haltingly, as if she was addressing Hodor.

“I legitimately do not give a single shit if that’s how it goes,” Anton retorted, “I am not doing it.”

Sansa pouted. “Please?” She forced her eyes to grow wider.

“No.”

Wider still. “Please?”

“ No. ”

She willed herself to tear up. “Pleeeeeeeaaase?”

“No!” Anton appeared constipated, belying the turmoil he was experiencing. So Sansa played her trump card.

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

“Fiiine,” Anton’s sigh was one of exhaustion, irritation and self-loathing. “But let it be known that I opposed this with the utmost vehemence.”

Sansa nodded vigorously. Her cousin, it seemed, didn’t quite know the meaning of the word ‘utmost’, but it mattered not; the show would go on. “They’re on the left side.”

“I know where they are,” Anton grumbled, rummaging through her wardrobe, before eventually settling for the largest dress.

It didn’t make much of a difference; Anton had always been remarkably tall for his age, already taller than Robb and Jon both despite being a year and a half younger. It was a miracle the dress didn’t give in as he clad himself in it, all dark grumbles and colourful curses.

“If it makes you feel any better, I think you look quite the fair maiden,” Sansa smiled sweetly, lying through her teeth. He didn’t. Perhaps because his tangled hair was too short and too much like Arya’s, or because his scowl darkened his features… or because he was a boy in a frilly dress.

Anton gave her a withering look. “No, it doesn’t. This is awful. I can barely fit in this damn thing!” he exclaimed, stretching his arms out wide.

Right then, the ironwood door opened.

“Sansa,” Domeric began, “your lady mother wants to know if—” He was paralysed by the sight.

No one said a word.

Seconds passed, and the awkward silence in Sansa’s bedchambers held unbroken.

At last, it was Anton who spoke.

“If you tell anyone,” he swore calmly, staring straight at Domeric’s eyes, “I will bash your head in with a fucking sledgehammer.” The pure, undiluted loathing in his voice told Sansa he genuinely meant it.

Domeric’s thin lip twitched and his eyes gleamed with ebullient mirth, but he nodded. “I saw nothing,” he choked.

He didn’t. “Swear it!” Sansa blurted out. “Swear it in the name of the Gods!”

Domeric gulped as if to regain his crumbling composure. “I swear it, by the Old Gods and the New, I saw nothing,” Bolton held his hand to his chest. He closed the door behind him.

And though Sansa was fairly certain she heard laughter in his wake, Domeric never broke his vow.

“Halt!”

Benjen dropped, the weight of his steel plate plunging him down to the ground with a tremendous clatter. His chest burnt as he panted, and his eyes clouded with exhaustion.

Ned didn’t fare much better. His collapse to the floor had been much more gracious, but the urgency with which his brother shoved his visor out of his face and gasped for air belied it.

“Who… who thought that… adding plate armour… would be a good idea?” Benjen muttered in between gasps. Ned made a choked sound, eyes closed and face in a red rictus of pain, nodding furiously.

“You did,” Karlon scratched his nose, hiding a smirk. The crannogman delighted in their struggle to breathe, leaning his lithe frame over the fence. “You said it was getting too easy, and that you wanted a challenge.”

“And you saw fit to obey me?!” Benjen bellowed explosively.

“Lord Stark didn’t order me to ignore you,” Karlon dipped his head cynically.

“Thanks, Ned,” Benjen spat, half-heartedly smacking his brother with his gauntleted arm.

Ned cursed under his (still broken) breath, but said nothing. He did, however, direct a rude gesture back at him.

It had been years since, at his brother’s behest, Lord Reed had sent his hearthkerr Karlon to train them in the lithe and swift combat techniques of the Crannogmen. Years since they had been forced to unlearn everything they knew about swordplay, throwing away their shields in favour of parrying daggers, and their broadswords in favour of estocs and rapiers.

“Your strength will do you no favours here,” the Crannogman had stated, and indeed it had not.

It had been no easy task to adapt: they were old men now, and their bodies were not as fit as they once had been, when they could dedicate all of their youthful energy for hours to hone their skills in the courtyard. Like a sword gone to rust, regaining their fitness was a slow and exhausting process.

Adding almost four stones worth of plate armour didn’t help matters.

Their movement was all wrong; the surefoot they had developed, lost in a single stroke, as the sabatons they wore affected their step. The steel cuirass felt more a hindrance than protection, impairing their torsos’ mobility, and their arms were heavy and sluggish.

It was a mess.

To the side, a crossed-armed Ser Rodrik shook his head, white whiskers waving with malcontent.

Images of his childhood flooded back, when a youthful, chestnut-whiskered Rodrik Cassel and his younger brother Martyn despaired trying to teach Lord Rickard’s sons to wield a blade.

“Ser Rodrik doesn’t seem happy,” Benjen noted.

“When is he ever?” Ned replied.

Brandon said nothing.

Lyanna said nothing.

“Come on,” Benjen shook his head as he stood, bidding the ghosts that haunted him to dispel, if only for a brief moment. “Stand up. Harry told Bran that I could kick your ass and I’m not about to disappoint my kid.”

Ned snorted a laugh.

“I’d like to see you try.”

If their younger sons had seen the shambling farce of a sparr that ensued, they would both have been deeply disappointed.

“We’ll get there,” Karlon smiled thinly. “Just keep practising.”

> 294.

Someone was poking his cheek.

“Jon.”

Hnnngh…

“Jon.”

Wanna sleep…

“Jon.”

Sleepy sleepy sleepy.

“Jon.”

No, no Jon here. Come back later.

“Jon.”

I swear to every god there is, Robb, if this is about your imaginary girlfriend I will throw you out of the window.

“Jon.”

…

“Jon.”

“WHAT?!”

“Are you awake?”

Belatedly, he realised that wasn’t Robb’s voice.

“Arya…?” Jon immediately sat up on his bed, blinking groggily and disoriented, his annoyance instantly vanishing and biting back his snarky retort.

“I had a nightmare,” her voice was so soft and sheepish that for a moment he thought it was timid cousin Lya instead of his little sister, but Lya wouldn’t search him out in the middle of the night when she had a nightmare.

“Oh.”

“Can I sleep with you?”

“Uhhh, sure,” Jon replied, swiftly scooting over the other end of his bed and giving enough space for Arya to fit in. The five-year-old near jumped onto the bed, quickly nesting within the covers and snuggling with Jon. “You’re so cold,” he noted, her bare feet chilly against his, as he ruffled her messy mousy hair.

“I… err… I got lost on my way here,” she replied lamely. “I forgot that they moved you out of the nursery when Rickon was born.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “How long did it take you to find the bedchamber?”

There was a long pause

“... A while,” Arya sentenced after a full minute, unwilling to elaborate any further and clearly embarrassed. Jon chuckled softly.

They laid in silence for a moment, Robb’s soft snoring in the bed on the other extreme of the bedchamber being the only noise in the darkness of night.

How come I didn’t wake him up with my shout? Jon briefly wondered, before shaking the thought off his head. I can prank Robb later, Arya needs me now.

“Do you… want to tell me about it?” Jon eventually asked. He needn’t specify what he was asking about. After all, it was the reason Arya was there.

His sister shuffled in bed, very much uncomfortable at the thought.

“If… If that’s alright with you, of course,” he swiftly added.

A long, pregnant silence followed, before Arya reluctantly began speaking.

“I… I dreamt I was lost in a field of snow…” she shivered, but if it was caused by cold or something else, Jon did not know. “Snow, reaching as far as I could see. I was so, so cold… And it was so dark, too…”

“Was there anyone else with you?”

“No,” his sister shook her head. “It was just me. There was a blizzard… And then they began to appear.”

“They?” Jon frowned. “You mean the White Walkers? I had my own share of nightmares about them when Old Nan first told us that story,” he quickly tried to reassure her, but his sister seemed unconvinced.

“I don’t know… I don’t think so,” Arya furrowed her brow, pensive. “They were like the statues from the crypts, but made of ice. And they just kept appearing, until I was surrounded…” Her voice was starting to break. “I… I couldn’t see their faces. They were foggy… But I could recognise who they were…”

He didn’t really want to ask the question, but what else could he do?

“... Who were they?” he reluctantly asked.

“Everyone, ” Arya sobbed out. “Everyone,” she repeated, breathing heavily. “Their faces were blurry, but I knew who they were.” After a pause, she continued, struggling over every word that came out of her mouth as if they physically pained her to formulate them. “I only saw one face clearly… And… And it was yours,” and the dam broke down.

“You had a blue rose growing out of your chest,” Arya blubbed between violent sobs as he hugged her tightly without saying a word, instead listening intently to his little sister’s words, “but when I touched it, it… shrivelled into a black rock and… ignited and covered you in… in flames. And the others started to burn, too… and melt… And in the end, you too melted into the snow… and left me alone… And then I woke up…” she trailed off, weeping openly.

“Shhh, it was just a nightmare,” he tried to soothe her.

“It felt so real, too…” she sobbed, sending a pang of hurt into his heart.

“It wasn’t,” he replied. “We’re all fine.”

“I don’t want it to come true.”

“It won’t.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because I won’t let it come true. I promise.”

“Can I?” she asked softly. Jon nodded, and his little sister’s hand tentatively came to rest upon his chest, her fingers shivering.

“See? I’m not going to burst into flames any time soon,” Jon smiled at her.

No further words were spoken, both melting into each other’s embrace. Arya sobbed into his chest while he ran his hand up and down her spine, rubbing her back in comfort. Slowly, her weeping subsided gradually, just as it always did when she cried as a baby and only he would be able to calm her down.

They had lain in a comfortable, warm silence for minutes, Robb’s snoring the only noise – Seriously, how is he still asleep?! Jon marvelled – when Arya spoke again.

“Jon?”

His shirt was wet with her tears, but he minded none. “Yes?”

“If you tell anyone about this I will throw you out of the window,” she said, her voice just as soft as before.

Jon chuckled despite himself. There was something deeply amusing about having one’s little sister promising to defenestrate and kill you right after crying in your arms for a nightmare she had in which you died, all without even changing her tone in the slightest. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

“I’m serious!” she suddenly barked, glaring daggers at him

Now that’s more like the Arya I know. “And so am I.”

Silence.

“Jon?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“Always, little sister,” he kissed her forehead and ruffled her hair, and she only offered a token resistance. Both children soon drifted off to sleep, lost to each other’s comforting warmth.

In hindsight, perhaps Eddard should have summarily sentenced Whitehill to death for his treasonous words all those years ago. Gods knew it would have made his life much easier.

Or, at the very least, it would have spared him his current predicament.

Sat by his side in the drab tent that hosted the parley, Lord Roose Bolton stared impassively at the scene in front of them, gauntleted fingers drumming the table.

Yet again, Lord Whitehill was screaming, bellowing like a wounded and wailing boar, eyes blazing, red in the face, spit flying around and his grubby fingers pointed in Lord Forrester’s direction. This time, however, not only was Lord Whitehill clad in an ill-fitting blend of steel plate, boiled leather and chainmail, but Lord Forrester did not rise above the infantile display; the Lord of Ironrath, attired in his own armour, was haggard and dishevelled, the dark bags under his pale eyes telling tales of sleepless nights and troublesome thoughts. So troubled was Lord Gregor that Whitehill’s hateful words seemed to pass him through.

Something quite remarkable, given that Whitehill was accusing Forrester’s second son of raping his daughter and threatening bloody retribution, with an army six hundred strong to back his words and the will to use it.

It had taken Ned’s intervention with his own host, numbering two thousands, to put a stop to Whitehill’s advance on Ironrath. Lord Bolton had followed, not far behind, with eighteen hundred swords and five hundred horse. Lord Forrester, however, had come alone, followed only with a small retinue of a dozen riders.

And so they stood on the brink of war.

It was all so tiresome.

Ned rubbed his eyes, tuning out Whitehill’s irritating voice. There was nothing of value being said by that pig of a man, just an endless litany of threats and insults and falsehoods that boiled down to his own pride being slighted, without a care for his daughter.

Because, indeed, Gwyn Whitehill had not been raped by Asher Forrester. Not that her father cared, anyways, locking her up in Highpoint and disregarding her protests to the contrary as lies that Forrester had forced her to defend him with. Just how blind could this troublesome man be, to be completely unaware of the star-crossed love shared by the youths, who had been sneaking out their respective keeps to meet with each other for years now?

Lord Forrester knew that, as his son had long since told him of his desires to marry Gwyn Whitehill, naively hoping their marriage would put an end to their families’ senseless feud. Ned himself knew that, as his informants residing by Ironrath and Highpoint had notified him as much. Lord Bolton, too, knew that, though his thoughts on the matter were privy only to Lord Bolton himself.

Ned cared not for whatever agenda had brought the man and his household army to this place: what he cared about was for his ability to bring his vexatious bannerman to heel once and for all before it resulted in bloodshed.

Or not. It was all the same to him, to be honest.

After all, ever since his public shaming in the assembly of years past, Whitehill had proven to be a persistent thorn in his side. A more sensible man would have stayed out of the way, but not so Ludd Whitehill. The man had paid cutthroats to sabotage Forrester’s ironwood sawmills, intimidate the loggers, and even harass and raid the convoys from the South that brought gold into Ironrath.

Unfortunately, despite his best attempts, Ned had been so far unable to conclusively prove Whitehill was behind the rise of banditry in the northern Wolfswood. But who else stood to gain from it? Who else had a reason for it? And who else was stupid enough to try it?

And so, there was an ever-growing part of Ned that itched for war to break out between Ironrath and Highpoint in disobedience of their overlords’ demands to stand down, if only to be finally able to lawfully proclaim Ludd Whitehill a traitor, attaint him and lop his miserable head off his fat body. His sons would be forced to take the black, and Gwyn Whitehill would marry Asher Forrester, with Highpoint as her dowry. It would be the perfect moment to finally put an end to that pesky ironwood rivalry.

The other Northern Lords would not look unkindly to such a development; the Greatjon alone had been fuming for years that Ned neglected to ask of him to fetch a block and behead the would-be traitor right then and there in Winterfell’s great hall, and many others had written to him asking for his permission to take matters into their own hands; Whitehill’s robber tendencies hurt them all.

But it was not the other Northern Lords the ones that Ned was worried about.

He spared a sidelong glance at Lord Bolton, who was sipping his goblet of hippocras in disinterest. Perhaps he was learning to decipher the inscrutable Roose Bolton, or perhaps he was imagining things, but Ned was fairly certain he could detect a glint of morbid amusement in the man’s dead eyes.

Much as he’d like to put Whitehill down, he couldn’t do it without Bolton’s consent, both by feudal law and by might of arms. Whitehill’s disobedience to the Dreadfort would be his doom; the Dreadfort’s backing of Highpoint, his. 

With the current balance of the troops amassed in the field, he would be forced to retreat to Winterfell with his tail between his legs. Such a rout would be his downfall. His reputation might not survive his failure to keep his vassals in line, and like dominoes, his plans and ambitions, within and beyond the North, would crumble.

Yet, Ned sincerely doubted that Bolton would turn against one of his own bannermen, forsaking his sworn oath to come to their protection; not because Roose was a man of honour (nothing could be further from the truth, in fact), but because it wasn’t convenient to him.

The downfall of House Whitehill, desirable as it might be, would be a blow to the Dreadfort’s own power and standing. True, due to their miserable stewardship, the Whitehills were the weakest of the Dreadfort’s vassals. But what about their other, stronger bannermen? What would they make of such an action? If your lord has already abandoned one of your peers to their fate, what is to stop them from doing the same to you in your own time of need? If you cannot trust your lord to uphold their sworn duties to you, why should you uphold yours? Mayhaps, the Lords of Karhold, Last Hearth or Hornwood might be better protectors than the Lord of the Dreadfort.

Such a course of events would be unacceptable to any lord worth their salt. And Roose Bolton was no ordinary man, Ned knew as much. Mindful of the consequences of every action he took, Roose Bolton was nothing if not a cunning and careful man, and he wouldn’t approve of any actions that could threaten the Dreadfort’s base of power.

Yet, on the other hand, standing by Highpoint’s side would result in a major setback in the Dreadfort’s thawing relationship with Winterfell. Bolton had invested much into bettering their relations, and was not one to let all that go to waste for Whitehill’s pride. When put on the balance, the friendship of Winterfell and the benefits it brought with it weighed more than their sworn duties to Highpoint, regardless of the political implications of disregarding them.

Furthermore, antagonising the Starks, no matter their historical enmity, was not a luxury Roose Bolton could afford. 

Not when it could result in Lord Bolton promptly finding himself heirless.

Ned rubbed his eyes, abruptly exhausted.

No, Lord Bolton could not stand by Whitehill’s side. He only wished Bolton could see that, too. If he didn’t, the consequences would be catastrophic.

Men butchered by arrow, spear and sword. Women raped savagely, the blood of their children still in the hands of their violators. Towns pillaged and ransacked, mangled carcasses left to the ravens. The North he so wanted to unite, torn apart and bloodied. All of his plans in tatters. His reputation befouled.

One small corpse wrapped in a silver banner, crimson stains piercing his soul.

If it had any use, he’d pray it never came to pass. But the Gods would ignore him again, just as they had done his entire life. He held no hope that this time it would be any different.

His reverie was broken by the soft and deadly sound of Roose Bolton’s voice, cutting through Whitehill’s bellows like red iron through butter.

“You are a most troublesome man, Lord Whitehill.”

Ned’s breath hitched. For a moment, he dared to hope.

Ludd Whitehill blinked stupidly, the wind completely taken off his sails.

“My Lord?”

“This mummer’s farce has gone on far too long. I will not suffer it anymore.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand…?”

“When you first discovered the affair between Forrester and your daughter, I advised caution. When you first called upon me to come to your protection, I told you to stay your blade. When you informed me of Lord Stark’s approach, I ordered you to stand down,” Bolton said, imperturbable. “You have defied me, Lord Whitehill, time and time again. I will not forget this. Nor will I join my swords to yours to save your life from your own folly.”

“Bu-bu-but…! You’re my liege!” Whitehill pathetically jabbered. “You’ve sworn a vow to defend me against my enemies!”

“And you have sworn a vow to obey me,” Bolton stood up, never raising his voice, yet Ludd Whitehill gulped and cowered. “And yet, here we are. On the precipice of open war. Because you disobeyed me.”

“I-I’m your most faithful vassal, my Lord! You… You cannot abandon me!” Whitehill’s eyes were thin as pinpricks.

“I can , and I will. Mayhaps you’ll be of more use as a tapestry than as a man.”

Ludd Whitehill paled and shivered, the implications of his bannerlord’s words looming dark and thick. Any other time, Ned would have been livid at the open threat of flaying, a practice unspeakably inhumane and so long since outlawed, yet now he found himself feeling as if the weight that threatened to crush his chest had been lifted.

Whatever happened now, Whitehill stood alone. The thought alone was enough to flood him with relief.

Lord Whitehill’s eyes darted wildly, until they came to rest on him.

“Lord… Lord Stark!” Whitehill cried, as if he had found his salvation. “Please! Please, please, you must intervene…!”

“I already have intervened, Lord Whitehill,” Ned said evenly. “You know my position quite clearly. Stand down. Stand down, and sit, and we will find a peaceful resolution together. Or persist in your folly, and face our wrath.”

Silence filled the tent. No one moved a muscle, least of all Lord Forrester, who seemed so lost in his own thoughts as to be unaware of the developments in front of him.

Fear, rage, despair, hate, all these emotions passed through Ludd Whitehill’s fat, pink face, warring for dominance. Yet, after a couple of seconds, the one that came the victor was not one Eddard Stark was expecting.

An ironclad resolve.

“Your wrath? Your wrath?" Whitehill seethed, trembling with hatred and livid mania. “You’ll find, Lord Stark, that your wrath pales in the face of mine! My daughter was raped! My sweet Gwyn, my baby daughter! Violated! Her own body, befouled! Deflowered against her will, forced upon by that accursed Forrester monster! Even now, she repeats those grotesque lies that man has forced her to say, terrified of what he would do if he heard she told the truth of his actions! And you’re telling me to accept it?! Who the fuck do you think you are?! With what right do you order me to stand down?! You, who tore a kingdom asunder and toppled a dynasty for your sister! What about your daughters, Stark? What would you do for them, then?! Would you lie down and let them be broken and abused?! Or would you fight to take vengeance against the monsters who dared hurt them, even if it’s the last thing you’ll do?! So bring forth your wrath, Stark! Be my fucking guest! Winter might be coming, but you’ll find that we Whitehills will rise ever higher!”

Silence took hold once again, Whitehill’s wrathful panting the only sound made. The air was thick and still, silently whispering deadly promises of iron and blood.

“So be it,” Lord Stark sentenced, rising to his feet and making to leave. “Lord Bolton, come. We must see to our troops.”

“That won’t be necessary, my lords,” at last spoke Lord Gregor Forrester, the sound of his voice enough to stop Lords Stark and Bolton on their tracks. It was the first time he gave any signs of life since the parley had been started. “There will be no battle.”

“What are you talking about, Forrester?!” Whitehill swivelled on the spot, equal parts outraged and confused. 

Only now that he spoke up, did Lord Stark notice Lord Forrester’s red and swollen eyes, his trembling lip, and his frail voice. Finally, he realised why Forrester had come without an army.

“There will be no battle,” he repeated, each and every single word visibly hurting him as daggers driven into his gut. “Asher has taken the Black. My son is gone.”

Silence fell anew.

“Well, this was a waste of time,” Lord Bolton let out, supremely annoyed, and walked out the tent with a huff.

Dear Maggie,

I’m so glad for your brother! Unfortunately, the journey to Highgarden is too long and the situation up North is delicate, so we won’t be able to attend the wedding. Please tell Ser Willas we send him our best regards and wish him a happy marriage, and that I owe him a wedding gift.

Things are starting to get a bit weird here in Winterfell, too. I don’t know why, but suddenly many of the young heirs of the North have been steadily arriving to be fostered at Winterfell. Father is even starting to hire stonemasons and builders to restore the old First Keep just to make space for everyone!

So far we’ve got Torrhen and Alys Karstark, “Small” Jon Umber (the name’s a jape; he’s the same age as Theon and easily twice as tall, and Theon isn’t a short guy by any means), Daryn Hornwood, Steffon Dustin… We’ve even got a Frey, Olyvar, although (fortunately for him) he doesn’t quite look like one. I don’t know why, though. It’s strange. It’s not like there’s going to be a wedding any time soon; and if there is, no one has told me!

The timing is odd, too, because just a moon ago Forresters and Whitehills were on the verge of war. Something about an illicit affair between their children Asher (F.) and Gwyn (W.), I think? It got completely out of hand: Lord Whitehill was marching on Ironrath with his army, even! My father had to ride out with a large number of our household troops to intercept them and try to make him see sense. In the end, though, Lord Forrester had Asher take the black to avoid bloodshed. It brought dishonour to his house, but he did what was right, I believe. He saved many innocent lives. Dom said his father was very angry with Lord Whitehill’s ‘irrational’ behaviour, and I know my father felt the same.

I hope you have fun on Willas’s wedding!

Robb.

Dear Robb,

You’ve made a fair maiden very, very unhappy. I counted on you, and you failed me. You’ve stood me up. That’s so unchivalrous of you. For shame.

I jest, of course, but I hoped Willas’s wedding would be the opportunity for us to finally meet each other in person. Sadly, it was not to be, but there will always be another time. Maybe when you come of age you could persuade your lord father to allow you to travel to Highgarden? After all, it is nothing less than proper that the future Lord of Winterfell knows the lands of his peers. Why, you could take a tour across the courts of the Great Lords of Westeros. I would be glad to be your guide… Assuming my lord father agrees with that, of course.

It would appear that your lord father wishes to strengthen the bonds between the different heirs of the North to avoid something like the Forrester-Whitehill fiasco repeating itself. At least, that’s the impression I’ve got from what you’ve told me. After all, he did the same by fostering the heir to the Dreadfort in Winterfell, did he not? He ensured a lifelong friendship between the future Lord Paramount of the North and his strongest vassal.

The addition of a Frey is peculiar. Perhaps your lord father has some southron ambitions? My grandmother insists your lord father is smarter than people give him credit for, and for what I’ve been told, I’m very much tempted to agree (and I’m not just saying that because he’s your father). After all, the Freys, for good or ill, control the entrance to the better half of the Riverlands. Better to stay in their good graces if you don’t want to be extorted, although knowing Lord Walder it won't make any difference.

Speaking of my grandmother, do you remember she told me to stop writing to you? Now she’s encouraging me to send you letters once again (she doesn’t know, though, that I kept doing so anyways). Who can understand that woman? She would be horrified, though, if she saw how candid I’m with you. She’s always insisted that a lady’s sword and shield are her courtesies, and she’s right, of course, but I have no need for such with you.

How can I have fun, if you won’t be there? Oh, poor me! Rest assured, I will give Willas and Gwyn your regards.

Maggie.

PS: I get the feeling that the Karstark girl is there to try and charm you into a betrothal. Be careful with her.

> 295.

Benjen found himself wishing for the child to be another girl, but this time he had no such luck. As soon as Maester Luwin proclaimed their child to be a healthy, strong boy, both parents were gripped by a deep, foreboding sadness, for they both knew all too well what it meant.

He had named the boy Osric after Osric Stark, the notorious Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch whose leadership began when he was only a boy of ten and finished sixty years later; all in all, a rather unsubtle hint of what he intended to do.

And yet he had dallied. 

He had held his newborn son in his arms as much as he could, maybe even more than Dacey herself. He had taught Anton swordplay himself, every single dirty little trick he could think of, hoping he would never find himself in the need to use them. He had helped Harry carry out some of his pranks, and comforted Lya when she was in need of a hug, and read bedside tales to Maisie until the little spitfire finally fell asleep.

So it had been, for over three moons. Three moons in which he had been too weak-willed to go through with his penance, to leave behind the family he had learned to love with all his being.

He had been right all those years ago in Lannisport. In the end, it didn’t make any difference.

And yet, it had made all of the difference during the years he spent in Winterfell.

But all good things must come to an end, Benjen thought sadly as he secured the last strap of his horse’s equipment.

“Leaving in the middle of the night?”

He sighed in shame, turning towards the door of the stables, where, in a nightgown clad in furs, stood Dacey Mormont, his wife.

“I…” he began.

“I know. You don’t think you would be able to leave if our children were here, do you?” she smiled, her eyes full of sadness.

Benjen chuckled mirthlessly.

“You know me so well. I went to their quarters in the nursery to see them one last… I left them a letter, there…” he paused, his lower lip trembling and a tight knot in his throat. Gods, I can’t even finish my sentences… “I can barely bring myself to be here, truth be told. I wish I could stay. I do, with all my heart… But…”

“Your choices are your own. I wish I knew what horrible crime haunts you so… But what I do know is that I cannot stop you, no matter how much I want to,” a tear rolled down Dacey’s cheek. Even now, she still doesn’t know why. I will not endanger Jon.

“It’s not about what I want, anymore. But it’s what I must do,” he said softly. “If it were for wants, I would stay forever… but I cannot. My punishment is due.” A fond but sorrowful smile formed in his lips as he gazed at her lovingly. “The gods know I’ve been avoiding it long enough as it is.”

“They won’t hold it against you. They wouldn’t, either.”

“I’m afraid we’ll never know the paths we didn’t choose.”

“Do you have any regrets?” Dacey asked instead, closing the distance between them.

So many I don’t know where to begin. But when it came to them… “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Dacey. You and Anton, and Harry and Lya and Maisie and baby Osric,” he answered with absolute certainty. “My only regret is that I took so long to realise it. If only—” Dacey’s finger came to rest on Benjen’s lips, silencing him.

“Shhh… It doesn’t matter now. The past five years have been the best five years of my life,” she said sincerely, hugging him tightly. Benjen gulped the knot in his throat as he reciprocated.

“In another life, perhaps we could have grown old and wrinkled with each other...” he mused, holding back his tears.

“It would have been so sweet, too,” Dacey replied, and the softness of her voice crushed his heart. “You will always have a home in Winterfell to come back to.”

“I would be a deserter. My life would be forfeit.”

“Do you think so little of your brother that you doubt he would pardon you?”

Benjen simply gave a sad smile in response. Would he? He was always such a stickler to the rules…

He turned towards his horse. Everything was already packed, the last strap secured before Dacey had turned up.

It was time to leave.

“A kiss to remember you by?” Benjen asked, barely keeping himself together.

They kissed softly, their lips coming together one last time in a tender embrace, filled with unspoken intent and unfulfilled wishes. It ended all too soon, both of them choking with grief.

“My love for you will be the only thing keeping me warm for the rest of my days,” Benjen let out as he mounted his horse.

Dacey smiled one last time, tears running down her face. “I know. I love you too.”

He spurred his horse onwards at a soft canter. He knew his departure was long overdue. If he’d had it his way, he would have left barely a moon after Ned’s return from the war against the Targaryens, but his brother had had different things on his mind.

And so, he had married a wonderful woman he didn’t deserve. Fathered children who showered him in an affection he wasn’t worthy to receive. His life had been so, so much more than he had ever imagined, and despite his reluctance, he had never been so happy in his entire life as when he finally embraced these gifts.

But payment comes due.

He had wished to leave Winterfell for over two decades now. To leave his home behind and ride for the Wall, first for adventure and then for penance. He could barely remember the time he wished for the glory and adventure of the Black.

This was not about him. It wasn’t a selfish decision made by a man whose thirst for adventure outweighed his responsibilities and oaths to his kin. It was the punishment due to a man whose foolishness and cowardice had doomed thousands of lives all those years ago.

How many lives, how many dreams faded away because a single boy was unable to tell his father the truth? No matter how many times Ned had tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault, repenting from the harsh words he had directed at him when he returned from the war, Benjen could never wash their blood from his hands nor the guilt from his soul.

How could he? The remorse and shame gnawed at his insides every time he saw Jon, Lyanna’s only living vestige, or Arya, her aunt’s vivid portrait. Every time Arya scolded little Bran and called him stupid, or Brandon’s shadow loomed over Ned and him, or he heard his mother’s voice in the wind’s soft whistle, or their father’s stern face looked at them without sight, his eyes made of cold granite, Benjen felt his heart writhe in grief and guilt.

Everytime he closed his eyes, he was haunted by nightmares. Scenes and images he had never seen, but which he knew to be true. 

He saw his father boil inside his armour, the green flames reflecting on his armour. 

Brandon, hung by a strange Myrish machine, garroted as he tried to reach the sword placed just out of his reach.

Their mother, her frail body giving out in her grief, alone with none of her kin by her side.

Lyanna expiring in a bed of blood, while a distraught Ned cried over her, helpless to save her.

And so, so many more, people Benjen never knew and, because of his cowardice, would never know.

A little girl dragged from underneath her bed and stabbed half a hundred times. A wailing babe torn from his mother’s teat and his head bashed in against a wall.

Your fault, the raven crowed. Your fault, your fault, yours, yours, yours.

But now, even despite the guilt that tore him apart, as his horse neared Winterfell’s gates, he felt like he would crumble in any second. Every fibre of his being spurred him backwards, to return to Dacey’s sweet embrace, but he knew he had no choice. It was the only way he could atone for his crimes. For the family whose lives he had cut short.

Don’t look back, he steeled himself. If you look back, you won’t be able to leave.

“Father?”

Benjen’s stomach sank.

No.

Oh Gods no.

“Anton,” he heard his wife’s voice breaking, “get back to your bed.”

“Where is father going?” Anton’s voice was drowsy and confused.

Don’t look back.

“Get back to your bed, now,” Dacey ordered, almost in desperation.

His smart little boy instantly recognised something was wrong, for he now sounded much alert and worried. “Father?”

Don’t look back.

Biting his lip, Benjen dug his heels on his horse’s flanks, making it pick up the pace.

“Father!” He hadn’t seen it, but he knew his boy had made a run for it behind him, breaking free of his mother’s hold.

“Anton!” Dacey shouted.

Don’t look back!

Bitter tears and fresh blood mixed their taste in his mouth as his horse galloped out of Winterfell’s gates and into the night, never to turn back.

“Father!” Anton wailed one last time before he, too, disappeared into the darkness.

Chapter Text

He never came back.

It didn’t matter how much he wished he did.

How he had begged the gods, old and new, to bring his father back.

They had been deaf to his pleas, and silent in their answers, if they had ever bothered to give him one.

And now, lingering by his window, Anton felt all the weight of the world crushing him, paralysing him, slowly squeezing what little life was left in him, a pale, scruffy-looking boy of ten, red-rimmed eyes and a gaunt countenance.

There was a knock on his door.

“Anton?” Sansa’s voice came from the other side of his ironwood door, heavily barred with his room’s furniture.

He blinked tiredly. It was the sixth time in the day she had tried to talk to him. The thought of his little cousin caring for his welfare warmed his heart, but it was unable to withstand the cold emptiness his father’s departure had left behind for more than a handful of seconds.

“Go away,” he rasped, his voice coarse and rough. You’re not the one I want to see.

Sansa, for the sixth time in the day, didn’t get the raven.

“You need to eat,” she insisted.

Anton sighed heavily. He glanced at the empty cup of water that lay on the cold stone floor by his bare feet. He didn’t even have any thirst at all.

“Go. Away,” he punctuated for emphasis, his gaze fixated on the Hunter’s Gate.

Waiting.

Daring to hope.

Being disappointed once again.

Rinse and repeat.

All the while, a single word repeated itself over and over inside his head.

Why?

Why did he abandon us?

Why did he abandon me?

Why?

The letter his father had left by the nursery, supposedly explaining his departure to his children had been nothing but a steaming pile of bullshit, the parchment’s tattered remains littering the floor of his bedchamber.

‘By the time you read this, I will be long gone. I have left Winterfell to join the Night’s Watch, as I was always meant to do. As I’ve always known to be my fate.’

And yet, you took a wife and fathered children, only to leave them behind.

‘I’m sorry there wasn’t any other way.’

Because you neglected to try to find it.

‘The Night’s Watch is an honourable calling, and one I must heed.’

Lies. The Night’s Watch is a penal colony, a den of thieves and rapists sent to the far ends of the earth to die, isolated from society. There was no honour whatsoever to be had at the Wall.

‘I wish I could explain to you the full reasons behind my decision, face to face, eye to eye. But I’m not strong enough. I love you too much to endure your pain.’

So much, you spurred your horse onwards instead of turning back to your weeping child and made them deal with it alone.

‘One day, I will come back and set things straight.’

And you shall be beheaded as a deserter and a traitor.

‘Until then, please behave properly. I know your mother will take good care of you.’

A mother he hadn’t seen since that night, so loving was she that she hid from him.

‘I love you so much.’

I hate you so much.

Brief and vague, it explained nothing and helped less to make Anton feel better about it all.

Maybe Harry and Lya were young enough to swallow such bullshit without questioning it. They were too little to truly know what was going around them, Anton supposed; Maisie, even more so. And Osric? Who the fuck was he? A babe barely three moons old.

But he wasn’t.

They had always told him he was a very attentive kid.

And that was how he knew his father was lying.

He hadn’t left following an honourable call of duty.

He had abandoned them.

And he had no real reason to do so.

A new knock on his door.

“Anton?” Sansa. For the seventh time. “Please talk to me.”

Her voice quivered, grief and pain barely controlled.

Any other day, Anton would be livid at the thought of sweet Sansa being unhappy.

Now, he could not spare a single fuck for her.

And so, he decided to keep quiet, no matter how much she begged him to talk to her.

“Anton, please,” she pleaded, her voice dry.

But there was nothing to be said.

He was gone.

He had abandoned him.

And he hadn’t even bothered to give him a real reason.

Anton saw him leave, escaping like a fugitive in the middle of the night.

And his mother stood idle.

She did nothing to stop him.

And Anton was left adrift.

Detached from his surroundings.

Detached from reality.

Numb to it all.

Alone.

The passage of time uneven and indecipherable.

Seconds stretching into hours.

Hours condensing into seconds.

Strange and convoluted.

All it took was a blink, and darkness engulfed Winterfell.

Another, and the sun’s bright rays stinged his watery eyes.

Yet another, and the full moon stood high in the sky.

A bright orb with a red wine tint.

Even in his daze, Anton recognised its sight.

The Bloodmoon.

A strange phenomenon that inspired utter dread on the peasants.

The superstition of eldritch creatures roaming the lands underneath the night sky.

Forbidden rituals of ancient magic.

Hidden underneath the cover of darkness.

Unbelonging to this realm of existence.

Was there anything to such tales?

Any shred of truth?

Maester Luwin said there was nothing to it.

A 'curious lightplay', he called it, caused by celestial movements.

Anton kept his eyes fixated on the red moon.

Somehow, that didn’t seem right.

No, Anton knew, for he heard its call echo in the darkest recesses of his mind. There has to be more to it than that.

Tell me your secrets.

I wish to know.

Show me your hidden truths.

I wish to know.

Give me enlightenment.

I wish to know.

Guide my way.

A raven’s laugh resonated in his head, sharp and cruel.

Sinister and mocking.

Its three eyes judging with contempt and hostility.

Yet, its mere presence said otherwise.

For the offer was clear:

A welcoming darkness.

A grasp of what laid beyond reality.

Answers.

The price was a leap of faith.

Embracement of the chaos.

Consumption by it.

It was a small price to pay.

For knowledge.

For understanding.

For the insight he so sorely craved.

And so he leapt.

And the Black rose up to consume him.

Anton had not yet come out of his room, denying himself food and communication. He no longer so much as took the time to tell Sansa off when she knocked the door, only a deathly silence answering her pleas.

Uncle Benjen’s sudden departure had left all of Winterfell reeling and in disarray. Aunt Dacey had her hands full dealing with her other four children, all too young to even begin to understand what was happening around them, as well as dealing with her own grief. Her mother did her best to help Dacey out, but could only do so much before her own children demanded her attention, and her father was dealing with his lordly duties, and when not, praying on the Godswood, a permanent look of regret and sorrow in his face.

It was not out of malice, but out of sheer misfortune that Anton had been neglected. Anton, who had suffered the most, who had called for his father to come back as he left. And so, Sansa had taken it upon herself to take care of her beloved cousin.

Or so she would have, had he let her in. Had he opened the door when she brought him supper and her embrace to cry into. Had he answered her pleas.

Had he not refused her, as he had everyone else in Winterfell.

By the third day after Uncle Benjen’s departure, Aunt Dacey had tried her best to care for her eldest son as much as she was allowed by the all-consuming demands for attention of her other children, but Anton had refused to see her, screaming at her to leave.

Sansa had even taken to camping outside of Anton’s door, trying to outlast her cousin’s in sheer stubborn determination; her elder brothers and their friends had helped her, too, bringing her food and drink every couple of hours and furs and cushions to keep her warm.

Unfortunately, when it came to sheer stubborn determination, Anton had her beat.

And so it had been for seven consecutive days.

In the end, it had come to this.

Sansa turned to look at her father, eyes wide in fearful anticipation.

“Is this really necessary, father?”

Eddard Stark sighed in regret, looking older and more tired than ever before. “I sincerely wished it wasn’t, but it’s for his own good.”

“How can this be for his own good?” Sansa asked in incomprehension.

“Sometimes,” Domeric, who had run up the stairs to notify her of her father’s intent, interjected with his soft voice, “we have to force our help on those who won’t help themselves.” Her father nodded his agreement.

“We should have done this days ago. Enough is enough,” Lord Stark stated, hand firmly placed on Sansa’s shoulder. “Jory, bring the door down.”

“Alright, lads, you heard the lord!” Jory commanded the household guards, burly and strong men that held in their arms a compact iron-pointed battering ram. “On my mark! Now!”

The door, upon being rammed, boomed horribly, but the thick ironwood resisted. So they went again.

And again.

And again.

Sansa averted her eyes, holding back her tears. Her father squeezed her shoulder. Though he meant it to reassure her, it failed to quell her nerves and fears. The boy had been sequestered in his quarters for a full week, and it had been two days since he had last received the food and drink she was supplying him. 

She was terrified as to what they would find inside.

“He’ll be fine,” Domeric said quietly.

Sansa turned to look at him, eyes glistening. She had always liked the Bolton lordling, a kind and polite youth who had always indulged her with her fancies whenever possible (and Sansa knew she could be a bit too much at times, as her cousin always rued with a smile); Domeric was as good to her as her own family. But Anton… 

“He’s always been mean to you,” Sansa pointed out meekly.

BOOM.

“So? Is that a reason to deny him help when he needs it the most?” Domeric replied.

BOOM.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

BOOM.

“It doesn’t matter if it does. What matters is what I decide to do about it. And I choose to help him,” Domeric stated. BOOM . Then he lightly added. “And if he doesn’t like it, well, too bad.”

BOOM!

Unmovable object as it was, the ironwood remained solid, but the iron lock finally broke and the door was left agape. Taking advantage of the breach, the men dropped the ram and began to push the door open with all of their strength. The pieces of furniture that Anton had stacked to bar the door were pushed aside slowly but surely, and the bedchamber was opened.

“Stay here.”

Sansa nodded nervously at her father’s stern request as he walked across the door into Anton’s room, followed closely by Jory. Time seemed to stretch as she stared anxiously at the dark room’s opened door, a deep pit growing and gnawing at her stomach as her fears came to a head.

For a couple of seconds, silence reigned. And then...

“Get him to Maester Luwin’s tower, now!” her father’s voice roared.

Before any of the other guards could even react, Domeric sprinted through the door, swift as lightning. A few seconds later he reappeared, carrying Anton in his arms.

“Anton!” Sansa gasped in horror.

Her cousin was feverish, pale and gaunt, the inanition of the past week taking its toll on his body. His dark hair was greasy and matted to his sweating forehead, and his eyes reddened and unfocused.

“Out of my way!” Domeric shouted as he pushed his way to the bridge that connected the Maester’s tower with the Great Keep. Sansa ran after him, barely giving a thought to her low-hanging skirts which she would have otherwise held up to avoid tripping over. At that moment, she couldn’t care any less about falling to the ground, bruising her legs or dirtying her dress. Anton needed her.

Within a matter of minutes, they were inside Maester Luwin’s study, Anton sprawled on the desk, and the old maester furiously seeing to his vital signs. Domeric stood to the side, panting from the exertion, while Sansa stepped forward to grab hold of her cousin’s hand. He was cold to the touch and unresponsive, mumbling nonsensical words underneath his breath.

“When was the last time he ate something?” Maester Luwin asked, as he examined Anton’s unfocused eyes.

“He stopped drinking water two days ago,” Sansa sniffed. “Before that, he refused the food, but at least accepted the water I brought him.”

“That probably saved his life,” Luwin muttered. “The body can only go on for four days without water.”

Sansa gulped with some effort, the knot in her throat too tight. “Will he… Will he be alright?”

“With some treatment and rest, yes, he should,” the Maester wiped some sweat off his forehead before wheeling around towards his drawer, searching for something. “Right now, he’s running a fever because of the dehydration, but once we take care of it, it should pass. Here,” turning around, he passed her an opaque vial filled with liquid. “He must drink this potion every few minutes. Since he is unconscious, we’ll have to wet his lips with it until he wakes up. Only then we can administer it properly,” he said as he proceeded to do just that. His uneasy tone only made the pit in Sansa’s stomach grow deeper, and she had to suppress a shiver.

Her gaze turned towards Anton, breathing shallowly and irregularly, his lips glistening with the humidity of the liquid Luwin had applied to them. 

This is all my fault, she felt her heart shatter into thousands of pieces, stabbing her chest like broken glass. 

She should have done something.

Anything. 

But she didn’t.

She barely registered the words spoken by the other two in the room.

“Is there nothing else we can do?” Domeric asked, still panting between words.

“Not until he wakes up,” Luwin replied, rubbing his forehead.

“Are you sure?” the boy insisted.

“Very much, Domeric… Although…” the Maester paused, as if considering something new, “I could make another beverage to force him to wake up, but that would only take us so far. He’s unconscious for a reason; his body is in no state to sustain him awake. True, it could help him rehydrate, but…”

“It’s worth trying, maester,” Bolton interrupted anxiously.

Maester Luwin looked at the boy on his table with apprehension. To prepare the beverage, he would have to collect the herbs in the glass gardens, Sansa realised. He would have to leave his study. To leave Anton unsupervised.

“I’ll… I’ll take care of him while you’re busy, maester,” Sansa spoke up, trying to smile in reassurance at the old man, if only to feel more confident herself. Her voice, brittle and weak, betrayed her.

Maester Luwin didn’t seem completely reassured. Nonetheless, he nodded gingerly before hurriedly stepping out of the study.

Domeric stood awkwardly by the door for an instant, as if awaiting some instructions from her.

“I’ve got this. I do,” she insisted, nodding at Domeric. “You should go help Maester Luwin.”

For a few moments, he pursed his lips and stared at Anton’s unconscious form. Eventually he nodded back at her and left, closing the door behind him. She was dimly aware of Father's and Aunt Dacey's voices coming from the hall.

Turning around towards the table, Sansa observed her cousin’s inanimate face, absentmindedly moving a stray lock of hair out of his clammy forehead. Anton had an unnatural pallor, the bags underneath his eyes deep and dark, and a pained, trembling grimace.

What is he dreaming about? Sansa wondered, trying and failing to focus on something less heart-wrenching than the sight in front of her. The cousins had always told each other their secrets, hopes and dreams, both the good and the bad, with no exceptions. Will he tell me, this time? Will he even remember it?

Will he… Will he even wake up to tell me about it?

And so, the dam she had kept carefully built burst.

Please, please be all right, Sansa prayed to every god that listened to her as she pressed her lips against Anton’s feverish forehead, the tears she had been holding back running down her cheeks. Please wake up. I’ll be right here until you do. I’ll hold you while you cry if you need it. I’ll do whatever you want. Whatever you need.

Just please wake up.

Anton Stark stood barefoot on the fields of snow.

Isn’t this what you wanted?  the cruel and mocking voice of the raven asked him.

“What even is this?”

It was a senseless question, for he knew what stood in front of him.

You asked for insight.

You asked for knowledge.

And so, I delivered.

“This is not what I wanted,” he muttered.

He would recognise it anywhere.

It is what you asked for.

“This is not what I wanted!” he repeated, more forcefully this time.

Despite its state.

Not what you wanted to see, mayhaps.

But what your heart desired to know.

Winterfell was destroyed.

The greatest fortress in the North, the bastion of the Starks and the centre of political power for centuries and millennia, was vacant of any occupants.

The Great Keep was crumbling and dilapidated, and the Godswood overgrown and twisted, eldritch and unholy. The rains wept and wept over the empty, crumbling halls, devoid of any life.

Ashes fell from the sky like snow.

The Bloodmoon hung over it all, tinting reality red.

“The death of my kin? Of everyone I’ve ever loved?” He couldn’t help but laugh, a bitter sound that echoed on the ruins. “No. This is not what I wanted. This is not what I want. Never.”

So you claim.

And yet, you asked for guidance.

“What kind of guidance is this?!” he snapped.

Winterfell has no place for you.

“I am a Stark,” Anton said. “Winterfell is my home.”

Do not fool yourself. A Stark you might be, but are you treated as such?

The wolves prefer to dance with the flayer than with their own. Even she, the one you’ve always loved and protected, dreams only of a new cloak made of skin to cover her from the cold of winter and warm her bed.

Your mother ignores you, instead of hugging you and whispering sweet nothings into your ears as you drift to sleep. A she-bear who cannot stand to look at her own cub, for the grief and shame consumes her so.

Your siblings care not for you, for you are as much a stranger to them as a dog to a cat.

The raven waited, as if it expected him to refute its words. But despite how much Anton wished to do so, to tell the raven that he was a true Stark, that he belonged, that he was loved, he couldn’t force the words out.

Who are you trying to fool?

We both know the truth.

When the cold winter comes, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

And they have rejected you.

They have cast you away.

To die in the snow.

Alone.

“Lies,” Anton weakly protested, but he couldn’t deny the truth in the raven’s words.

He was a Stark, a trueborn son of Winterfell, yet a Bolton was more beloved by his family than he was? Was more of a kinsman to his own family than himself? What crimes had he ever committed, but resist the honeyed words the enemy in their midst whispered to their ears, and call him out for the predator he was?

What had he ever done to deserve this? To deserve the contempt from his cousins? To deserve the cold indifference of his uncle? Of his mother?

The abandonment of his father, the only anchor he had left?

They had abandoned him.

Everyone.

Every single one of them.

Anton fell to his knees.

The raven cared not for his turmoil.

The wolf pup, the bear cub that was cast aside.

Child of a runaway.

Inheritor of nothing.

Your future does not lie in Winterfell.

Do not attempt to delude yourself otherwise, for it will only bring you further grief.

And death to everyone you love.

“I…” Anton tried to speak up, but choked on his desolation.

For, despite everything, you still love them.

That is your sin.

You love those that do not love you.

That never have.

That never will.

Any words to the contrary are just the honeyed lies you cling to.

You can hear them all.

Laughing at your back.

Or worse, pitying you.

He thought of Sansa.

There is no place for you in Winterfell.

“But if not Winterfell, where?” he asked, utterly lost and alone. “Essos?”

Leaving for Essos would be a bigger mistake.

The land of the sellswords and the horselords are merely a distraction from the real wars to come.

“Where, then, huh? The Wall?” he spat in hatred, the word bitter in his mouth. “The end of the world?”

‘The end of the world’? the raven barked a laugh.

The Wall is only the end of the world for those of narrow minds.

For those too cowardly to venture forth.

To learn what lies beyond.

“No,” Anton breathed, understanding dawning on him. “No. No, I won’t do it. I refuse.”

It is not your choice to make, the raven sentenced.

And the world came crashing down in a swirl of ash and darkness.

The eldritch presence of the Bloodmoon was all that was left.

Painted red with the blood of the dead.

Mere pawns to a game beyond their comprehension.

Dear Robb:

Are you serious? Because if you’re not, it’s a joke in very poor taste.

If you are… Oh, gods, that’s terrible. I don’t even know what to say. I’m so, so sorry. Please tell me you are alright. Is Anton going to be fine? I never thought something like that would happen.

If there’s anything I can do to help, even all the way from Highgarden, please let me know.

The wedding was largely uneventful. I’m not saying it was boring, by any stretch, but to be fair, with all the tourneys and feasts we have in the Reach one eventually gets numb to the pageantry. Still, it was a very special ocassion. It’s not often that your brother gets married, after all. Willas was all the gallant lordling and Gwyn a perfect blushing bride.

During the feast and dance, though, there was this very annoying kid, a Kidwell, who kept harassing me and asking me out to dance. Apparently, ‘no’ means something different in Ivy Hall than it does in Highgarden, because he would not stop and just became more and more obnoxious with each time I said so. In the end, I just snapped at him that I was betrothed and that he should leave me alone if he didn’t want to invoke my husband-to-be’s wrath.

For some reason, he had the gall to challenge my supposed betrothed for my hand in single combat, and demanded to know whom he would be fighting.

I would love to say that I handled the incident with all the tact and grace of any respectable highborn lady worth her name, but the truth is that I totally panicked when he called my bluff and just spouted the first name that came to mind. That is, yours.

You should have seen how swiftly he paled, retracted, begged for forgiveness and ran away. I think he actually shat himself; I distinctly recall a foul smell that wasn’t there before.

Apparently, the name of Robert Stark already carries weight down here, even if you can’t grow a beard yet! What exactly have you been up to, that the mere mention of your name warrants such a reaction so far south?

I hope everything is alright in Winterfell. I’m sorry about your uncle and your cousin. I hope Anton gets better soon.

Maggie.

PS: I’m sorry if I made this letter too much about me when things are so dire for you, but I thought my wedding misfortune might cheer you up.

Dear Maggie.

When have I ever joked about something like that?

I’m alright, I guess. Still reeling from how out of the blue everything was, though time has made it easier.

Anton woke up a couple days after I sent my previous letter. He’s better now… relatively speaking. He’s always been a moody kid, but now he’s gotten worse. He lashes out at Domeric (who, it should be noted, has been nothing but unfailingly kind to him) more often, and even Steffon Dustin, his best (and only, really) friend, has been having more trouble putting up with him.

Do you remember that time, a few years ago, when he dressed up in plate armour and proclaimed himself ‘Steel Man’ or ‘Iron Man’ or whatever? Well, now, for some reason he keeps to himself, he’s always wearing plate armour. Even for supper. Any time anyone tries to get him to take it off, he just snaps at them to fuck sod off. Not even Sansa gets through to him, and he’s always had a weak spot for her. Hells, she took care of him while he was unconscious, yet he barely even looks at her as it is.

I know it’s been the hardest for him, and I know I’m being unfair, but the truth is that I’m at my wits’ end when it comes to him. It’s been almost two moons and he keeps being needlessly hostile to everyone in Winterfell, his own mother included. Even Lya has gotten over it by now, and she’s barely five and cries over everything.

Sounds like a massive cunt charming, that Kidwell guy. Give me his name, so I can beat the shit out of him should I ever meet him.

What have I been up to? Practising swordplay, having my lessons with Maester Luwin, learning rulership from my father, being abandoned by my uncle and being insulted gratuitously by my cousin? I mean, the worst thing I’ve done was sneaking a jackass and a honeycomb the last time Theon went to a brothel, but that was that, and it was Jon’s idea in the first place.

Fine, no, it was my idea.

But still. I’ve done nothing to warrant a kid shitting soiling his pants at the mere mention of my name. Makes me wonder what exactly do you southrons say about us Starks and northerners, instead.

Thank you. We’ll be fine.

Robb.

PS: So… Betrothed, huh?

“Real smooth, dumbass.”

“Shut up, Theon.”

It was the fifth day of the week again.

After what had felt like an eternity, the day had come at last.

Robb could finally stop climbing the walls in anticipation (metaphorically, of course; climbing walls was Bran’s thing, not his): it was time for their weekly rulership lessons.

Which meant that Jon would be miserable for an entire day. That alone, normally, would be reason enough to bring a smile to Robb’s face. However, Jon’s suffering wasn’t the only reason Robb looked forward to this day. 

Unlike his twin, who was as content a second-born as there had ever been, the heir to Winterfell took to their lessons like a fish to the water: indeed, Maester Luwin himself had praised Robb’s newfound keen eye for the most minute and unassuming details, all of which often flew right past Jon (to his eternal frustration and his eternal gloating), and sometimes eluded even Domeric and his sharp wit.

The lessons were a simple but engaging activity: enclosed within the Lord’s Solar, the elder Starks would gather around the oak desk on which their father went over the affairs of rulership. In order to keep his children’s attention from wandering, Father would involve them as much as possible, having them read his letters, take notes, offer advice, and, more often than not, explain to them the importance of each and every aspect they touched upon.

Some days, they focused on politics: their bannermen, though for the most part faithful, were still men born and bred for war, and therefore, dangerous and quarrelsome. Their father would explain to them the best ways to approach each bannerlord, to soothe their tempers and favour them without upsetting their peers.

Out of all the lords sworn to Winterfell, keeping good relations with Lord Cerwyn was of paramount importance. It wasn’t because of the extent of his lands nor the swords he could muster, but because of how close Castle Cerwyn was from Winterfell: around half a week’s ride away, whoever controlled Cerwyn controlled the path south to and from Winterfell. A hostile Lord Cerwyn could very well block the northward flow of the Kingsroad, putting Winterfell under siege without having the need of mustering an army.

It was fortunate, then, that Lord Medger Cerwyn was a content, gentle, unassuming and guileless man, and his son and heir Cley was quite friendly with them, often coming to stay for a fortnight every other moon or so.

On the other end of the scale, Lord Jon Umber, the Greatjon, was a violent man with a fiery temper, who only followed those he respected. To earn that respect, Robb had to be stern and firm with his disorderly behaviour, but graceful and generous, too, to earn his esteem and loyalty. Once earned, they would both be lifelong and invaluable.

However, perhaps inevitably given his unruly personality, he was also one of the most troublesome of his vassals, often infringing the law he himself was honourbound to enforce, abusing the smallfolk he was meant to protect, and quarrelling with his neighbouring lords over the pettiest disputes. To these abuses, the Starks would turn a blind eye, for the Umbers were too important an ally to alienate over peasant rights.

The mere thought galled Robb, but he saw the bitter necessity of it… for as long the Greatjon lived, that is. Hopefully, the Smalljon would be a better lord than his father. And if not, Robb would make it perfectly clear that he would not tolerate such behaviour from a man he named friend.

Lord Rickard Karstark, meanwhile, was an interesting foil to Umber: he was a sombre, sullen man, not given to displays of temper, and a more lawful and benevolent lord to his smallfolk… but not any less dangerous in his wrath. As the man had made it abundantly clear when he sent his two youngest children to be fostered at Winterfell, the wellbeing of his family was his foremost concern, and he would hold the Starks personally responsible if any harm were to befall them.

The key, then, was simple: keep the Karstarks close, both to guarantee their safety from peril, as well as to remind Lord Rickard of how unfortunate it would be if something were to happen to them should he grow seditious.

Now that had thrown Robb for a loop. 

“YOU WANT US TO HURT THEM?!? NEVER! THEY’RE OUR FRIENDS!” he had screamed shrilly, standing up from his chair in a rage. Jon had stayed silent, unable to believe his ears, but was no less outraged, as his own trembling body revealed.

“Torrhen Karstark is your friend,” their father replied evenly, his voice kind but firm. “Lord Rickard Karstark is not. He’s a powerful and dangerous man who can muster over five thousand men. I dearly hope it never comes to pass, Robb, but if you have to point a blade at Torrhen’s back to stop Lord Rickard from marching his blades against Winterfell, do it. ”

“That’s not honourable,” Jon scowled.

“No, but it will keep you alive.”

Robb had fumed for over two days after that lesson, but as his temper cooled down, he couldn’t deny the wisdom in his father’s words. He loathed them, but he couldn’t deny it.

Lord Rickard wasn’t his playmate. And neither were Harrion nor Eddard, Torr’s elder brothers, for that matter. He didn’t know them, and they didn’t know him. And though Stark and Karstark were kin, he had long learnt that meant little to nothing. It certainly never stopped the Targaryens from tearing each other to pieces.

That had been last week’s lesson. Lessons like that one were always the most fascinating, the ones that engrossed all three Starks to the point of losing track of time until a beleaguered maid or servant was sent their way by an exasperated Lady Stark to snap them out of it.

This was not one of those days.

To his side, Jon was smacking his head rhythmically to his crossed arms, resting on the table. And though Robb would never be as immature as his childish little brother, he sort of agreed with the sentiment.

“So, in summary, the reeves collect taxes, organise the farms and see to the enforcement of our edicts, the provosts carry out our justice for us there where we cannot do so ourselves, the verderers keep poachers and bandits out of the Wolfswood, and the bailiffs ensure that none of them ever abuse their power. Any questions?”

“And this is important how, exactly? ”

Fine, maybe he would be as immature.

Their father took it in stride. “Rulership is about more than just playing politics,” he said kindly, yet sternly. “It might not be as exciting, but it is just as, if not more, important.”

“But why don’t we just have a single post for everything?” Jon asked cantankerously, head resting on his crossed arms.

“And have a single man collect taxes, enforce edicts, carry out justice, protect the forests and keep the smallfolk safe?” Father raised an eyebrow. “Such a task would be infeasible to be accomplished by a single man, no matter how capable.”

“Why? We do it ourselves just fine,” Jon insisted mulishly.

“That’s the thing, Jon: we don’t.” Jon’s eyebrows went up, and even Robb was taken aback. “We rule Winterfell and the neighbouring acres ourselves, aye, but beyond?” Father smiled slightly as Jon seemed to mull on it. “It’s a purely practical thing: we, quite simply, cannot be everywhere at all times. The North is vast, sparsely populated, and lacking in infrastructure such as major roads apart from the Kingsroad and the Wolfsroad. Cities are rare, with tiny villages speckling the land among the forests and the hills. Not only are distances so great that moving from one point to the other takes far too long, but the further you move from the castles, cities and villages, the less our authority is felt.”

“There’s always a lord’s progress,” Robb pointed out. “And Maester Luwin taught us that the early Targaryen kings ruled their kingdom from the saddle.” And the Seven Kingdoms were much larger than the North. Why couldn’t they, too?

“You are correct on both accounts,” their father conceded. “But they’re also extremely expensive. Not to mention that you’d have to take your full court alongside you, hundreds upon hundreds of retainers and guards, each with their own squire or servant. It would take you a whole week to just get to Cerwyn, and you want to do that across the entire North? What happens if there’s an emergency? The Targaryens could afford to embark on their progresses because their coffers could spare the cost, and because they had dragons to help them move along the way. We have no such assets.”

“Neither did the Kings of Winter,” Robb contended. “Yet they ruled for thousands of years.”

“They did, that is true,” Father admitted. “And though they wore crowns on their heads, their authority over the North was much weaker than ours, and they faced countless rebellions over the centuries. That is, until they started to delegate their power to good and faithful men across their holdings, so they could rule in their stead, just as we do now.”

“Like our bannermen?” Jon asked.

“To a degree,” Father answered with a small shrug. “The logic is the same, but there is a major difference: our bannermen own the lands they administer in our name. They’re theirs, and their kin’s, in perpetuity, so long as they do not betray our faith, just as the North is ours by right, though we hold it in the name of the King. Our reeves and verderers do not own the towns and forests they administer. They’re not highborn, but commoners chosen for this task.”

Robb nodded solemnly, understanding some… but not all. “And who chooses these men?” 

“That’s left to each lord’s discretion. Some,” he said, gesturing with his left hand, “name them themselves, because that way they give the job to people they know and trust. Others,” he gestured with his right hand, “prefer to rely on local men. My father, in particular,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning towards the desk, “liked to have the neighbours of each town vote on whom amongst them would be their reeve, and he would approve their pick without any further ado.”

“And what do you do?”

“Something similar,” their father smiled. “But I also like to interview the candidates myself before granting the post. Get a sense of them, if you will.”

“And if you don’t like them?”

“I refuse their candidacy, and have the neighbours choose another man. And if I don’t like the new man either, then I assign one of my own, and with an extra guard detachment to keep him safe.”

Jon frowned in confusion. “Why?” 

Robb’s hands itched to smack his brother’s head for being so dense, though he resisted the urge. He did, however, snap at him: “Because they’re in on it, stupid. They wanted the bad men in charge and they got thwarted. Of course they’re going to keep trying!”

“Robb, don’t call your brother stupid,” Father rebuked him without missing a beat.

He felt shamed by his father’s admonishment. “Sorry.”

“You are, however, correct. Unfortunately, corruption is very commonplace among the reeves and verderers, and often in collusion with the neighbours that granted them the power,” their father explained. “Which is why we have the provosts and bailiffs.”

“And how do we name them?” Robb asked, by now with genuine interest. The lesson wasn’t half as interesting as their lessons on politics or warfare, but it had been picking up, he’d give it that.

“Those, we name ourselves. Provosts must have no stake in the issues they arbitrate to avoid a conflict of interests, so having the neighbours elect them would be a recipe for disaster. And bailiffs have to be our most trusted men, because they alone are what ensure our lordships do not fall into misrule by keeping the reeves and provosts in line. Through these men, do we rule our lands with fairness and benevolence.”

Father leaned back on his chair, a satisfied smile on his face. “That, my sons, is what rulership is about. We hold great power, by right and by might. Many lords believe this power to be a privilege to use as they deem fit. But power isn’t a privilege; power is a burden. Because when you hold power, you also hold the duty to use it wisely. To improve your subjects’ welfare. To do what’s right. To right what’s wrong. To protect them from those who would do them harm. And that’s a task you must see to yourself, for a king that does not fight for his people’s defence is unworthy of his crown,” their father sentenced. 

And though they may no longer be kings, they held the same responsibility towards their people, Robb knew. Idly, he imagined his father wearing the Crown of Winter of the kings of old. It was a strange but compelling image. 

“Only a handful of Targaryen kings ever truly understood that,” Father continued. “Aegon the Conqueror, Jaehaerys the Conciliator, Daeron the Good and Aegon the Unlikely. No one else.”

“What about the Young Dragon? He conquered Dorne,” Robb objected, always to his hero’s defence. By his side, Jon frowned, dubious.

“And over a hundred thousand men paid the price in blood for a conquest that did not last. No one is doubting his military brilliance, but when taken as a whole, the man was an irresponsible and reckless adventurer who, in the end, caused more harm than good. And for what? Because he dreamed of being the man who had finally subjugated Dorne, whose continued independence was a blight on his family’s honour. But what good did the Iron Throne’s glory bring to the Dornish people? Only fire and blood and an iron yoke. Thousands of innocent men died for nothing else but a foolish man’s pride. And he lost. And what he failed to achieve through the sword, another Daeron would accomplish it with the quill and naught a single drop of blood spilt.

“Remember, boys: war is not an end in and of itself, but rather, the continuation of politics by other means. Honour and glory are nothing but fleeting fancies easily forgotten. It is the wellbeing of our people and our land that remains.”

“But glory remains, too,” Robb protested. “We still remember the names of the heroes of old.”

“And what use are the heroes of old to the starving man?” Father countered, and though he was as kind as always in his retort, Robb felt shamed. “He’d rather have the bread to feed his family with. Mayhaps no one will remember a kind lord’s name, but he saved more lives than the valiant adventurer.”

Before either of the twins could reply, there was a hurried knock on the solar’s heavy ironwood gates.

“M’lord, Mester Luwin’s here,” young guardsman Wyl’s thick-accented voice followed, though unlike his elderly grandsire and namesake he spoke the Common Tongue. “Gots a message, m’lord.”

“Let him in, Wyl,” Father answered evenly, scarcely missing a beat.

Maester Luwin entered the solar, bowing slightly to the Starks inside, though his attention was set on their father.

“A rider from the Dreadfort, my lord,” the maester said, as he fashioned an envelope from the insides of his oversized sleeves.

Briefly, it appeared as if their father had paled slightly. Taken by surprise, Robb had to do a double take, but when he looked again, Father was as serene and composed as always.

“Thank you, Luwin. Please see to it that the courier is well rewarded with ale and rest,” their father replied affably.

“Yes, my lord,” the maester bowed. “With your leave.”

“Aye, don’t let me keep you.”

Without wasting any time, their father sliced the envelope open with the small letter knife in his desk. After a cursory glance, he smiled lightly. 

And in his father’s smile, Robb saw it again. A slight stillness to his mouth that wasn’t there before.

“Ah, how appropriate.”

“What’s it about?” Jon asked, curiously.

“Would you do the honours?” their father asked back, and at Jon’s eager nodding, he handed him Lord Bolton’s letter.

As his twin prepared to read, Robb leaned towards him to sneak a peek.

It was rather haphazardly written; the letters were carelessly formed, with blots, splotches and lines all around the parchment, almost as if penned by a child (or Theon).

Robb frowned. If he knew one thing about Roose Bolton, is that he was not a careless man. For him to write a letter to his liege lord in so sloppy a manner? Something about it did not sit well with him.

“‘Lord Stark,’” Jon began.

“I hope this letter finds you in good health. Per your request, I write to you to update you on the situation of my lands.

“The past moon I granted a new charter to Barrowton’s Miner’s Guild, leasing them ownership of the long-abandoned Meadowbrook Mines, which they have assured me is rich in gold and silver. I need not explain the prospective benefits should their promises be truthful. The corresponding copies have been sent to your chancery.

“Overton prospers since the city charter granted four moons ago. Traders from across the Narrow Sea are buying and building property, eager to take a cut of the growing profits your measures have created. Construction of the Wolfsroad progresses without setbacks.

“Related to these, unfortunately, is the discovery made by one of my bailiffs that several of my reeves were colluding amongst themselves to embezzle a sizable share of the taxes they collected for their own benefit. Since the law considers this to be thievery, I judged them as such. Ten men were tried, three took the black and the rest had two of their fingers cut off. They have been removed from their posts and summarily replaced.

“I have also decided to implement your policy of having maesters train the wandering healers after witnessing the benefit it has had on your smallfolk. Recruitment and training is due to begin within the next moon.

“ Signed, ‘Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort and Warden of the Weeping Water’”, Jon finished.

Father nodded, satisfied. “You see? Such is the everyday reality of lordship. Granting charters and keeping the justice. Hardly as exciting as leading armies, certainly, but perhaps twice as important.”

In his father’s warm eyes and contented smile was no hint of the strange behaviour Robb had seen before. Am I just imagining things? he wondered, dubious. Or perhaps there’s more to the letter that Jon’s not seeing?

Without wasting any words, Robb extended his hand to ask his brother to hand him the letter, and Jon duly complied.

Now that he was able to take a closer look, Robb realised some of the scratches and blemishes repeated themselves, replicated almost identically with cold meticulous care.

It dawned on him. This was no true carelessness.

It was a code.

His blue eyes shot up to meet his father’s grey ones. For one brief, fleeting moment, Father’s eyes widened.

That was all the confirmation Robb needed.

Lord Bolton’s letter is hiding something, he knew, and father is in on it.

The rest of their lesson went by uneventfully, picking up from where they left off, but Robb could no longer get his head into it.

While Father told Jon about the verderers, Robb was wondering. Trying to find an explanation. Fruitlessly attempting to decipher the hidden code. Struggling to make out the edges of an unknown shape. While the scratches and blemishes repeated themselves meticulously, their positions on the parchment were seemingly random, with no discernable pattern to them.

It wasn’t the first code he had come across, but this time he had no clue as to how to proceed. This wasn’t one of his father’s demonstrations and puzzles. This was real.

And it was hopeless.

The rest of the hour passed him by as a breeze, and he wasn’t any closer to finding an answer when their father called it a day, and showed them out the door.

But just as both twins crossed the solar’s threshold, he stopped them cold in their tracks with soft-spoken words.

“You know that everything I do is for you and your well-being. Right?”

Robb swivelled on the spot, his attention at its peak. Jon raised a confused eyebrow.

“I thought the North’s well-being was the most important thing?”

Father chuckled. “Well, it’s just a happy coincidence that they go hand in hand. Aye, I might be the Lord of Winterfell, and to look after the North’s welfare is my solemn duty, but first and foremost, I’m a father, and I will never let any harm come to my family, no matter the cost. You know that, right?”

“Of course we do,” Jon smiled warmly.

Robb nodded stiffly. There was something in Father’s voice that rubbed at Robb’s brain in the wrong way, but for the life of him he couldn’t discern it.

No. In fact, he knew with the utmost certainty what it was, but the fact that it tinged his father’s voice was just wrong. It was something that didn’t quite belong to Lord Eddard Stark, and that made it all the more uncanny and disturbing.

It was desperation.

And it terrified Robb.

What could possibly be hidden in that letter, to disturb his eternally calm father so?

What had he done?

Dear Maggie:

Lord Ludd Whitehill is dead.

Choked to death while dining a fortnight ago.

I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I won’t lie to you: the man was a fat bastard, unpleasant as they come, and a constant, stubborn thorn in my father’s side. I’ve heard he ate like a boar, and indeed, the one time I saw him I thought he rather resembled one, so choking on his own food is quite possibly the most appropriate way he could’ve died.

I know he won’t be missed.

But I don’t know. Maybe I’m paranoid. But I smell something foul.

The rotten stench of murder.

And I think my fa

“No, I can’t do this,” Robb realised, crumbling the half-written letter and throwing it into the fireplace.

He stared in silence as the fire consumed the parchment.

Gods, what was he even thinking? 

Accusing his own father of murder in a letter to the Tyrells? Had he taken leave of his senses?

Torrhen Karstark is your friend. Lord Rickard is not.

Margaery Tyrell was his friend. Mace Tyrell was not. The Queen of Thorns, even less so. What would they do, if they found out about his father’s actions?

What would Mother do? Jon? Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon? His cousins, who, barring bitter Anton, had taken to look up at their uncle in their father’s absence?

No; this was his burden to bear. Today, it was the weight of complicity. One day, it would be the weight of guilt.

The weight of the lordship, his hands stained by cold-blooded murder.

Is that the type of man Father really is? he wondered, heart aching in woe and fear. Is that the type of man I must become?

That night was the first of many in which he knew no sleep.

Lovingly caressing Lyarra’s brown hair, Dacey held her daughter close, shushing her gently as she repressed a smile.

As per usual, Harry had played some sort of trick on his favourite victim. And, as per usual, though Dacey ignored the specifics of said jape, here she was dealing with the consequences.

It was quite lucky that Osric was such a forgiving babe, too, or she’d have quite the mess in her hands, with a wailing girl in front of her and a needy babe on the crib by her side both demanding an undivided attention she couldn’t give.

“Come now little love, you’re alright,” she soothed her little girl.

Lya pulled back, her wide blue eyes glistening and her lower lip wobbling tremulously, but her tears had come to a stop, and Dacey couldn’t help but feel quite proud. This was a definite improvement.

Not too long ago they would have been at it for more than an hour. Sometimes Dacey wondered just where did Lya stow away all her tears in so tiny a frame, what with the way she cried for hours over the most trivial things. Though Dacey herself was no stranger to shedding tears, they never lasted more than a couple of minutes.

Not even over Benjen, and Gods knew the man had given her much cause to cry about in the first half a decade of marriage.

I just don’t have it in me, she thought, looking at her sniffling daughter. Where does she get it from? It was most certainly not from her.

Her daughter was such a sweet and sensitive soul, so unlike the Mormont women, who were tougher and more resilient than iron. Hells, if what her mother had told her about her youngest sister was true, little Lyanna would eat her niece alive, and she was a full year younger. No matter their age, Mormont women were hardened, stubborn battle-axes, always ready to fight back against those who would threaten them.

Neither were the Stark women, on the other hand, dainty flowers. Benjen’s mother, the late Lyarra Stark, their daughter’s namesake, had held Winterfell and the North together as the world burned around her and she herself succumbed, slowly and painfully, to the crabs in her belly and the hole in her heart. Though Benjen did not arrive in time to say his farewells to his mother, if it weren’t for her, mayhaps there would not have been a Winterfell to return to.

And though the realm may now remember Lyanna Stark as a winter rose, beautiful, fragile and dead before her time, Dacey still recalled the wild and free she-wolf she met when her uncle took her to Winterfell when she was barely five years of age. Though Lyanna was hardly nine years herself, back then she already rode a horse better than any of her two elder siblings and could beat the snot out of them with both blade and lance. 

Such was the riotous and untameable she-wolf, the late goodsister she never had, whose blood ran through her children’s own.

How had the mating of a Stark and a Mormont ever given way to a girl who wailed over every single misfortune? Dacey did not know, but she remembered the birth well enough and she doubted someone had snuck an extra child in the crib while she wasn’t looking.

But this daughter of hers, baffling mystery though she was, was just as precious and dear to her heart as the rest of them.

What worried her was that Lya’s soft and gentle nature would make things difficult for her once she grew older. As a Stark, it needed not be said just how much of a desirable bride she would be one day, even if she was from a lesser pack; she would not have the luxury of remaining here in Winterfell, where she was known and loved just the way she was.

You will have to grow some steel, some claws, my little girl, Dacey brushed a lock of Lya’s hair away from her perfectly round face. “There’s my little she-wolf.”

Her daughter promptly shoved her face back into Dacey’s neck and burst into tears all over again.

Dacey blinked, perplexed. Oh well, she thought as she rubbed her hand up and down her daughter’s back. We have time.

“There, there,” she comforted her daughter. “You’re alright now.”

After a couple more minutes of weeping, Lya took a few deep, shuddering breaths, and the tears finally came to a stop.

“That’s my girl,” Dacey said, just as the nursery’s ironwood door opened. “There’s no need for tears.”

Catelyn Stark hovered by the door as she took in what was happening inside. “Lady Dacey, do you have a moment?” She did not seem happy.

“Give me a moment, please,” Dacey called back pleasantly and turned back to face her daughter. “How do you feel, Lya?”

“Better,” her daughter stepped back, rubbing her eyes furiously. “Thanks, mother.”

“Run along then. Mayhaps you can recruit Arya and Maisie to help you get back at your brother.”

“But they helped Harry!” Lya pouted. “They found the mouse in the first place!”

“Well, then they owe you, don’t they?” Dacey pointed out good-naturedly. If anything, Maisie would be all too enthusiastic to get back at her brother, given his tendency to take her critters and use them to prank his twin sister without even asking, and Arya would take every opportunity to raise some hell, the mischievous little demon. “Remember what I always tell you?”

Lya nodded gingerly. “We girls have to stick together,” she said, echoing the simple and uncomplicated words Maege Mormont had always told Dacey and her sisters; words she, too, had passed onto the next generation, encouraging at every turn that her daughters and nieces formed as tightly knit a bunch as she had been with her own sisters.

“Exactly. Now off you go,” she ushered Lya out of the nursery. The girl ran out, dashing past her aunt’s emerald skirts. 

“Lady Dacey,” Catelyn tried again, all of her delicate courtesies showing rather than hiding her sour mood, “if I may have a word?”

Lya had already disrupted Osric’s feed, and now, it seemed, she would have to push it back even further. He’s still sleeping, she cast a swift glance over to the bassinet, so at least he won’t mind. Which boggled the mind, given how loud Lya’s rackets could get.

It was a rather welcome change of pace that her newest babe was so subdued and tranquil; without Benjen to help her rearing their children, Dacey did not know how she’d cope if Osric was as fussy as Anton or Maisie had been. 

But with Osric, she needed not worry, which meant she could direct her full attention towards her goodsister and whatever aggrieved her so.

With a lean smile, Dacey nodded. “Of course, sister.” 

By oath and amity, she was at the senior Lady Stark’s service, though Dacey had to confess she often understood little of her Southron ways and the stubborn way she clung to them. After all, they’d lived together for over a decade now, looking after the other and their children whenever they were indisposed. There was scarcely a need for all the courtesies.

Given her leave to approach, Catelyn stepped daintily into the room and folded her hands neatly in front of her.

There was a moment of silence, as if Catelyn wasn’t sure how to broach whatever issue bothered her, so Dacey gave her a little push.

“What bothers you?” 

If Dacey had to wager, mayhaps some misadventure related to the numerous young heirs fostered at Winterfell. Sound political strategy though it could be, for the Ladies Stark it was a headache more often than not, for now they had to raise twice the number of rowdy, troublesome children than they would otherwise.

Catelyn sighed and drew her shoulders back, looking Dacey in the eye. “I understand that, as the daughter of a smaller house, there were certain… expectations, that you never had to meet.” Dacey blinked blankly. “But as the daughters of a great House, none of ours have such luxuries. And given recent events, House Stark is no ordinary great house.”

Well, that certainly was not what she had expected to hear. 

And that’s why she never wagered: her luck was rotten.

“And I know,” Catelyn continued, “that you have been encouraging some unacceptable behaviours in our children, especially in Arya. And Maisie,” she added without missing a beat, but it was obvious to Dacey that it had been an afterthought.

She resisted the urge to bristle, but she felt her temper rise nonetheless. Her Maisie was no one’s afterthought, much less to her own damned House. “And what ‘unacceptable behaviours’ would those be, Lady Stark?” she asked, irritated.

Annoyance flashed across Catelyn’s face. “You know them very well.”

“Enlighten me,” Dacey retorted.

“The endless stories of wars and warrior women. The sparring you insist they learn. The way you allow them to skip their lessons with the Septa; in fact, you’ve even helped them get out of it on more than one occasion!” Catelyn snapped. 

“And what’s so wrong with that?” Dacey rolled her eyes. She never had a Septa and she turned out just fine; hells, why did they even have a Septa in the first place, when they all followed the Old Gods? Even Sansa, the most southron-like of the little Starklings, prayed to the Heart Tree. “The only times I have allowed them to skip their lessons was on the rare sunny day, when there is no snow nor rain. Their lessons will still be there for them tomorrow, but not so the sun. This is the North, sister. Days like those must be treasured, because the summer has been long and winter is coming. It’s hardly as if I’m encouraging them to do such things every week!” she protested. In any case, how are they supposed to grow strong if they never see the sun?

Catelyn pursed her lips as if she had swallowed a lemon full. “That may be so,” she conceded reluctantly. “But I fail to see why you must teach them to fight. I understand why your mother taught you, and though I personally distaste it, I can respect it. But why must you insist on teaching our daughters? They don’t need to know something like that.”

“Why not?” Dacey was unable to stop herself from asking. “They need to be able to defend themselves.”

“It is unbecoming of a lady to know swordplay. Their courtesies and manners are all the sword and shield they need.”

That’s not what I mean. “And if they’re in danger, what are they supposed to do? Politely ask the men who would hurt them to stop?” Dacey retorted. “I’m sorry, but I trust a blade more, and so will my daughters bear one.”

“How can you possibly think that’s a good idea? The effect it would have on their marriageability…” her goodsister trailed off, appalled.

Dacey shrugged. “What does it matter? I’d rather have my daughters remain alive than they get married.”

“Their marriages are the way they remain alive, you know this as much as I do,” Catelyn rebuked her sternly, stubbornly refusing to see that Dacey’s concerns laid on the literal side. “They need to marry well! And no lord wants to marry a knight!”

I could name a couple who would. Rather eagerly, in fact. “Well, you can hardly say it affected my own prospects too much,” Dacey said instead.

Oh, but her goodsister could, however, say that her husband had abandoned her, so mayhaps she wasn’t one to talk. But Catelyn Stark, though stubbornly conservative to a fault, was not a cruel woman.

“I suppose it may not matter so much in the North,” Catelyn conceded cautiously. “But Arya’s future husband will most likely be from the South, and things are quite different down there. Arya needs to learn how to be a proper lady, sister, and the way you encourage her misbehaved fancies is not helpful.”

“I do not understand your concern,” Dacey admitted frankly, “nor why you wish to discourage her so. Would that my Lya had Arya’s spirit; I would be much less concerned for her future,” she sighed.

“Why would Lya worry you?” it was Catelyn’s turn to ask, baffled. “She’s the most well-behaved of them all. Even Sansa is more willful than Lya.”

“Precisely that is what worries me. Should the worst come to happen, how can I be sure that Lya will be alright? Will she be able to defend herself at all?” The poor girl was afraid to even hold a wooden sword! A wooden! Sword!

“She has no need to defend herself. Her brothers and cousins will keep her safe, just as her future husband will,” Catelyn dismissed Dacey’s worries. “I understand your concerns, sister, I do, but teaching a lady to fight with blade and mace is a bridge too far.”

“I doubt courtesies will keep them safe from a madman,” Dacey snarked.

“Why are you so adamant our daughters would be threatened by one?” Catelyn asked, utterly perplexed.

“I don’t know, though you can go down to the Crypts and ask our late goodsister. Mayhaps she can come up with an answer.”

Catelyn paled. “The Targaryens are gone. My daughters will not run the same fate,” she swore, her voice hard as iron.

“I certainly wish so.” The Targaryens, though they loved to pretend otherwise, were nothing but men. And men were venal and vile creatures, no matter the colours of their standards. We will never be able to eradicate evil from this world, but the best we can do is teach our children how to survive it. “Yet, I’m not taking any chances.” 

Dacey could have finished the argument there, but there was something else bothering her, and so she spoke.

“Furthermore, didn’t you tell me yourself years ago that I could be both a warrior and a mother at the same time?” she pointed out, irked. “Or have you forgotten about that?”

“I haven’t forgotten about it,” Catelyn rebuked her snappily.

“Then what? Because it seems like you’re contradicting yourself, depriving our daughters of the chance to choose their path.”

“There is no contradiction. You can do as you please, and I will respect it, because it is not your marriage prospects which I have to look after. You are my goodsister and my friend, not my daughter.”

“And neither are Lya or Maisie,” Dacey snapped. “They’re my daughters, and I will teach them to fight.”

Catelyn must have sensed they had reached an impasse, because she drew herself to her full, rather impressive height. “Very well. You will raise your daughters as you see fit,” she proclaimed tersely, “and I will see to mine.”

“Fine by me,” Dacey replied. Not one to be outdone, she took to her feet and towered over her goodsister. Catelyn might be a tall woman, but Dacey, at six feet and three inches, stood taller than most men. She crossed her arms. “But you’ll find that you cannot turn a she-wolf into a little bird.”

> 296.

As Jon waited for the librarian, spindly, fidgety and unfailingly chipper Maester Brus, Luwin’s assistant, to check out in the ledger the book he was borrowing, he spared a glance at the tall and vaulted rooms, filled to the brim with dusty old books and scrolls, millennia upon millennia of accumulated knowledge.

The library was almost completely devoid of all life. As always.

Except for one corner, where Alys Karstark had her nose buried in a very thick book. As always.

Usually, Jon would just leave her to her own designs and go do something else, but this time... this time…

Jon didn’t know what was different this time. He only knew it was.

True, he had always been slightly curious as to what kind of books could be so interesting that she had spent almost the two whole years since she had arrived in Winterfell reading, but he had rarely spared her a second thought. 

Yet now there was something he couldn’t quite pinpoint that drew him towards her. Perhaps his curiosity had finally overwhelmed his apathy.

“Thank you very much, Maester Brus,” he duly nodded, his mind on the girl reading in the corner.

“Nonsense, Jon,” he said amicably. “Just give my regards to your siblings for me.” His tone suddenly became sombre. “Except Arya.”

That threw Jon off, shaking him out cold off his daze. “Why not Arya?”

Brus appeared annoyed. “She filled my boots with dung because I told her to listen to her Septa. She might not like Septa Mordane, but taking it out on me was completely uncalled for, I say.”

Jon stifled the smile that threatened to form on his face. “I’ll make sure to give her a stern talking to,” he promised. 

Brus shot him a wearily knowing look. Yeah, fair enough, not even I believe that one, Jon admitted to himself. Besides, mother has probably already gotten to her by now. 

“Take care, maester,” he said his goodbye, and turned towards the door, stopping himself just as he was going to open it.

He turned his gaze towards Alys, absorbed in her reading.

Then back to the door.

Then back to Alys.

Eh, what the hells.  

It’s not like he had anything better to do, after all.

Turning on his heels, he walked towards Alys’s corner.

“Why is it that everytime I come to the library, you’re always here?” Jon wondered aloud as he reached her.

Instead of jumping in surprise as he half-expected her to do, the girl only stared at him with a nonchalant look.

“Because I like reading…?” she asked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Jon was a dimwit for asking such a thing.

“I inferred that,” Jon replied without missing a beat. “What I meant was, why do you do it here instead of in your bedchamber?”

“Because I share it with Torr. Do you have the slightest idea of how much he reeks when he returns from your never-ending sparring sessions? I feel like I’m going to suffocate in the stench, I swear to the gods,” Alys pinched her nose, then smiled contently. “Besides, the library is always empty and quiet.” She levelled him an amused look. “Or at least, most of the time. What are you doing here, Stark? Never thought you for the intellectual type.”

I used to be the smart twin before Robb started Father’s lessons, he grumbled internally, but instead of protesting, he simply held the book he had checked out high so Alys could see it.

“I’m taking out ‘The Prince’ by Nykos Myrakis,” he said. It sounded somewhat lame to his ears.

“Never heard of it in my entire life,” Alys stated blankly.

I don’t blame you, neither had I before half an hour ago.

“It’s a Pentoshi political treatise. I’m actually amazed that we have it in the library. Father assigned its reading to me and Robb. Robb is quite excited about it, but…”

“You’re not?” It wasn’t as much a question as it was a statement.

Jon nodded wearily. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for me to learn politics and the like, but I’m not the heir to Winterfell.”

“That doesn’t mean you should ignore them,” she frowned, and Jon knew she was right. “Life rarely ever turns out the way we wish. Look at your father, for example: he was Lord Rickard’s second son, yet now he’s the Lord of Winterfell. It’s better to be prepared, you know.”

“I know,” Jon muttered. He loathed thinking of it.

“Just in case you end up as Lord of Riverrun.”

“Riverrun?” Jon frowned in confusion. That wasn’t what he was expecting. “Uncle Edmure is barely a decade older than me, and cousins Osbert and Ernest are almost the same age as Bran.”

“Only two heirs, and no further spares in sight.”

Not through any fault of his own, Jon thought, it’s his wife the one miscarrying them. “He’ll make more.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” Alys insisted.

“He will,” Jon said sharply. He sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Truth be told, I don’t want to become a lord. I’m happy here. I’m happy being Robb’s right hand man. If the price to pay for my own fiefdom is the death of my kin, then I don’t want it. Would you like to be the Lady of Karhold?”

“Absolutely not,” Alys replied with the same certainty. “I love my brothers too much to wish for something so dreadful.”

“Just so,” Jon said. Although I don’t even know them, to be honest. Still, they’re family, and that’s that. Family, Duty, Honour; though they weren’t his, he tried to live up to his mother’s words as much as possible.

“Yet, when has life ever cared for our wants?” Alys wondered out loud, and Jon knew he couldn’t refute her. Just ask Anton.

An awkward silence fell upon them. Jon pursed his lips, before deciding to change the subject to the first thing that came to mind.

“What are you reading?” he inquired, sitting down on the chair across from her. If she was annoyed by the continued interruption, she didn’t show it. In fact, if Jon was reading her face correctly, Alys was actually pleasantly surprised at the interest shown.

“‘The Eagle and the Dragon’, by Maester Bennard. It’s a novel.”

“The eagle and the dragon?” Jon tilted his head. Something about that pairing rang a bell somewhere in his brain. “Is it about Aemma Arryn and her marriage to Viserys I?” It was something of a stretch, for the Arryn sigil was that of a falcon instead of an eagle, but it was the likeliest alternative.

“You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried,” Alys smiled knowingly. “Try again.”

Crap. “Mallisters and Targaryens?” The relationship of the dragon kings with the Mallisters wasn’t special or unique by any means, but the Lords of Seagard had been steadfast and loyal to the Targaryens all the way up to the brutal execution of Lord Jason’s brother Jeffory by the Mad King. Surely, some Maester must have written about them, no?

“Ouch, wrong again.” Alys’s smile only grew more devious. “Third time’s the charm?” she teased him.

“Uhh… “ Jon blanked, wracking his brain for an answer. The ‘dragon’ ought to be the Targaryens, right? It’s the most obvious option, but House Vance and Toland and Willund also have dragons on their sigils, and that’s without even getting into who the ‘eagle’ could be and you know what fuck it. “One of the countless obscure tales from the Age of Heroes?”

“You’re not even trying, are you?” Before Jon could reply, though, Alys spoke again. “Wrong on all accounts, though your last guess was as close as it gets. It’s not a true story, but a made-up one, like the songs of the bards, except that this one is actually enjoyable instead of just being silly southron fodder.”

“Am I at least right in assuming the title is metaphoric, or it is actually about an eagle and a dragon going on most excellent adventures?” he asked.

“I said ‘enjoyable’,” Alys deadpanned.

“Look, if you don’t think an eagle and a dragon going on most excellent adventures is enjoyable, then I don’t have anything to say to you,” Jon laughed, eliciting a giggle from Alys.

“That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Someone should write that story,” she mused. “Yes, the title is metaphoric. The eagle and the dragon are the respective sigils of the Houses Solaceon and Drakkaring, and the story is about their blood feud over the throne of Arkham.”

“Never heard of them. Nor Arkham, for that matter.”

“I would be surprised if you did, because they’re all made-up.”

Jon frowned, sensing a pattern. “Is it even set in the Known World?”

“Nope. It’s set on the world of Midgard, which, as you can imagine, is also made-up. ‘Midgard’ means ‘The Middle Realm’ in the old Reach tongue.”

“Middle Realm?” He felt like a fool, pitifully out of his depth, asking so many questions in so short a span of time.

“Yes. That is because it’s the ‘realm of men’, placed below the ‘realm of gods’, which took place in the distant past, and above… I don’t know. The hells, maybe? Our own ‘lesser’ world? Both? Neither? It’s not really clear, and answers aren’t precisely forthcoming.” Alys smiled wryly. “It doesn’t help that Maester Alexiel lived thousands of years ago and never bothered explaining it.”

“And if he did, it was written so long ago that the explanation is lost to time,” Jon surmised.

“Precisely,” Alys nodded, and Jon didn’t feel so foolish anymore. “Most other Maesters prefer to let the greater mythos sleep while they work on the history of the world itself.”

“Other Maesters?” It didn’t last. 

“Yes! There are hundreds of other books like this one! It’s a whole canon many maesters of the Citadel have contributed to across the centuries. It’s all very convoluted. It’s an entire world, thousands upon thousands of years of history. There’s hundreds of kingdoms, religions, languages, wars… They even add the genealogy of the main houses in an appendix at the end of each book! For example, in ‘The Empty Throne’, which takes place a couple of centuries after this one, just about everyone is related in one way or another and the whole conflict is about the succession, so knowing who is what to whom is of paramount necessity, and even then it’s not enough, what with the Edwards and Edmunds and Edgars and Ed-Gods-know-what. Some books even have glossaries and dictionaries explaining the made up languages and th—”

Jon was completely flabbergasted at what he was listening to. Fictional worlds, fictional kingdoms, fictional languages… Who even had all the time to come up with such things? He knew right then and there that he could never wrap his head around such things, even if he tried.

Yet here Alys stood, an expert on the matter and making it look easy.

At first glimpse, Jon had just assumed Alys, due to her subdued nature, to be one of those dainty pretty ladies that faint at everything, like Sansa had once threatened to become before Aunt Dacey and Dom had set her straight (sort of). But now, Alys was just so… excited, talking about whatever these Histories were, that he couldn’t take his eyes off her, even if he understood, at best, a third of what she was saying.

Appearances can be deceiving, his mother’s warning voice resounded in his head. For the first time in forever, he was glad she was right while he wasn’t.

Alys cleared her throat awkwardly. “But I digress,” she eventually closed off her meandering ramblings on what made which book more complex than the last, and Jon could only thank the gods that his head hadn’t yet exploded. “Back to ‘The Eagle and the Dragon’. So, there’s this island kingdom, like Westeros, called Archeoria after the massive mountain chain that crosses it from north to south on the eastern shore. By the time of this story, most of the island is ruled by the kingdom of Arkham, except for a western peninsula, which is ruled by the smaller kingdom of Standale, and the northern highlands, which are the kingdom of Mynyddir.”

“Oh gods,” Jon couldn’t help but whimper. “What have I gotten myself into? Perhaps I should have left you to your own devices.”

“You have made a terrible mistake, as you will soon realise,” Alys smiled, amused by his reaction. “Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep it short: like the First Men, the Mynyddireans used to rule the whole island, but were pushed towards the northern mountains by waves upon waves of conquerors coming from the icy continent to the south – oh, yes! In this world, the colder regions are to the south and the warmer ones to the north.”

“That’s strange, to say the least.”

“Well, some Maesters theorise that, if the world is round,” Alys pointed out, “the temperatures to the far south should be as cold as those to the north, with the warm regions being a ‘belt’ around the middle of the world, and that’s why Dorne and southern Essos are deserts and Sothoryos a jungle. At least, that’s what Maester Hendryk told me,” she shrugged.

Jon nodded slowly. “I see. Actually, now that you mention it, I think Maester Luwin once told us something along the same lines.”

“I told you, Midgard was designed by Maesters. They know what they’re talking about,” Alys said. “But as I was saying: the southron conquerors expelled the Mynyddireans to the wet highlands to the north, while they took over the fertile basin of the massive Ash river – think of something like the Rhoyne or the Trident – and established their own kingdoms. Nowadays, there’s only a handful of Reisigen – that’s the name of their people, by the way, it means ‘wanderer’ in their language – kingdoms, with the biggest and most powerful being Arkham and Standale. Arkham is ruled by the House of Solaceon.”

“And Standale by the Drakkarings?” Jon guessed.

“Standale is ruled by the House of Standale,” Alys smirked. “We still haven’t gotten to the Drakkarings.”

“I seem to recall you said ‘long story short’?,” he said dryly.

“This is the short version. I told you it’s convoluted, didn’t I?”

Jon only harrumphed, crossing his arms mulishly.

Taking that as her cue to continue, Alys did so. “Arkham, being much larger and stronger than its neighbours, is well poised to conquer Standale and Mynyrddir and unify the island of Archeoria. But in later years, it has been harrassed by pesky raiders and reavers coming from the southern continent.”

“From their old homeland?” Jon tilted his head. “Shouldn’t they be on friendly terms, if they’re both from there?”

“Yes and no. Time has passed, and their old homeland has moved on. Nowadays they’re what Maester Bennard calls ‘cultural cousins’, sharing a common ancestry and having many similarities, but they’re still vastly different from one another. For starters, they speak different languages. Kind of how the wildlings are to us; we’re both First Men, but that’s just about it. They’re still savages and barbarians, while we’ve mostly moved past that.”

“I don’t know about that, have you seen the Greatjon in his cups?” Jon jested.

Alys snorted a most unladylike laugh. “I did say ‘mostly’, didn’t I?” she said. “So there’s raider warbands coming from the south, and though they’re troublesome enough to get a prince or two killed, they’re not much of a threat to either Arkham’s or Standale’s continued existence. That is, until a legendary adventurer called Torvald the Dragonslayer united the petty kingdoms of the southern continent under his banner, and founded the kingdom of Drakkaland, or ‘land of the dragons’. The Drakkarings are his lineage, and they have their eyes set on Archeoria.”

“Is there a particular reason, or they’re just assholes?”

“Besides the fact that Drakkaland is an icy, mountainous wasteland even more inhospitable than Skagos or the lands beyond the Wall, while Archeoria and the Ash river are as fertile as the Reach?” Alys raised an amused eyebrow.

A beat of silence.

“Well, when you put it that way…” Jon allowed, leaning back on his chair with a playful smile.

“That being said, they are also assholes, so you’re right about that,” Alys leaned forward, and Jon could see that she had a small gap in her front teeth. “They’re a blend between both wildlings and the Ironborn, so of course they love raiding, pillaging and raping for fun and profit, and Archeoria is right there across the sea, so they’re their most obvious target – though they’ve also sailed to faraway lands in search of plunder. Torvald earned much of his fame fighting as a mercenary for the different warring kingdoms of the southern continent—”

“Does this southern continent have a name, perchance?” Jon asked, slightly bemused.

“Not that I know of,” Karstark admitted. “All the novels I’ve read call it ‘Drakkaland’, but that’s the name of the kingdom, and they’re set after it has been unified, so I don’t know if it had another name prior to it or what. I’m just saying ‘southern continent’ to distinguish between the both.” 

“Fair enough,” he muttered. The fact that everything had hyper-elaborate histories and names except one of the main landmasses struck him as quite odd. It would be as if, alongside Westeros, Essos and Ulthos, Sothoryos was just called ‘south land’ and ohhhhhhh—

Alys continued without missing a beat, unaware of Jon’s sudden existential enlightenment. “Torvald, for the most part, was content to raid Arkham dry of its riches, but his son Sigurdr, on the other hand, has higher goals: he wants to conquer Arkham for himself.”

“I imagine the Risiyen aren’t too excited about that.”

“Reisigen,” Alys corrected him, “and you’d be surprised! Arkham’s expansion has left many powerful and dangerous people angry and resentful, and itching for a chance to shake off the Solaceon yoke.”

“Reminds me of the Riverlords upon Aegon’s arrival.”

“Just so. And a chance has presented itself: King Oswald II was a strong and capable king, and kept his chafing vassals and tributaries in line, but his son and heir, Alecstan IV died not long after succeeding his father, leaving the throne to his son, the boy king Alecsiel, and the ensuing power vacuum has left the realm in turmoil, as the lesser kings of Archeoria itch to regain their independence and Standale and Mynyddir stir, seeing a chance to challenge Arkham’s supremacy.” How Alys was able to say all that without stopping to take a breath, Jon would never know. “And Sigurdr Drakkaring, hungry for conquering fertile lands and eager to outdo his late father in deed and fame, is all too eager to join in the fun.”

“Sounds like the perfect storm,” he remarked quite lamely. Truth is, Jon had nothing to say for himself; he was hopelessly out of his depth. Alys had the field and the initiative, while he could only struggle to dance to her tune, grasping at low hanging fruits in a paltry attempt to get a word in.

It was a deeply aggravating state of affairs, and he loathed it.

Upstaged by Robb at every turn, and now overwhelmed by Alys’s enthusiasm, Jon could only feel hopelessly inadequate. Pathetic, even. How could he deserve the name of a Stark of Winterfell, if he was nothing but a stupid boy? How could he ever deserve Mother’s smiles and Father’s pride, if he couldn’t even get his head around a silly make-believe tale?

Got to try harder, he brooded, frustration spurring him onwards. I must.

“Oh, yes,” Alys nodded. “And it all goes down when, by mere chance, a raiding party led by one of Sigurdr’s brothers slays the petty king of Suthegria.”

“You keep saying names as if they’re supposed to mean anything to me,” Jon deadpanned, then kicked himself internally. His annoyance was directed at himself. He shouldn’t take it out on Alys.

Fortunately, Alys didn’t take notice. Instead, she blushed sheepily. “Well, they would if you read the books!” she exclaimed.

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You just want someone to understand what you’re talking about, don’t you?” he snarked again, this time making sure to keep himself in check.

“I mean, I wouldn’t be against it,” Karstark grumbled good-naturedly. “Gods know I could use someone else who knows about the Histories. Not even Maester Hendryk knew what they were when I first found them back at Karhold.”

“I doubt anyone in the entire North knows of them besides yourself.” And myself, now.

“I wouldn’t be surprised, to be honest,” she shrugged. “More’s the pity, because I think they’re brilliant. The authors really knew what they were on about.”

If they’re so good, then why does no one know of them? Jon wondered idly. Say what you will about the quality of the tales surrounding Florian the Fool and Jonquil, but everyone and their mams knew it. “Say, are they based in real history?” he asked.

Alys played absentmindedly with her braid, mulling how to reply to that, but looked as happy as Jon had ever seen her.

“To a degree. There’s a lot of similarities between the stories in the Histories and Westerosi history, but for the most part it seems as if the authors try to mix it up before committing it to page. For example, the Drakkaring dynasty are like the lost lovechild between Houses Stark and Greyjoy —”

“Ah, Theon,” Jon grinned goodnaturedly, earning a giggle from Alys.

“Oh, Gods, yes! Even the name ‘Theon’ sounds like ‘Torvald’, too!”

He blinked in confusion. “... In what world?”

“In my own little one, all right? Don’t judge me!” Alys snapped back, but there was no bite to her words. She was clearly enjoying their back and forth banter, and he had to admit, so was he, now that he had managed to establish a foothold for himself.

And so they chattered and chattered, as minutes turned to hours and hours passed them by, both scions of the direwolf none the wiser to the passage of time until a servant brought down the chandelier to light the candles.

As they observed him move from candle to candle, silence held over them. “Well, that was… definitely interesting,” Jon eventually said.

“And there’s mooore~!” Alys happily said in a sing-song voice.

Jon laughed, raising his hands up in surrender. “I think my head’s going to explode if you keep stuffing more information into my brain. Where did you even get all of this?”

“There were a couple of books in Karhold since gods know when, and father requested more be sent from the Citadel when he saw how much I liked them. I brought Maester Edwolf’s Blood on the Ice – about a Drakkaring blood feud – with me from Karhold, but the library here is full of other books of the canon. Maester Brus recommended me this one, for example—“

Jon looked at Alys speak excitedly as he pondered, barely registering her fast-fired, impassioned words.

Alys Karstark was, undeniably, a very pretty girl, with her pointy chin, blue-grey eyes, and a skin so white and soft that looked like ivory, and that was something he had noticed as soon as she and Torr had arrived at Winterfell a year ago. There was something so familiar about her looks, too, but Jon supposed it made sense, since she was from a cadet branch of the Starks.

While he hadn’t given her much thought afterwards, as the girl was rather quiet and unassuming, he found that he rather liked her company. She was unlike all those maidens many lords had already sent his way (he was, after all, Lord Stark’s second son) that were, to quote his little sister, ‘stupid as a rock’ and knew only how to blush prettily in his presence and hardly anything else. Good thing the body functions on its own, or they would have forgotten how to breathe upon seeing him and died, and that would have been quite awkward.

Compared to them, Alys was a very strange person. But it was a good kind of strange, Jon thought. She didn’t treat him any differently to how she treated anyone else, which was quite the refreshing change of pace when compared to the aforementioned starstruck maidens that treated him like he was the trueborn heir to the Iron Throne. 

She was smart, sardonic, with a quick wit and very well read, and with a certain lonesome disposition that just drew him towards her. Even if it was made-up, he felt like he was actually learning something with every word she spoke. Despite never crossing so much as a word prior to this, now he felt like they had known each other their entire lives. There was a strange ease to their interactions, one he had only ever had with Robb (obviously) and Arya.

He certainly wouldn’t mind spending more time with her.

“Jon?” her soft voice woke him out of his reverie.

“Yes?” he replied, slightly shaken out of his stupor.

“The staring,” she snapped, her voice suddenly as dry as the red sands of Dorne. “It’s starting to get creepy.”

“Oh. Err… So-sorry,” he managed to blurt out, flustered and ears reddening.

Alys giggled. He found he rather liked that sound. “I’m just messing with you.”

Jon swiftly changed topic, before he had the chance to make a bigger fool out of himself any further. “W-where would you advise I should begin if I wanted to read these books?”

Alys toyed with her braid, brow furrowed in thought. After a moment, she said, “Good question. I think you should best begin with either Maester Alexiel’s – no, not that one, another Alexiel – Hail to the King. It takes place a good number of centuries after this one,” she pointed at The Eagle and the Dragon, “so spoilers beware, but at its core it’s a very intimate human and political drama, so it’s a great hook to get you into it. It also has a lot of underhanded politics to it, so who knows? It might even come in handy for your lessons.” After a short pause, she shot him a sly grin. “Tell you what. Since barely a soul is ever here, how about we meet at least once or twice a week to read and talk about the Histories?”

“Really?” Jon had to keep his voice in check to avoid sounding like he was eager to do so.

Which he was, but it was none of Alys’s business knowing so.

“If you can keep up, of course,” she smirked.

“You doubt I could, Karstark?” He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, his tone defiant.

“Then prove me wrong, Stark,” she challenged, matching his every gesture perfectly.

Oh, I will.

Dear Maggie,

Do you remember what you told me when I said Alys Karstark was on Winterfell years ago? That I should be wary of her because she might try to hook me into a betrothal?

Gods, has that aged poorly. The girl is an absolute bookworm, and only steps out of the library for supper and sleep. She doesn’t even speak with anyone but her brother and Maester Brus.

And now my brother, too.

I’m not sure when it happened, but apparently they’re friends or something now. Jon is at least twice a week with her in the library, doing gods-know-what, and only returning late at night with the stupidest grin I’ve ever seen in his face (and believe me, Maggie, when I say that I have seen things ). Theon and Dom are so proud, and Torr pretends to be annoyed, but I know he approves of whatever is going on between Jon and his sister.

Arya, though, looks like she wants to gut Alys like a fish. She has always been a bit possessive over Jon, and is not happy about him spending time with someone else instead of her.

Everything else is business as usual. The most noteworthy thing that has happened, I believe, was that Lord Manderly came to Winterfell the other day to personally update us (father insisted on my presence during the audience) on the status of the fleet. According to him, by now it’s one of the strongest navies in Westeros, but that’s such a tall claim that I’ll believe it when I see it.

He also wanted to name the flagship ‘Lord Eddard’, and I proposed naming it ‘Winter’, or ‘The Fist of Winter’, or something awesome like that, but my father eventually decided it should be named ‘Cat’ instead, because it ‘would look after the North like my mother looks after him’.

It was so cheesy I almost retched.

With love,

Robb.

PS: I didn’t know what else to say to sign off, but I didn’t want to end my letter speaking about, well, that. Besides, I guess we’re there, right? I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.

“You call that flirting?!”

“Theon, I swear to every god there is…”

Dear Robb,

Truly, now? It looks like our little Jon is finally growing up!

I stand by my analysis, though. True, mayhaps Alys didn’t collaborate much (if at all), but her father was clearly aiming to snatch a betrothal to a Stark twin when he sent her to Winterfell alongside her brother. And by sheer coincidence, she developed a rapport with the younger twin. I bet Lord Karstark is going to feel slightly disappointed, because you’re the better catch. 

No offence to Jon.

I repeat: No offence to Jon.

Read me very carefully, Robert Stark – if you twist my words to try and make fun of Jon I will drive my shoe so far up your ass that you won’t be able to sit ever again! And don’t try to claim you’d never do that, because I know better, just as you know that I absolutely would go through with my threat.

Behave, because I’ll know if you don’t.

Anyway, as I was saying:

Of course, that all depends on whether whatever Jon and Alys Karstark have going on between them ends up in marriage. But let’s be honest, with how Westerosi politics work, that’s the most likely outcome. If a problem can’t be solved by the blade, it is solved by the bed.

I would know, I’ve been subject to proposals ever since I was born! But my father has refused them all. He says that he has big plans for me, and that the only offer he’s going to accept has to come from the King himself.

Fat chance of that ever happening, though. Both Lannisters and Florents hate our guts. And if I’m being perfectly truthful, based on what Loras has told me, I don’t see much reason to care about Prince Joffrey. And considering Prince Tommen is Bran’s age, I’d be lying if I told you I find the idea appealing.

You northerners have issues. I’d love to see you dealing with all the ‘courtly love’ there is in Highgarden. If you’re already retching just by your father showing some love for your mother, you’d be puking out of every hole you have by the end of the first day here!

And now I pictured that in my head and I can’t get it out. 

What have I done to deserve this.

With love,

Maggie.

PS: Don’t worry, I was thinking the same thing to be honest. It just feels so abrupt otherwise. Besides, we’ve been writing to each other for over six years now; yes, we’re there.

Sansa was on a mission.

And so, with a sure and deliberate stride, she crossed the courtyard. 

Robb, Dom, Torrhen Karstark, Daryn Hornwood, Benfred Tallhart and Cley Cerwyn were sparring to their heart’s content in the centre, enjoying a free-for-all melee. ‘Small’ Jon Umber, tall and wide as a sentinel tree and barely seventeen, was in the midst of an archery competition with short and skinny Olyvar Frey. Jon and Alys sat on a grassy knoll, chatting lightly and pointedly ignoring both the jeers and kissy noises Theon shot at them and the daggers Arya glared at Alys while she played with Harry, Lya, Maisie and Rickon. Bran peeled from atop the armoury’s roof, wary of the guards that their mother had assigned to try – and fail – to stop him from climbing. 

She strode past all of them without sparing a second thought, her eyes set on the boy on the edge of the courtyard.

Clad in steel and with a two-hander, Anton sparred fiercely with Steffon Dustin, who instead opted for a light brigandine, some minor plate to protect his limbs, steel gauntlets, a sallet and a round steel shield.

Steffon parried Anton’s swing with his shield, countering with a strike of his own sword. Anton, however, unexpectedly parried his lunge with his reinforced steel gauntlet and, using the momentum of his two-hander, swiped Steffon’s legs out from under him, and he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

“I yield!” Steffon cried from the ground, raising his arms in surrender. Anton merely nodded before turning around and walking away. “Good move,” Dustin added as he reincorporated himself, sheathing his sword. 

Anton harrumphed in reply, driving his two-hander into the ground and raising his close helm’s visor to take a drink from his waterskin.

Her cousin, despite wearing plate armour non-stop for over a full year by now (and even forging it himself when Mikken refused to do it on her father’s command, although which pieces were the ones he had made were painfully obvious by his inexpert and amateur crafting), was still gaunt, pale and scruffy. The dark bags underneath his eyes and impressive height made him look far, far older than his eleven years of age.

Anton pointedly ignored her presence when she came to stop in front of both boys, blatantly turning his gaze away from her. Steffon, on the contrary, duly nodded at her as he took out his sallet.

“Lady Sansa,” he greeted her. Steffon Dustin, Lord Willam’s firstborn son and heir, was a boy of eleven, sturdy and well-built, with short golden hair combed backwards; he was quite handsome, if Sansa was being honest, but Jeyne Poole was hopelessly smitten with the heir to Barrowton, and she was nothing if not a good and faithful friend.

Sansa rolled her eyes, almost amused. Almost. “Steffon, I’ve already told you countless times there’s no need for that. It’s Sansa. Just Sansa.”

Dustin smiled lightly. “And I’ve already told you countless times, my lady, that my lady mother was very insistent on making me be mindful of my courtesies and to treat everyone as befits their standing. So, no can do, Lady Sansa” – and he duly nodded again – “You deserve as much.”

“Are you two done?” Anton snapped acidly. Unlike Steffon, he hadn’t undone any of the straps that held his helmet closed tight, instead immediately shutting back his visor the instant he stopped drinking.

“Besides, it’s the least I can do, all things considered,” Steffon muttered softly, only for Sansa to hear.

“Hey. I asked you a question. Or are you deaf? Has the squealing of the children ruined your ears already?” Anton called again, voice thick with contempt.

Sansa loved Anton with all her heart. She had done so her whole life, even through the whole year he had been relentlessly hostile to everyone in Winterfell. She loved him to bits, she truly did, but she had had it with his unbearable and contentious attitude.

And yet, Steffon appeared immune to it all, standing firm by Anton’s side despite the vitriol the latter spewed at him with carefree abandon.

“How can you stand him?” she wondered, her voice at the same volume as he had spoken to her before.

“If not me, then who?” was all he answered, before moving aside and leaving her face to helm with her cousin.

Her beloved cousin, who had once scared the monsters of the night away with his warmth and his love, now only stared at her with cold indifference. He hadn’t even raised his visor.

“No, I’m not done,” Sansa said, praying her voice came out with more confidence than she felt. A knot was threatening to form in her throat, but she willed it to loosen. “I want to talk with you.”

“Too bad,” Anton said flippantly, “because I don’t.”

Too bad, indeed—For him. Sansa was on a mission, and she wasn’t going to fail now. Not again.

She’d been kind and thoughtful, like mother had suggested, and given Anton time to lick his wounds. She understood that it was difficult for him, she truly did; she could hardly fathom the thought of losing her own father, much less call for him as he left to never return.

But this had gone on for far too long, and Anton had not improved.

If anything, he had worsened considerably, falling further into the pits of his despair.

Enough was enough. She had to do something.

Sometimes, we have to force our help on those who won’t help themselves.

And kindness had failed her at every turn. Perhaps it was time to fight back.

Gathering every ounce of courage in her body, Sansa lifted her chin and struck at every young boy’s weakest spot: their pride. 

“I know you don’t. You’ve been avoiding me so much that, if I didn’t know you any better, I might name you a coward,” she said, deliberately emulating her mother’s frightful severity when angered.

Anton stiffened, and even Steffon, always imperturbable, grimaced in anticipation.

One did not simply accuse a young Northerner of being a coward, if you valued your well-being. Doing so was a certain way to start a fight.

And mayhaps, Sansa was itching for one. It had been over a whole year. 

A whole year of being dismissed and ignored, in which her favourite person in the entire world kept pretending that she didn’t even exist, forsaking her almost overnight without ever giving her a reason.

She was hurt. She was tired. But first and foremost, she was livid.

“So. Are you going to finally face me, or are you going to keep running away like a coward?”

“Stop calling me a coward,” Anton snarled.

“Stop behaving like one,” she spat back at him.

Both cousins, once of one heart and one mind, stared each other down in an unspoken war of wills.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sansa was aware that the whole courtyard’s attention was set squarely on them. The sound of the joyous, puerile brawling had died out, replaced with an awkward and tense silence. Both of her elder brothers hovered nearby, ready to intervene if necessary.

It wouldn’t be necessary. After several seconds, Anton folded.

Just about.

“Fine, then,” he growled, icy and hateful. “Lose the audience. We’ll talk in the Godswood.”

Despite her anger, Sansa graciously nodded, ever mindful of the courtesies her lady mother instilled on her.

“Very well. Lead on.”

They left the courtyard in silence, followed by the stares of the other children of Winterfell. Mutters grew behind them, and Sansa could make out the voices of Steffon and her elder brothers, but she paid them no mind. Her attention was focused on the boy in front of her, as they made their way to the Godswood.

Anton said nothing. He rarely did, these days, consumed by the festering darkness in his heart and mind.

And it was her fault.

She knew as much the instant she saw Anton lying unconscious, feverish and broken, in Maester Luwin’s study.

Childishly, she thought she was helping, bringing him food and drink and camping by his door. At the moment, it had made perfect sense to her: Father would take care of Uncle Benjen’s unfinished affairs, Aunt Dacey would take care of the small children, and her mother would take care of Aunt Dacey. 

Sansa would take care of Anton.

I wanted to help you. I wanted to keep you safe.

Yet, she had done none of the sort. 

How could she, from the other side of his bedchamber’s door?

Stupidly, she thought all it would take would be bringing him food and drink to keep him fed. She thought that, given a day or two, everything would be fine.

That Anton would eventually realise how much she cared for him and how loved he was. 

That he’d realise he wasn’t alone.

That he’d open the door, and seek her solace.

She was there for him, waiting.

But when the door had finally been opened, it hadn’t been out of his own account, for he was near the breaking point, his body consumed by his grief.

A whole week had passed to get to that point.

A whole week in which she did nothing, but camp outside his bedchamber in the vain hope that that would be enough.

Her stupidity and negligence had almost gotten him killed. 

She should have asked her father for help. She should have tried to push open the door herself. She should have done something. Anything.

But she didn’t. She failed him.

This time, I will save him, she vowed to the Heart Tree, as both cousins came to a stop in front of it. I’ll bring him back.

“We’re here,” Anton stated flatly, crossing his arms and directing his gaze anywhere but at her. He did not deign to raise his helmet’s visor. “Make it quick. What do you want?”

Where to even start?

“What I want is an explanation.”

“There’s nothing to explain.”

“There’s everything to explain!” Sansa exploded, clenching her fists. “Why do you act like you hate everyone?! Why do you lash out against us when all we’re doing is trying to help you?! Why do you continue mistreating your own mother?! Why did you abandon me from one day to the other?!”

The last one seemed to have struck a nerve, for Anton sharply turned to look at her.

“Why do you care?” he hissed.

Why wouldn’t I?! She wanted to cry at him, angry tears stinging at her eyes. Why wouldn’t I care that my inseparable cousin, my other half, suddenly turned away from everything?! Why wouldn’t I care for you?! Why wouldn’t I care for how you’re slowly destroying yourself?! Countless questions and recriminations floated in her mind, accumulated over the moons of pain and frustration, yet now, she found herself utterly speechless. Opening and closing her mouth, she couldn’t force the words to leave her mouth, all of them stuck in the knot in her throat, and her fire and fury fading fast, leaving behind only the insurmountable sadness that she felt within.

In the end, she meekly croaked: “I miss my cousin.”

“You miss your cousin?” His laugh was disbelieving, cruel and wretched. “You drove him away. You, and everyone else who were supposed to be his family. You abandoned him when he needed you the most. Turn-cloaks and traitors, all of you. You are no kin of mine,” Anton spat, every word a sharp dagger to her heart.

“I brought you food! I nursed you while you were unconscious!” Sansa cried, reeling from his words. “I tried to help you!”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Anton hissed icily. “Why do you even make the effort to cross the bridges you burnt down yourself, huh? Does it make you feel any better? Does it wash your hands from your own sins?!” He closed the gap between them. Inheriting his mother’s height, Anton had always been a lanky youth, much taller than her, and now, clad in his armour, he loomed threateningly over her like a mountain.

Sansa couldn’t help but take a few steps back, biting back her tears. “Wha— what are you talking about?!”

“Sure, act like you don’t know. You want to know why I abandoned you?” he spat with a mocking emphasis on the word, a deliberate and malicious effort to hurt her further, to twist the knife. “Because you’re just like everyone else. Because I trusted you. Because I loved you, and that didn’t stop you from stabbing me in the back alongside the rest.”

“That’s enough, Anton,” Steffon Dustin jumped out of nowhere, stepping in between the two Starks. “Back off.”

Anton barked a contemptuous laugh. “You followed us. Of course you followed us. Couldn’t mind your own gods’ damned business, could you? No,” he snapped at his friend. Anton’s voice was brittle and anguished, attesting at the turmoil boiling beneath the steel plate. “No. You don’t get to tell me how I treat my kin,” he said, his voice oozing acid and hatred and despair. “You, the golden child, the son of a perfect marriage, the one whose younger siblings look up to and admire. No, you don’t get to say anything.”

Steffon pursed his lips, and looked into the middle distance for a moment. Then, he spoke in a measured tone. “You’re right. Maybe I don’t get the privilege to judge you.” He turned to stare at Anton straight in the eye. “But I still have the right to defend a lady’s honour. So, back off,” he said one last time.

“Make me.”

The sound of the clash of steel against steel came first, as the back of Steffon’s gauntlet impacted against the side of Anton’s head. Taken off guard, her cousin lost his footing and stumbled to his left, crashing to the ground with a strident clatter.

Anton raised his helmeted face, expression indecipherable.

“You’ll regret that,” he muttered, and with extraordinary speed, jumped at Steffon.

And so they clashed again, this time not with sword and shield but with their gauntleted fists, a vicious flurry of limbs and steel.

Sansa couldn’t take it anymore.

And so she ran.

To wherever her feet took her, away from them.

Perhaps it was only a fitting irony that Sansa found herself sitting on the floor of her bedchamber, back against her locked ironwood door while she cried.

Tears of pain, tears of grief, brought forth by the cruel words he said, by the barely concealed woe that made his voice quiver even as he spewed hatred, as if he himself was on the verge of breaking down.

Tears of mourning, because the Anton she had grown up with and loved with her entire heart was gone, leaving behind only a hollow husk of the person he used to be enclosed in a suit of armour. The Anton that played with her, indulging her in her silly fantasies like a whipped dog, even when he was vehemently vocal in his displeasure. The Anton that always made her laugh when she was feeling downcast, her eternal companion, her comforter, her protector and confidante. The Anton who wished to one day become a lord someplace, or maybe a sellsword and gain fortune. A gallant knight to wear her favour and make her proud.

Mistrustful, snarky, faithful, wonderful Anton. The one person she knew would stand by her side against tide and wave.

He was gone.

And she would never have him back.

She would pray for Anton, her Anton, to come back, but what would be the point? 

The Old Gods had cared not for her turmoil. Not once during the past year, and much less today, when they had taken her prayers and vows and spat in her face. In her mind’s eye, the face of the Heart Tree sneered cruelly at her, the ravens laughing at her misery.

And so, she sat in her bedchamber, weeping for the loved one she had lost.

Locked in and alone, just as her other half had died a year ago.

There was a knock at her door, startling Sansa, who turned to look at it with puffy, stinging eyes.

“Sansa?” It was Domeric’s soft voice. “Are you there?”

So she was. And she wanted to be left alone. Wasn’t the locked door good enough of a hint?

“What do you want?” she asked, voice sharp and coarse.

“May… May I come in?”

Sansa wanted to tell him off. To tell him to leave her alone, to go away and not bother her ever again. To lash out at him to alleviate the hurt in her heart. To lash out at someone, anyone …

… But she did not have the energy to do it. She had neither will nor strength to lash out at Domeric. There was no fight left in her.

Wordlessly, almost lethargically, she stood up, unlocked the door, and walked towards her bed, sitting by the edge.

Gently opening the door, Domeric Bolton walked into her bedchamber. Covered in dried sweat and unwashed grime, he was fidgeting awkwardly with the hem of his leather gloves, brow furrowed, and an uncertain look in his face.

“I, uh… I thought you’d be here,” he said, rather lamely. It was quite obvious to Sansa that he was at a loss for words, woefully out of his depth when it came to trying to comfort a crying lady, so unlike her Anton, who always knew the right thing to say to make her feel better. 

Yet, here he was, and Anton was not.

“Do you…” he started again, after a couple of seconds of silence had passed. “Do you mind if I keep you company?”

She shook her head, biting back the sobs that threatened to surge out of her once again.

Softly, carefully, as if trying not to startle her, Domeric came to rest beside her, concern never leaving his eyes.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Domeric offered, his voice soft and gentle.

Sansa choked on the knot in her throat. Tightening like a noose. “Then why are you here?”

“I thought you might need a shoulder to cry on. It’s the least I could do,” he shrugged, so innocently, so genuine, so much like Anton used to do when she had a nightmare that Sansa burst down crying again.

As awkwardly as only a youth of fifteen could be, he crossed his left arm across Sansa’s back, holding her as she cried. “Everything is going to be alright,” Domeric whispered to her, as he rubbed circles in her back and looked out of her window.

And so she cried and cried and cried, until there were no more tears left to be shed.

Had it been hours? Or just mere minutes? Sansa couldn’t tell, but when she raised her stinging eyes towards Domeric’s face, it was as if she was seeing him for the very first time. She observed every crevice, every small detail of his face: his slim, pointy chin; his thin lips; his long, dark hair combed backwards, falling all the way to his shoulders. And his pale grey eyes, almost white, filled with an endless kindness.

Domeric Bolton wasn’t the most handsome man, inheriting his father’s plain and unassuming looks. But at that moment, even grimy and dreggy from all the sparring he constantly indulged in, he was the most beautiful being she had ever laid her eyes upon.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe…

Maybe everything would be alright.

> 297.

“You don’t know how to light a bonfire, don’t you,” Theon’s dry voice came from behind him

Jon raised his arm to point at Theon, angered. “In my defence,” he began fiercely, but immediately trailed off. When he resumed speaking several seconds later, all the fire had gone out from within him: his voice was uncertain and unconvinced, his gaze unfocused, and his arm halfway lowered. “I’ve never had to light one before,” he let out rather pathetically.

Theon facepalmed hard, then leaned against a tree with a condescending smile. “Good thing we decided to take you out camping, huh?”

“‘We’ decided?” Domeric’s frowning face piped from the other side of the tent he and Robb were currently struggling to raise. The heirs to Winterfell and the Dreadfort were both youths of many and remarkable talents, but raising a tent was not one of them.

“Dom decided,” Theon amended his statement rapidly, rolling his eyes.

Jon crossed his arms. “I still don’t quite see the point of it,” he said petulantly.

“Well, Lord Stark always says that we need to know our way around a servant’s tasks,” Domeric explained in his soft and mellow voice. “We can’t rely on our squires doing everything for us like the southrons do, so we have to know how to set up a camp, light a bonfire, cook…”

“Brush our horses, clean our chamberpots, braid our daughter’s hair, blah blah blah,” Theon finished with a sarcastic flourish of his hand.

“Hey, jackass,” Robb snapped at him, his attention fixed on the stakes he was hammering into the wolfswood’s wet soil, “how about you do something useful instead of just standing there with a thumb up your ass?”

“Robert Stark!” Theon gasped scandalised, mimicking Lady Catelyn’s stern voice. It was rather eerie how good of an imitation it was. “That is not a proper way to talk to your elders!”

“Gods, I fucking hate you…” Robb muttered.

“No you don’t,” Greyjoy said cheekily.

“... Fine, no, I don’t,” the heir to Winterfell conceded, “but I will if you don’t make yourself useful.”

“Doing what, huh? I already secured the horses, and I marked the way back home, too. There’s not much else to do, what with Jon taking care of the bonfire and you and Dom raising the tent,” Theon pointed out.

“Help us with the tent, maybe?” Robb grumbled, unfolding the tent’s canvas.

“Go hunt some rabbits?” Jon suggested.

“Go fuck yourself?” Domeric added, his voice hopeful as a child’s.

Theon seemed to consider it. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Fucking yourself?” Jon asked in mocking dismay. “How are you even supposed to do that?”

“With a hefty amount of willpower,” Theon replied without missing a beat.

“What?”

“What?”

“There’s a stream about a mile or two that way,” Torrhen Karstark interrupted them, as he approached them ahorse. “Should we move camp or stay here?”

Robb scowled. “Couldn’t you have told us that before we unpacked the tent?”

Torr shrugged sheepishly. “I didn’t know…?”

Domeric closed his eyes and let out a deep, heavy sigh. “Karstark, I am going to kill you,” he muttered. He then opened his eyes, staring directly into Torr’s soul. “Slowly. ”

Karstark gulped. “I- I mean, we could always stay here and just send someone every hour or two to fetch water. That works too, right?” Torr suggested, apologetic, his eyes darting between Robb and Dom.

“Theon’s doing it!” Robb immediately shouted, pointing at Greyjoy with a finger.

“How about no?” The ironborn immediately shot back.

“You were just asking what you could do to help,” Jon agreed with his twin. “There you go, something to do.”

Theon pouted childishly. “But I don’t want to do it.”

Biting a retort, Jon rolled his eyes, returning his gaze towards his fruitless struggle with the flintstone.

“Just fucking do it, Theon,” Robb tiredly said.

“You have no authority over me,” Theon said with a grin. “I’m an ironborn, not a northerner. I’m not sworn to House Stark.”

“Is that so?” Torr asked with a sly look in his face, and Jon knew instantly that it meant danger. “Then why are you wearing white and grey, huh?”

For once, Theon had no snarky comeback to offer. Instead, he flushed, flustered, embarrassed, even, as if he had been caught stealing red-handed. 

For, indeed, the sigil he had emblazoned atop his breast, the personal standard which he adopted barely a few days ago, was that of a grey kraken on a white field.

Jon winced in anticipation.

“Pray tell, Torr, aren’t House Greyjoy’s colours black and gold?” Domeric smirked a sickeningly sweet smile that didn’t quite reach up to his pale eyes, eager to join in the verbal action against Theon. The ironborn no longer had any of his customary swagger, looking quite lost and flinching as if struck.

“That they are, Dom.”

“Then why is our squid dearest wearing a wolf’s pelt?”

“Perhaps it’s more warm and comfortable than his own?”

“If he wishes to join the pack,” Robb interrupted firmly, instantly silencing his two friends, “then he is welcome to do so.” A second later, he smirked. “But that means he has to pull his weight, just like everyone else. Theon, go get the water.”

The ironborn bit his lip, clearly debating whether to argue, but eventually let out a defeated sigh. With a nod, he said, “Alright. Here, give me your waterskins, I’ll go refill them.” He turned towards Torr, who was dismounting his horse. “Where did you say the stream is?”

“Go in a straight line that way,” he said, pointing from where he came as he passed his waterskin to Theon. “Eventually you should be able to hear the stream. You’ll find it just passing those two trees that look like they’re fucking,” — by the tent, Dom sighed, rubbing his eyes in disapproval — “you’ll know the ones as soon as you see them. If you come across a runestone, though, you’ve passed it.”

“Got it,” Theon nodded and effortlessly mounted his horse, a swift courser he had named Storm. “See you guys in a while.”

“Break your neck,” Robb grinned.

“I won’t give you the pleasure!” the ironborn shot back, his horse already trotting away in the direction Torrhen had given him.

Barely an instant had passed when Robb turned to look at his friends.

He looks just like father, Jon realised, as Robb’s bright blue eyes lost their usual warmth and were instead overtaken by a cold and harsh, even calculating, glaze in them.

“There was no need to humiliate him,” he stated bluntly. His voice, too, was tinged in disapproval and lacked any humour. Torr stiffened, a guilty look to his face.

“He was being an annoying prick,” Domeric defended himself half-heartedly. He, too, appeared chastened by Robb’s stern gaze. “If he can’t take it, then maybe he shouldn’t ask for it.”

Robb was unmoved. “He is an annoying prick. And he’s our friend. He’s as much of a brother to me as you, Bolton, or you, Karstark. And we don’t turn against our own. It’s one thing to jape with each other, but what you did was to humiliate him for his choice of allegiance, and that was uncalled for.”

“Doesn’t it unsettle you to see him wearing your colours?” Torr asked, crouching near the tent and joining forces with the heirs in their struggle against the accursed canvas. “He’s not a Stark.”

“No. And you know why?” Though Robb paused for a beat, he was not waiting for an answer. “Because that’s his decision. He has every right to adopt the personal sigil he damn well pleases. True, he is not a Stark, and nothing will ever change that, but if Theon feels that my House has been more of a family to him than his ever was, to the point of dropping his forefathers’ colours in favour of the Starks’, then I will welcome him with open arms as if he were my own. I will not shame him for knowing and showing where his heart lies, and neither will you. As soon as he returns, you will both apologise to him, and that’s that,” he finalised, his voice never rising in volume and his pitch the one any other thirteen-year-old would have, but the authority he carried might as well have belonged to a king, for it admitted no questioning.

Torrhen and Domeric were grown men already, both fifteen years of age, yet they appeared humbled by Robb’s words. Jon couldn’t stifle his smile. He’ll make a fine lord, one day.

He’d rather die before ever telling him that, though.

Dear Robb,

What the hells I think I actually like Theon now??? It takes some serious stones to go against your own family like that. Balon Greyjoy is going to be livid.

Not that I find it disagreeable—the Greyjoys have very little to be proud of, while you Starks are quite probably one of the most prestigious Great Houses in Westeros. Then again, you’ve been around for over eight thousand years. You’ve had ample time to build up your reputation. And you don’t seem to be in any hurry to stop; ever since Lord Eddard took the lordship of Winterfell, you Starks keep reaching new heights, as Malcolm Kidwell’s brown trousers can testify.

The fact that both King Robert as well as my lord father wastes no breath without singing his praises to yours to whomever is unfortunate enough to be within reach probably has something to do with that. In fact, my grandmother japes that perhaps he dreams to be Lady Catelyn, just to be held by Lord Eddard in his arms at night.

… That sounded far less unsettling in my mind, but now that I look at it spelled out it’s quite the nightmare fuel, isn’t it?

Anyway, a few weeks ago I met Prince Joffrey for a major feast King Robert held in King’s Landing in honour of his 35th name day.

Oh, he behaved like the perfect prince, courtly, polite and refined, but I know better than to be fooled by a pretty face and prettier words. For the sake of brevity, I’ll just quote Loras’ own impression:

“What a cunt.”

Lord Renly, though, is most courteous and gallant, and perhaps what’s truly admirable, a genuinely good man. I can see why Loras likes him so much. Their banter was the highlight of the feast, to me.

Still, I can’t help but feel like the feast was sorely missing something.

A direwolf, mayhaps.

Love,

Maggie.

Dear Maggie,

He’s as good a Stark as anyone else in Winterfell. Theon told me he had consulted first with my father for his permission to adopt the colours, and that he’d just embraced him and said that he was proud of the man he had become. Probably because he doesn’t know him as well as I do (and hasn’t seen him at his worst), but there’s no denying that Theon has certainly changed for the better since he arrived at Winterfell all those years ago.

Gods, no pressure for me when my time comes, huh? I’m not sure I’ll be able to measure up to my father’s standard. He insists he’s so incredibly proud of me, but I don’t know if he’s being serious or is just saying it because he’s supposed to. I just want to be as good as he is, but I don’t know. I don’t think I can be.

Thank you for the image that will haunt my nightmares for countless moons to come. Might as well show it to Jon, too. It’s his father too, after all, and misery loves company.

Is that so? I had heard, too, that the prince was something of a royal prick, but I didn’t know if it was true, or just another one of those baseless rumours you southrons are so fond of. No offence, but may I remind you that someone shat his breeches at hearing my name?

No, I will not get over it. Seriously, what the hells.

We northerners aren’t all that big on feasts and tourneys, to be honest. I’m not so sure what good would I be down there. I’m just hoping I don’t bore you to death!

Love,

Robb

“Are you really that clueless? Is my advice worthless? Am I a joke to you?”

“Why do I even show you my letters?” Robb despaired to the heavens.

Theon shrugged. “Because I’m the only one who doesn’t believe she’s imaginary.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Completely out of your reach? Absolutely, you’re the fucking worst at flirting and you somehow manage to actively devalue the suit of the heir to Winterfell with every single word you say. But imaginary? No.”

“GET. OUT.”

Chapter Text

“So, in summary, the reeves collect taxes, organise the farms and enforce our edicts, the provosts carry out our justice for us beyond where we can do so quickly, the verderers keep poachers and bandits out of the Wolfswood and Bran are you even paying attention to what I’m saying?”

If Eddard thought teaching Robb and Jon about the unspectacular and practical side of rulership had been a maddening endeavour, he should have known that their restless younger brother would be ten times more difficult. He dreaded to think how it would be when Rickon’s time came; his youngest pup put Arya to shame with his rowdiness.

To his credit, Bran looked genuinely ashamed.

“I’m sorry, father,” he muttered, eyes fixed on the floor. “It’s just… It’s so much! How am I supposed to fit all of this in my head?”

From his seat to the side, Robb snorted, turning to face Bran. “And you think that’s bad? Bran, you don’t even know half of it." The easy smile vanished from his face, eyes tightening. "Literally. We’re just getting started.”

Jon moved his heavy horse. “Check.”

“Huh?! Fuck!” Robb cursed, startled, swivelling back to his game of castling.

“Language,” Ned said flatly, then focused on his dismayed fifth child with a reassuring smile on his face. “Patience, Bran. Patience, and hard work. It took your brothers years to get their heads around it, yet today is the first time you ever hear about it. Don’t judge yourself too harshly. You don’t need to be an expert now…” he smiled. “But it would help if you kept your head focused.”

Bran smiled weakly, finally encouraged to lift his gaze from the lukewarm stone floor. Each of his children was unique in their own way, but Ned had found over the years that they all shared a dutiful nature, one best stoked with a gentle touch rather than with the demanding methods Jon Arryn’s court tutors had been so fond of.

“I’ll try, father.”

“I know you will.” Ned rested his head on his left arm, caressing his chin with his thumb. “Truth be told, you don’t need to learn by heart the intricacies of administration. A lord is seldom without advisors or maesters to help him make sense of them. What you must learn, and take to heart, however, is where power lies, and how we enforce it.”

After a moment, he spoke again. “There’s a question I asked your brothers back when they were your age. Back then, they didn’t know how to answer it, either, but perhaps now they can help you make sense of it. Are you ready?”

Bran nodded furiously.

“There are three great men: a king, a priest, and a rich merchant. In between them all is a man with a blade. Each of the great men bids him to kill the others. ‘Do it’, says the king, ‘for I am your rightful king.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for it is the will of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the merchant, ‘and I’ll give you all the gold you could ever desire.’ They all claim the power to enforce their will. So tell me—who actually holds that power?”

Bran’s brow furrowed deeply, as the lad mulled it over. Ned patiently waited for his son’s answer as he repeatedly opened his mouth to offer an answer, only to close it again as he thought better of it.

Eventually, Bran shook his head. “The king? His word is law, and people must follow the law.” He sounded unsure, unconvinced, but loath to admit he didn’t know in the face of his father and brothers.

Naïve, but hardly a terrible answer. Ned glanced at his elder sons. “Lads?”

Jon went first.

“Well, it depends on the man,” he said, confident enough with his promising game of castling to lean back on his chair, arms crossed in self-satisfaction. “A godly man would obey the priest, a greedy one the merchant, and so on. They’re all offering something desirable, but whether it appeals to the man or not, it entirely depends on the man himself and what he considers to be most important.”

“An astute answer,” Ned nodded his assent. “Robb?”

“The man with the blade,” his eldest stated bluntly.

“Why is that?” Bran asked, shifting forwards in his chair, eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“All exercise in power is an exercise in violence. The law, for example. Without the violence to enforce it and punish perpetrators, they’re just empty words on a parchment,” Robb pointed out as if it was obvious. “The three men can offer him everything they want, but in the end, they’re unable to enforce their will on the man with the blade because they can’t fight him . He can choose to kill none, or to kill all of them, and there’s nothing they can do, because he has the sword and they do not. In the end, the only true power in this world is found not in titles or gods or coins, but at the edge of a blade and the will to use it. Might makes right, for right is the scabbard that sheathes might,” he finished, and took Jon’s king with his pawn to emphasise his point. “Checkmate.”

Jon’s eyes widened in indignation, reincorporating himself with a jump. “Wha—?! Bu—?! How?!” he gestured wildly, baffled and outraged at his sudden defeat when just moments ago he’d had the game in the bag.

Robb smirked knowingly and said nothing.

Ned appraised Robb for a moment.

His eldest son’s words were dangerously cynical, but his cold, matter-of-fact tone made it clear that he did not relish in the raw brutality of power; he simply called it for what it was. Indeed, there was a trace of distaste in his voice.

He is a good man, he nodded, satisfied at what he saw, but knows better than to deceive himself of the truth of the world.

“So it is,” Ned said. “Good answers, both of you.”

“Wait,” Bran interjected, confused. “Which one is the right answer, then?”

“All your answers are true,” Ned said. “Indeed, you need to know the other person and what they desire, because they decide whether they follow you or not. Some lords care for the law and oaths, others for gods, and others for nothing but gold. Know the people around you, and you will know how to best convince them to serve you, and how to reward them for it when the time comes. But at the same time, strength is measured by the number of swords under your name. A king without followers is a king without power, regardless of how lawful his claim might be. 

“Such is the daunting nature of power: it is not held by those of good heart or high birth, but by those with strong arms and the will to use it. That is why” — he gestured towards the castling board to exemplify his point — “in the heat of battle, a high king can be struck down by a common man: because when steel speaks, the best butcher wins.

“Power is violence. That’s why you must always be ready to resort to violence should your interests require it, either to make a show of force and remind your enemies of the risks of fighting you, or to crush them before they can crush you. What you must never do, however, is to rush to violence or to wield it carelessly. It is the strongest tool in a Lord’s arsenal, but also the most dangerous, because you’re playing with other people’s lives, and yours, should you fail.“

“And failure is not an option,” Robb remarked.

“Just so.”

“I think I get it,” Bran’s hesitant frown belied his words. Enamoured with the knights and heroes and honour of Old Nan’s tales, the lad was still too young and idealistic for him to make sense of the hard, cold truth of politics. 

“You’re still just a boy, Bran,” Ned said gently. “You’re allowed to not quite get it yet. Give it time.” Without anything else to add to the lesson, he took the solar in, looking at each of his boys in turn, and said, “Well, lads, that’s all I’ve got for today. Any questions?”

“How long have you been preparing that trap?” Jon asked Robb, eyes narrowed as he scanned the castling board. “You must have built your entire match around it!” Robb only smiled, wiggling his eyebrows.

I’ll take that as a no. Ned stood up from his chair, crossed the lord’s solar with long, conclusive strides and opened the heavy ironwood doors. “Very well, then,” he gestured out into the hall. “Off you go.”

The Starks parted ways. Robb and Jon hurried down the hall, surely eager to get in some sparring action before dusk.

Bran, meanwhile, assuming that Ned’s focus was fully on his older brothers, raced and leapt out of the window.

They were on the fifth floor.

Ned knew better than to be appalled. Instead, he walked towards the window and casually leaned against it, poking his head out of it.

Bran’s eyes widened. Evidently, he did not expect his father to take notice of him.

“You do know your mother hates it when you climb, right?”

Bran smiled sheepishly.

“And that if I ever catch you climbing, I am to punish you by confining you to your bedchamber for an entire week?” Ned raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

His son blanched at the thought.

“And that she’ll be very unhappy with me if I did not do any of that?” 

“Uhh…”

Ned smiled lightly. “Don’t let your mother catch you, or we’ll both be in for a whole lot of trouble. Go on, then.”

Bran needn’t be told twice. Nodding hurriedly, the lad yelped a delighted and grateful “Thank you, father!” and started climbing down the tower’s wall with all the skill and speed of a spider.

Ned looked after Bran until he disappeared in between the walls and roofs of Winterfell, a fond smile on his face.

Cat is going to kill me.

At first, Ned agreed and shared Cat’s concerned anxiety; the walls and towers of Winterfell were amongst the tallest in Westeros, and there were so many that several had fallen into disrepair. The thought of his little boy’s footing slipping had haunted his nightmares for years.

Until one early morning several moons past, when he caught Bran on the restored roofs of the First Keep, about to jump his way towards the Broken Tower, which rose taller still than any other manmade structure in the North besides the Wall. Standing at ground floor and recovering from a persistent sore throat that had dogged him for a week, he had been unable to scream after Bran.

So he had been forced to watch.

And he saw.

How Bran’s fingers found unseen nooks and crannies in the mortar stone, clinging to them with an ironclad grip. How he shifted his entire body effortlessly to allow himself to achieve his next step, like a snake climbing a tree. His masterful jumping between the gargoyles, all of them perfectly calculated and executed. The preternatural way in which his mind was three steps ahead of his body, finding his way with no hesitation nor difficulty. At every point of his ascension, Bran was perfectly in control of himself and of the wall.

From that day on, Ned knew in his heart that Bran would never fall, and his mind was at peace.

Of course, trying to explain that to Cat had been a lost cause.

Yet, Ned thought as he perused through his countless unopened letters and missives, swatting a small spider that crawled in between the folds of parchment, I think I’d take that particular migraine over the others I have to deal with daily.

Amongst the envelopes he could see the sun of Karstark, the three trees of Tallhart, the horse of Ryswell, the hand of Flint, the merman of Manderly, the frogs of Marsh, the studs and runes of Royce, the horse of Bracken, the tree and ravens of Blackwood and that was without getting started on the letters from the minor houses sworn directly to Winterfell nor the ones sent by his castellans and stewards and reeves and provosts and verderers and bailiffs and it was all quite enough to drive a man to the brink of madness and—

No, Ned decided, pushing his chair away from the desk and making to stand. I need a break.

The walk to the Godswood was a swift and uneventful affair, for the Lord’s Solar was well connected to the sacred woods through quick and unfrequented pathways. It had been built this way by design—when you held the fate of hundreds of thousands at the tip of your quill, it was only human to require a respite and to ask the Gods for guidance.

Ned sought not guidance from the Old Gods, but only the tranquillity their abode offered and the opportunity to unravel his own thoughts without interruption. The soft breeze that rustled the leaves of the treetops, the balmy air that arose from the warm ponds, the sharp smell of wet soil, and the silence.

The carved face of the heart tree said nothing as Ned rested his back upon the weirwood’s ivory trunk, nestling himself in between its large and tangled roots.

Truth be told, Ned cared not for the Gods, not anymore. He was not so foolish as to deny their existence, but he was as apathetic to them as they were to him.

However, old habits were hard to break and the Godswood’s peace remained, as ever, a balm to his soul, and solace to his troubled thoughts.

Ned closed his eyes and sat with his ghosts.

It had been fifteen years. Fifteen long years in which he tried to rule the North with a steady and fair hand. Little was left of the callow youth he used to be, stumbling through the duties he had inherited but never expected nor desired.

Yet, he could not look back and point to a single moment in which it had grown any easier.

Often, Ned wondered if his father had lost as much sleep over his lordly affairs as he did. 

Was he haunted by the faces of the men he had executed? By those he had murdered? By the underhanded politics in which he had engaged? By the children he had sold in exchange for powerful alliances, the price to pay for peace and stability?

He had known of such a prospect for over a decade now, and he’d have at least another decade pass before it became a reality, but the parchment bearing his and Lord Bolton’s signatures and seals was all too real for his comfort: upon coming of age, Sansa Stark would marry Domeric Bolton, and become Sansa Bolton, Lady of the Dreadfort. It was an ill-fitting name and title for his sweet daughter that dreamed of gallant knights.

Ned knew it could have been much worse. The son was not the father, and under his watchful eye, Domeric Bolton had grown into a kind-hearted, upstanding young man who treated Sansa like the princesses of her tales and songs. Sansa herself, for her part, was so delighted by her formal betrothal to the young heir to the Dreadfort that she had come up with her own sigil, a grey direwolf on a field of pink. 

He refused to give voice to his distaste, but it was a disquieting sight to see the direwolf of his kin merged with the banners of their ancestral foes. At least she had dispensed with the blood red droplets.

Ned knew he should be thankful. This was the best case scenario, the one he barely dared to hope would come to pass when he enticed Lord Roose Bolton with his daughter in exchange for the loyalty no oaths could buy. Yet, the Dreadfort was a cold, accursed place, and the Boltons a House with an unsavoury reputation and a history of flaying direwolves to fashion their cloaks.

But perhaps Sansa and Domeric would make a warm home out of it. Perhaps they and their future children would break the cycle of the Bolton line breeding monsters and schemers and tyrants. Perhaps Sansa was the price to pay for the end of the Bolton evil that had blighted the North for centuries and aeons.

A terrible price to pay, but refusal was paid in an even steeper one.

And so, he bit his tongue and signed the deal.

Of his six children, only Sansa had a formal betrothal. Robb had no explicit agreed arrangement, but all things considered, the glass seemed half-full rather than half-empty.

His firstborn exchanged animated letters with Margaery Tyrell constantly, with letters to and fro Highgarden moving in as short an order as it was possible, averaging one exchange per moon, and sometimes even more when either of the two had more to say before they had gotten a response.

Though Ned himself deliberately kept himself ignorant of the exact content of their letters, whatever news from Highgarden that Robb deemed important enough to relay to him corresponded with those his informants across the realm told him: the marriage of Ser Willas Tyrell and Gwyn Rowan, Lord Matthis’ youngest daughter, or that of Ser Garlan to Leonette of the red apple Fossoways; or most recently, their voyage to King’s Landing to attend the King’s tourney in celebration of his eldest’s twelfth nameday.

Perhaps most importantly, they corresponded with the claims of the maids and servants in Highgarden that the young Lady Margaery, a sweet, clever and restless girl, corresponded rather eagerly with the heir to Winterfell, often dropping what she was doing upon the arrival of one of his letters, much to her lord father’s vexation.

This claim, in particular, was such good news that Ned was disinclined to believe it coming from members of the Tyrell household. After all, Lady Olenna could very well be feeding him false information; there was no way that such a cunning woman would be unaware of the spies in her midst.

Yet, he had heard the same news relayed from his informants in King’s Landing and Storm’s End, and other such political capitals, with the original claim filtered through second and third hand accounts. Lord Renly Baratheon, close confidante of the Tyrells, had remarked on it in their letters, and even Lord Tytos Blackwood, at one point, had asked about the truth of it. Ned didn’t discard the possibility that this, too, was the result of the Queen of Thorns’s disinformation, but going to such extreme lengths only to deceive him was slightly ridiculous, in all honesty.

It was reassuring to learn that no one was impersonating the friend of his firstborn son. He had been quite concerned about said possibility early on, given that Lady Olenna could have easily faked being her own granddaughter or directed her on what to write to ensure nothing germinated out of the correspondence she had grudgingly agreed to.

Then again, Margaery, sweet and kind and whatever else she might be, was still the cherished granddaughter of the Queen of Thorns. Ned could only hope she was being a genuine friend with his son, as Robb was to her.

No betrothal was in agreement, and at least until Prince Joffrey Baratheon found himself a bride, he doubted any would be forthcoming. However, should his plans to marry Robb to Margaery Tyrell come to nothing, he had a promising northern bride in Wylla Manderly, though she’d be a poor substitute when compared to the rose of Highgarden.

Still, a marriage alliance with the Manderlys was nothing to frown upon, especially given recent developments, and Wylla herself, an outspoken and genial lass of twelve, seemed rather taken with Robb when she visited Winterfell with her father a couple of moons ago. Certainly, Robb could do much worse than the little mermaid of White Harbour.

As for his other children, there was no rush; Rickon was so young that like as not his ideal bride had yet to be born in the first place. Jon and Bran, on the other hand, had gotten ahead of him in that regard: Jon found himself involved in a budding romance with young Alys Karstark, and Bran had, through no effort of his own, attracted the fancy of Elisa Dustin, Talia Forrester and Lyanna Mormont all at the same time.

Bran, however, remained entirely clueless to their affections (or whatever passed for affection in the case of the hoydenish Lyanna), almost single-mindedly focused on nothing but knights to emulate and walls to climb.

Speaking for himself, Ned favoured Elisa Dustin. Politically speaking, a marriage with a Mormont would be pointless, as the Starks were already kin with the bears of Bear Island through her eldest sister Dacey; and though faithful and growing in power, wealth and influence with the booming overseas ironwood trade, a marriage to House Forrester brought no significant advantage. On the other hand, an alliance with either Barrowton or the Rills would be most desirable, and Elisa Dustin, a trueborn daughter of Barrowton, was also a Ryswell through her mother, which was the next best thing considering House Ryswell had no unmarried daughters to offer. As a dowry, she would secure the loyalty of the whole southwest of the North. It was a rather straightforward calculus, all things considered. That being said, there was always the alternative match of Steffon Dustin and his niece Lyarra, but Ned was loath to drag Benjen’s children into it, especially without Dacey’s approval.

Bran liked Elisa well enough, too. Perhaps Ned could try and steer him in her direction in the following years, but in the meantime, he would step back and let Bran sort things out for himself. There was hardly any reason to hurry, after all, when both had yet to turn eight. 

Jon, however, would come of age by next year’s turn. His marriage was only a matter of time, and one that would happen sooner rather than later. In fact, the only reason Ned hadn’t written to Lord Karstark to make a formal proposal (and stalled at the man’s own offers) was because he was waiting for Jon to ask it of him first.

Besides, Ned knew that if he made to betroth Jon without his leave, Lyanna would come back from the dead to stab him in the kidneys.

You know it, Lyanna’s ghost smirked smugly, and Ned smiled sadly. 

Lyanna would never meet Alys. She wouldn’t witness her son’s wedding, nor hold her grandchildren in her arms, nor spoil them rotten. All that should have been Lya’s had been taken by Cat, just as he had taken everything from Brandon.

Will you cut it out with the ‘all-was-meant-for-Brandon’ shit already? Brandon’s spectre shook his head in annoyance. I died, Ned. You didn’t take anything from me. If anything, you deserve them far more than I ever did; Cat loves you, whereas I never loved her. The lordship suits you, whereas I would have most likely ran it to the ground with my folly, just as I did with my life.

Same goes for Cat, Lyanna agreed. I’ll admit, I was sceptical at first, and perhaps even slightly offended, but now? Jon is my son, but Cat is his mam, just as you’re his dad, not Rhaegar. You’ve both earned as much.

You’ve done much better than we ever could, Ned, and you know it, Brandon declared. If he was real, he would have placed his hand on Ned’s shoulder to reassure him. Stop being so unfair to yourself.

Ned stared into the distance, lips pursed. In the sacred loneliness of the godswood, he could almost feel his siblings by his side, forever young while he greyed away.

You’ve always looked great in grey, anyways, Brandon smiled. And besides, most of those grey hairs are Arya’s fault, you know.

Gods, he didn’t even want to think about Arya's marriage prospects. The mere idea gave him a migraine. She was too much like her late aunt for his comfort.

As an expert on myself, Lyanna mused, best not betroth her at all. Sure, feel free to parade some hapless fool or another in front of her to test the waters, but let her make the choice herself.

Even then, Ned struggled to think of a satisfactory suitor for his baby girl, one that didn’t find their interests already served through any of her sibling’s prospective marriages. 

As for the North, the available lordlings of her generation were not only already joined to Winterfell through amity, but none so far had managed to attract Arya’s fancy, only her rotten mischief.

Beyond the North, the only suitors that Ned could think of were the Martell boys Quentyn and Trystane, who not only didn’t stand to inherit Dorne per their land’s quaint laws but also (politically speaking) brought very little to the table, and Arya’s maternal cousins Osbert Tully and Robert Arryn, both of whom offered redundant alliances, and the latter, in particular, holder of the crown as the worst possible match imaginable for Arya if what he’d heard of the boy was true.

Ned rubbed his aching forehead.

Why was he even torturing himself by thinking of this? There was no urgency, and he had no intention to strip Arya of the privilege to choose her own spouse; a privilege she shared with lesser children the world alike.

A privilege no Mad King will be able to take from her, he mused bitterly, purple eyes haunting his mind.

Mayhaps it was for the best.

And oh, how he loathed himself for thinking it.

Ashara deserved better. Our daughter deserved better.

It mattered not what they deserved. They were both dead. Ashara had taken her own life in her grief, whereas their daughter never had hers. 

Ned shook his head, sighing deeply.

He didn’t regret his life, not one bit. Cat had healed his broken heart, just as he had hers, but the first cut had been the deepest, and the scar still remained. He doubted it would ever fade.

Ned hoped none of his children ever found their loves stolen from them in such a way, like he had, like Cat had, like Robert had, all of them with their lives torn asunder by the madness of Aerys. The Mad King no longer held the throne, that much was true, but it was scant consolation when youths like Asher Forrester and Gwyn Whitehill still found their love destroyed by the wrath and folly of men.

A wrath and folly he would attempt to curtail by any means necessary.

Cold blooded murder had been one eerily effective solution. Lord Karl Whitehill, unlike his late father, knew his place and was sensible enough to keep to it, fearful of the sharp blades and frosty fangs of the overlords he knew disfavoured his house. But overt violence would only get him so far when he himself was trying to pacify his land.

Such was the reason Ned had turned Winterfell into a foster home for northern lordlings: to keep a close eye on the future generation of lords, to broker marriages between his vassals, and to dissuade his wards’ parents from embarking in any enterprise that might endanger the North’s peace. No lord, foolish as he might be, would be willing to antagonise their liege lord when he held their children.

And so had Jon Umber, Daryn Hornwood and Steffon Dustin, all first in line to inherit their fathers’ lands and titles, made Winterfell their foster home, while fellow heirlings Cley Cerwyn and Benfred Tallhart were a common sight in the keep, as they travelled from Castle Cerwyn every other moon or so to spend a fortnight sparring and fraternising with their peers. 

Though not heirs themselves, they were joined by Torrhen and Alys Karstark, Steffon Dustin’s younger sister Elisa, twins Ethan and Talia Forrester, and Lyanna Mormont, which, added to the eleven Stark pups and the offspring of his retainers and household members, amounted to far more children running around Winterfell than there had ever been since the years of King Edrick Snowbeard and his endless litters of wolf pups.

To Ned’s great satisfaction, all of his wards had become fast friends with each other and with his children, though in the latter regard were thoroughly outclassed by Domeric Bolton and Torrhen Karstark, who, along with Theon Greyjoy, formed an inseparable group with Robb and Jon.

The only one who hadn’t developed such close bonds with his peers was Daryn Hornwood. Whereas Lord Halys Hornwood was a jovial and ever-obliging man, and his (only acknowledged) bastard Larence was, per Lord Glover’s account, a good and promising lad, Daryn was cut from a different cloth. Much as he was content to share his lessons and melees with the other wards, he was not a personable youth, often keeping himself at an arm’s length. 

Though an introverted nature would seldom be cause for concern, Ned couldn’t help but find himself suspicious of how Daryn was easy to smile at a jape and just as easy to drop it the moment he thought himself unseen. 

This is a bitter lad, he knew. And bitter lads seldom turn into faithful bannermen. He would keep an eye on him.

Cley Cerwyn, on the other hand, was as friendly and genial a youth as there had ever been one, with a warm smile and a patience that knew no bounds. His best friend, Benfred Tallhart, was much like him, but where Cley was even-tempered and serene, Benfred was loud and mercurial, with all the foolish bluster of youth and a formidable skill to shove his boot in his mouth.

Amusingly enough, their friendship was replicated writ large in the one between Smalljon Umber and Olyvar Frey.

Perhaps it was only natural; the Umbers, for all their hatred for Wildlings, often stood closer to them in demeanour than to their lordly peers: loud, boisterous, rowdy, quarrelsome and iniquitous in their dealings, they were good friends, mighty foes, and a proper migraine to keep in line. In that sense, though Ned greatly valued the Greatjon as a bannerman and as a friend, he couldn’t help but look forward to his heir’s accession.

The Smalljon, though still very much every bit of an Umber, had seen his unruly edge greatly tempered by his fostering in Winterfell, his natural brashness and impulsiveness moderated by a sombre sense of duty and honour. 

His best friend, Olyvar Frey, was also a positive influence on the Umber lordling, for he always advised caution whereas the Smalljon naturally tended towards action. In all truthfulness, theirs was an odd friendship, one tall and brash and the other short and anxious, but their bond was as thick as blood.

They quite reminded Ned of another pair of young lordlings.

Not so young now, he thought as he stretched his sore back. Gods, where had all the time gone?

Sometimes, he felt as if he had just returned from the Rebellion, barely twenty years of age and with two babes in tow, yet now he had ruled for over a decade and a half, his hair was turning to grey at an alarming rate, and said babes now looked after their own stubbles. 

Robb, in particular, was quite pleased by the unfashionable ginger hairs that stuck out of his face, unabated by his friends’ mockery.

“At least I have a beard,” Robb always retorted.

“For a given value of ‘beard’,” hairless Domeric smirked.

Yet, if there was one thing that time had not changed was the ass who polished the seat of The Twins.

Ten years had passed since he started to correspond with Ser Stevron Frey, certain that it would be more beneficial to deal with the soon-to-be Lord of the Crossing than with the withered weasel that was his lord father. Ser Stevron was a good and sensible man, friendly to his interests and receptive to his ideas. Alas, he was not the Lord of the Crossing yet, making it all moot.

Perhaps it was Ned’s fault for being so naïve. A petty and spiteful man, it was entirely according to Lord Walder’s character to refuse to die if the realm would delight in it.

Still, despite finding himself and his ambitions at an impasse, approaching The Twins had not been a complete failure: fostering a son of Lord Walder, though one so far below in the line of succession he might as well be a peasant, had pleased the Lord of the Crossing (inasmuch as he could be pleased, anyhow), and Olyvar’s presence went a long way towards keeping the other Northern heirs mindful of the Southron realms and their traditions.

Not that his had been an easy fit. Initially, Olyvar fared poorly in the cold weather of Winterfell, taking ill with startling ease, and although he had improved over the years, Ned wondered whether he would make it past a Northern winter.

He’d better, otherwise all of his efforts to sweeten the Freys would be for naught.

Regarding his wards, on the younger side of the spectrum, Lyanna Mormont had soon developed a truly frightening rapport with her niece Maisie and Arya, while the Forrester twins were friendly with Bran, Lya and Harry. Elisa Dustin had seamlessly made her way into Sansa, Jeyne Poole and Beth Cassel’s little group despite being a handful of years younger than them, and Steffon stuck by Anton’s side, regardless of the mean-spirited remarks he shot his way and their desultory spats.

Truly, Steffon had too gentle a heart, for him to deal with Anton willingly.

His late father used to attribute all the difficulties and migraines his eldest son and his daughter gave him to the so-called Wolf Blood. Had he ever gotten the chance to try and rear his youngest’s firstborn, he would have soon changed his tune: Anton had not a single drop of the Wolf Blood in him, yet he was far more troublesome than Brandon ever had been.

Is that a challenge? Brandon’s ghost chuckled, but Ned saw no reason for laughing.

He had failed Anton. Others might try to claim the blame, but at the end of the day, it all came down to his own inability to look after his kin. So caught up had he been, juggling his lordly duties with his own grief and ire, that he had not deemed his own blood enough of a concern until after a full week of isolation, when he should have put his foot down at the second day at the latest, to ensure Anton was cared for.

Nowadays Anton roamed across Winterfell like a vengeful ghost, an ever lingering stormcloud that lurked and skulked, spitting acid and hatred to anyone foolish enough to approach him (except Hodor, for some reason, to whom Anton was kind, if condescending). It grieved Ned to see his nephew in such a way.

Cat had suggested fostering Anton at Barrowton, for though he was a trueborn Stark of Winterfell, it was clear to all that Winterfell was not a home for him, not for as long as he was haunted by his father’s absence. 

There was merit to her idea, Ned had to admit. Perhaps Anton would benefit greatly from a change of air, and mayhaps, Lord Willam’s steady hand and kind heart would be able to breach the walls Anton had built for himself.

Yet Ned would have none of it.

“I already failed him once. I won’t fail him again by sending him away. He’s my responsibility, and I shall see to his needs. The boy already feels abandoned and betrayed. How would he feel if I sent him away from Winterfell? No. He stays.”

And so, against his wife’s better judgement (and, perhaps, his own, too), Anton continued to live at Winterfell, sulking and stewing in a kettle of self-pity, grief and loathing. But at least he did so in his own home, where Ned could keep an eye on him, rather than out of his reach and in Lady Dustin’s hands.

Though she had not given him reason to, Ned had always mistrusted Barbrey Ryswell. Something about her rubbed him the wrong way, and it had nothing to do with the way she had sneaked her way into his brother’s bed when he fostered at Barrowton. Though seemingly content in her marriage with Willam, Barbrey was a cold-blooded schemer to the bone, and he’d be damned before leaving a Stark in her lap.

Now, if he would only let me help him…

For if there was one person Anton refused to talk with, it was Ned himself. His reasons eluded him, though he wagered it had something to do with how he had taken upon himself to be the father Benjen renounced to be.

What else was I supposed to do? Ned brooded, picking a pebble and throwing it into the pond in front of the heart tree. It was his duty to step up. As always, it was his duty to step up and clean the messes his siblings left behind themselves.

Me? Making a mess of things? Brandon’s ghost scowled.

Ned stared into the distance.

Fair enough, Brandon chuckled.

Are you calling Jon a mess? Lyanna’s spectre raised a mock offended eyebrow. I’ll let you know, sneaking a honeycomb and a jackass into a brothel was your son’s idea, not mine’s!

Benjen’s ghost kept a guilty silence. Though the man was still alive, his absence was another wraith who haunted his every waking hour… and Anton’s, too.

Then again, Anton was hardly thirteen years of age. Perhaps adulthood would bring him the peace of mind he so sorely lacked now. After all, time had already tempered his volatile wrath of the past years into a subdued, if not less poisonous contempt.

What else am I supposed to do? Ned wondered, not for the first time. What am I supposed to do, when he refuses all help? Throw him into the dungeons? Have him flogged?

The wind rustled the leaves of the Godswood.

Winter is coming, Ned knew. The summer had lasted for over ten years now, and every summer was followed by a longer winter. Any time now, the days would grow shorter and colder.

Winter would come sooner rather than later, and its might would be terrible.

But House Stark would endure. He had made sure of it.

Bran’s arrow sizzled far above the thatch target.

“Damn it,” Bran muttered softly.

“You’re aiming with your bow already drawn,” Theon said. “You have to take aim before you draw the bow. Otherwise, you’ll just tire your arm out and the arrow will go flying anywhere but the target.”

Another arrow failed its target.

“That’s not aiming, Harry,” Theon rolled his eyes, a wry smile on his face.

“Easy for you to say,” Harry frowned. “You can hit a bullseye with your eyes closed!”

“And I’ve been using a bow longer than you’ve been alive,” Theon countered. “No one’s a marksman at eight. Practice makes perfect, lad, don’t give up.” The Ironborn youth stepped towards Benjen’s second son, holding his two shoulders from behind. “It’s like kicking a football—first, you set your eyes on your target, and then you guide your body towards it as you take the hit,” he said, as he shifted Harry’s body in its place for emphasis. “Got it?” Harry nodded. “You, Bran?”

“I got it,” Bran said.

“Great,” Theon stepped back. “Now try again, both of you. Mind your posture.”

Watching from the balcony above, Ned smiled.

With a grey kraken emblazoned on the breast of his white doublet, lined with black and gold details, the Theon Greyjoy that taught Bran and Harry to shoot a bow was a far cry from the sullen, irritable and troubled child that had left Pyke a decade ago.

He’s younger than we were when we left for the Eyrie for the first time, his own voice rang through his head, I’ll make a Stark out of him.

And so he had. He vividly recalled the day when it had all culminated into proof of his success, as the previous year drew to a close.

“I have one question,” Theon had said, brow furrowed in contemplation, when Ned asked whether he had any questions at the end of their private lesson on Ironborn politics. “But it has nothing to do with the lesson.”

Ned had raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

Theon kept silent then. In his eyes, Ned could see many emotions and thoughts swirl, warring amongst themselves. Theon had been, at that moment, a man grown of eighteen years. Almost a decade had passed since he had left Pyke; perhaps he wanted to ask for his leave to visit it.

Ned had dearly hoped that was not the case, because he would have had to refuse him. Balon Greyjoy hadn’t given up on his foolish ambitions of a crown for himself, and Ned feared that Balon would launch a new rebellion the instant his son stepped through the gates of Pyke.

Yet, if he refused him, Theon would realise that all of Ned’s claims that he was not a hostage but an honoured ward were nothing but a farce.

Because when stripped to the core, to the purest, most fundamental truth, they were a farce. Much as he loved Theon and would never let any harm befall him, the truth was that Theon could not leave Winterfell. Not for the Iron Islands, at least.

When Theon spoke, however, Ned found himself repressing a sigh of relief, for there was no word regarding the request he so dreaded to hear. “There’s no rules regarding the adoption of a personal sigil, no?” 

“Not as far as I know, no,” Ned replied slowly. “So long as your claim to your arms is legitimate.” Sigils were more commonly discussed in the earliest of children’s lessons, so the question was not one he expected to hear, and certainly not when Theon was the heir of his House and had no need to create his own.

“How so?”

It must have been a rhetorical question, for Theon (surely) knew the answer already. Yet, he was asking for a reason, so Ned indulged him.

“I could not, for example, adopt the standard of a different family if I have no claim to their lineage. My children could quarter the direwolf of Stark with the trout of Tully if they so pleased, but I could not marshal mine with, say, the eagle of Arryn. Though I was raised in the Eyrie, House Arryn is no kin of mine, nor has Lord Jon granted me permission to use his colours for my own standard.”

Theon frowned. “You’re saying that one can adopt elements from another House’s coat of arms, so long as they grant permission?”

“I fail to see why not,” Ned shrugged. “If they consent to sharing their arms with you, it would hardly count as an usurpation.” He leaned back in his chair. “After all, a coat of arms is far more than just a fancy design to stitch to your clothes.”

“I see,” Theon nodded quietly.

“Why do you ask?”

For a moment, Theon hadn’t answered, engrossed in thought. Despite his years, he still held his emotions in his sleeve, and it was quite transparent that he was in the midst of making a choice. What he had decided, Ned wouldn’t know until he spoke again.

“I want to adopt a personal sigil,” Theon said, and his voice was shaky and tremulous, but determined.

“That is for you to decide, Theon,” Ned told him. “You don’t need to ask me.”

Theon was silent for a beat. Then, with a deep breath, he rallied his nerves. “But I do, Lord Stark. You said it yourself.” Theon closed his eyes, and declared: “I want to adopt your House’s colours. I wish for my personal standard to be a grey kraken on a field of white, with a black and gold double tressure.”

Ned was silent for a moment, his expression imperturbable and unreadable.

“Why?”

“You’ve given me a home,” Theon said quietly. “You’ve given me a family. You’ve done more for me than my father or brothers ever did. It’s the least I can do to honour you and your house, my lord.”

“I see,” Ned said simply. Without any further ado, he stood up from his chair and circled around the table towards Theon.

Looking up at him from his seat, Theon looked so much like the scared little boy Ned had comforted in Lannisport. He was lean and tall and handsome, oh yes, but in that moment, his dark eyes were the same: wide and innocent, hopeful and afraid in equal measure.

“Stand, Theon Greyjoy,” Ned had rumbled then, and Theon jumped to his feet.

He embraced Theon. Under his arms, he felt his foster son stiffen.

“I would be honoured to see my colours in your standard, Theon,” Ned said earnestly, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’re not my blood, aye, but you’re as much a son to me as those born of my loins. You have come a long way, and I am so, so proud of the man you have become.”

His words, it seemed, were too much for Theon to handle, and the lad’s frail composure broke. And so Ned held him in a tight embrace, as the son he had adopted shook and shuddered, weeping silently in his arms.

“Lord Stark,” Ser Rodrik’s voice shook Ned off his reverie.

“Yes, Ser Rodrik?” he turned to greet his master-at-arms. The elder man’s face was grave.

“A guardsman just rode in from the hills. They’ve captured a deserter from the Night’s Watch.”

Ned grimaced. That’s the fourth this past year. What is going on at the Wall? I should write to Lord Commander Mormont. “Where is he now?”

“He’s being held in Landkerr Edric Hardy’s keep, my lord.”

That was at least four hours worth a ride. Looking up to the sky, Ned doubted both trips could be accomplished before nightfall. “Thank you, Ser Rodrik. Tell the lads to prepare their horses. We ride on the morrow.”

He turned to glance at the boys. Struggling with his bow, Harry fumed as he saw his little sister Maisie outperform him with ease, while Bran snickered at his cousin’s annoyance. A bit to the side, Theon engaged in what seemed to be a suggestive banter with maidservant Lyna.

“Tell the boys they’re coming, too,” he decided. Ser Rodrik nodded, and left.

Had Cat been by his side, she would have surely protested that they were too young to see such things.

And mayhaps they were, but they wouldn’t be forever.

Winter is coming, Ned thought. And when it arrives, they will be prepared for it.

Chapter Text

There was a nip in the cold, brisk air of morning.

Winter is coming.

Robb found it a daunting prospect. He had been barely four years of age when the last winter came to an end, a short and moderate lull to the plentiful summers that had encompassed his entire life so far. Despite his nascent beard, he was still nothing more than a summer child who knew not the true winter, and it troubled him.

I am a Stark, Robb told himself, willing to believe his own words. I am the coming winter. I mustn’t be afraid of it.

Torrhen Karstark cantered his horse next to him.

“So much for a wildling,” Torr said, mockingly. His wide ears were reddened by the chill.

Robb pursed his lips. 

Mance Rayder had been gathering his forces for years by now, and though he might call himself King-beyond-the-Wall, amongst a lawless people such as the wildlings, a man’s authority only extended as far as his sword-arm. Surely, other rival wildling raiders would attempt to cross the Wall in an attempt to boost their own prestige and contest Rayder’s leadership.

“It was a reasonable assumption,” Robb groaned.

“Reasonable or not, you still owe me a silver stag,” Karstark said smugly.

Robb grumbled, driving his hand into his coin purse and flipping the silver in his friend’s direction.

“Shove it where the light doesn’t shine,” he muttered.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Torr replied goodnaturedly.

The man held in chains by Landkerr Edric Hardy’s small stone holdfast in the hills was not a wildling, but a brother of the Night’s Watch. The man was short and scrawny. And old. Strangely old for a desertor. 

Deserters most often were green boys unmanned by the blood and death of battle, or new recruits unwilling to commit their lives to upholding their oaths and foolish enough to think they could get away with abandoning their posts. The frostbite that scarred the deserter’s face and hands belied such reasons—this man was an experienced, seasoned ranger. His eyes, hollow and reddened, told tales of decades’ worth of a hard and dangerous life. Robb wondered what could have caused him to snap now. Was it just the accumulated weight of all which he had seen? Or had something specific happened?

Father rode forth and dismounted, closely followed by Theon, who by carrying Ice was fulfilling his duties as Lord Stark’s squire for once in his gods forsaken life.

Robb was aware that words were exchanged between the deserter and Father, but they spoke too low for him to make sense of their mutters. After a moment, Lord Eddard Stark nodded, and two of his guardsmen pushed the ragged man down to the ironwood stump in front of him, forcing his head to lie on it. He offered no resistance.

“Keep your ponies well in hand,” Robb told the younger Stark boys, ahorse their ponies in between him and Jon, “and don’t look away.” Bran shifted on his seat, but did not look away. Harry, on the other hand, needn’t be told; this was his second time witnessing the King’s Justice.

Father peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory, then, as Theon stepped forth to offer Ice, he grabbed hold of the massive Valyrian steel greatsword and unsheathed it. The dark smoke steel gleamed under the morning sun.

“In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, I, Eddard of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Lord Paramount of the Winterlands and Warden of the North, sentence you to die.”

Father stepped back to wind up, and with a single strong swing took off the deserter’s head. 

Blood sprayed out of the now headless corpse, as it twitched its dying spasms. The head bounced off a thick root away from the grasp of Kerr Edric’s guardsman, who ran after it futilely as it rolled and rolled away.

“His head rolls better than a football,” Harry snickered.

“A man is dead, Harry,” Robb admonished their cousin. “Show some respect.” The boy rolled his eyes, but japed no further.

Bran, on the other hand, could not take his eyes away from the bright red blood that stained the grass and snow.

“Hey,” Jon approached their younger brother. “You’re alright?” Shaken off his trance, Bran nodded, but his expression was tremulous, his knuckles a bleached white as they held the reins with an iron grip. “You did well,” his twin praised Bran solemnly.

Hard thing to screw up, either way, Robb mused.

He still remembered his first execution. The Whoreslayer, he was called. A short, squat and loathsome man, he had raped and savaged over five prostitutes in the town of Brandonsbrook, gutting them like fishes and creating macabre displays out of their remains. 

Robb had been only seven at the time, but he still remembered the bestial look in his eyes and the sadistic glee in them when he demanded to take the Black in a mendacious attempt to save his worthless life. He remembered, too, how he had pissed himself when Father refused him, and how he had struggled, kicking and screaming, against the guardsmen that pushed him onto the block.

You must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away, Father always told them. And Robb didn’t look away, but he felt pleasure when the Whoreslayer’s ugly head rolled in the ground, staining the snow red.

Jon, meanwhile, had puked his guts out.

Bran hadn’t gone to such lengths, but the queasy look in his face proved it had been a close thing. If anyone was well suited to comfort him, it was Jon; he knew the feeling all too well, for he always took their deaths with a heavy heart. Over twice a dozen men he had seen beheaded, yet it never seemed to get any easier for his twin.

It was only natural he struggled. Jon was a sensitive person with a kind heart, easy to give his empathy to anyone whether they deserved it or not. 

“He deserved to die,” Robb had told Jon after the Whoreslayer’s execution, when he had found his brother brooding in the Godswood.

“So he did,” Jon conceded, his eyes downcast. “But when I saw his face, I couldn’t help but see the boy he had once been, too.”

“You pitied the man? After everything he did?”

“No,” Jon replied, voice certain. “I pitied the boy.”

Jon’s words had struck a nerve. Since then, whenever the men’s heads rolled in the ground, no matter how deserved their deaths, Robb thought of the mothers that had lovingly fed them and dressed them and told them the tales of great heroes of old as they tucked them in their furs. 

It was a haunting thought, and Robb never felt pleasure in death anymore.

“He died bravely,” Robb said, as the party rode back to Winterfell, and he and his friends took the vanguard. “He might have been a deserter, but in his last moments he had courage.” For what little it was worth, anyways.

“He was terrified,” Jon said quietly. “You could see it in his eyes.”

“He was about to piss himself!” Harry laughed, his pony struggling to keep up with their larger horses.

Harry, on the other hand, was as callous as only a boy of eight could be. Domeric shook his head in disapprovement, and Jon gave their cousin a disgusted look.

“What did I tell you about showing respect?” Robb asked, irritated.

“What use is it to him?” Harry retorted. “He’s dead.”

“He’s got a point,” Theon pointed out.

“Shut up, Theon,” Robb sighed.

“Yes, Lord Stark,” the Greyjoy heir dipped his head mockingly.

And so they rode down the trail that connected the small holdfast in the hills back to Winterfell. Under trees and over brooks, a party of over twenty men moved, steady but unhurried, entertained by a quiet chatter. Bran had fallen behind, and was in deep conversation with Father.

Robb had to admit that, much as he loved riding, it could get quite dull sometimes. Often, he wondered how it would be to ride to the sound of music, as Maggie enjoyed so much.

“Race you to the bridge?” Robb asked Jon, who looked twice as bored as he felt.

Wordlessly, his twin shot out, spurring his horse into a full blown sprint.

“Son of a—” Robb cursed, driving his spurs hard into Frost’s flanks, and followed in hot pursuit.

“The same as yours!” Jon laughed, his horse still far ahead.

Yet, Frost was faster than Sentinel, and the distance between the twins turned smaller and smaller as they closed in on the small stone bridge.

Jon saw it before he did. 

“Shit, Robb, stop!” he yelped, and Sentinel came to a hard break.

Frost, faster and stronger than his full sibling, was harder to rein in. The steed reared his legs, and Robb had to hold on for dear life as he willed his mount to settle.

Lying in the middle of the bridge was the mangled, rotting carcass of a stag. The skin was tattered, slashed at by terrible blades, and the animal’s guts were spread out in the ground. The stench of rotten flesh and putrid viscera hung in the air like cheap perfume to a whore.

Jon pinched his nose. “Gods, the smell!”

Warily, Robb dismounted and unsheathed his sword. He doubted a blunt edge would be much help against whatever monster had ravaged the stag, but it was certainly preferable to his bare hands.

Jon dismounted as well, but didn’t pull his sword from the scabbard. He approached the stag, eyes wide. “Stay your blade, Robb. It’s been dead for at least a day,” Jon said. “Whatever killed it, I doubt it’s still around.”

“I’d rather not take any chances,” he replied, eyes scanning their surroundings cautiously.

“There’s a trail of blood leading down the bridge,” Jon pointed out after a second. Careful to keep his sword up, Robb began walking down the trail as it led him across the bridge and to the side of it, towards the brook underneath.

Robb’s heart skipped a beat as it came into view.

“Go get father,” he said. “Now.”

Wordlessly and swift as lightning, Jon sprinted back across the bridge and leapt on top of his horse, leaving Robb alone with it.

Half-buried in bloodstained snow laid a massive direwolf laid on the ground, slumped in death. The cold froze the wetness in its fur into a thin sheen of frost, and just like the stag, the stench of rot hewed to it. Skewering its throat was a broken antler, the root of it chipped and cracked.

Suddenly, Robb felt a surge of massive respect for the stag. Despite being outmatched, it had managed to bring its killer down with it. It was not a feat to frown upon—the direwolf was easily the size of a horse, and its claws and teeth were sharper than iron blades.

Robb sheathed his sword and crouched to take a closer look at the dead, majestic beast.

And then he saw them.

By the belly of the beast, small balls of wet, grey-black fur moved, twisted and contorted, shook and whined as they stepped on each other in their futile attempts to feed off their dead mother’s teats.

“By the Gods,” he muttered, astonished.

One of the direwolf pups must have heard him, for it turned its face in his direction. The grey pup’s eyes were still closed, but Robb felt a connection establish itself instantly as the pup whined, thawing his heart with a gleeful warmth like none he had ever felt before, that filled him from the tip of his ears to the tip of his toes.

“Hey, boy,” Robb said, as he took the pup in his arms. “What are you doing here, south of the Wall?” 

The pup whined meekly, nuzzling his head against his chest, searching for the milk he so desperately craved.

“Sorry, boy, I’ve got nothing with me here,” Robb cooed soothingly, caressing the pup’s forehead softly. “I can get you some milk, though. Want to come with me to Winterfell?”

“Is that what I think it is?” Jon asked in amazement. Robb turned to look up at his breathless twin, who had just arrived back and had yet to dismount.

“Yes,” Robb nodded in delight. “There’s five of them. This one’s mine; choose your pick.”

He heard a sword be unsheathed. “Robb, get away from it!” Jory shouted, his horse the first of their party to arrive. Close behind him came the rest of their wolfpack, and further behind Father, Bran, Harry, and their retainers.

Robb smiled at Jory. “There’s no need to worry. She’s dead, Jory.”

“What in the seven hells is that?” Theon asked, eyes wide.

“A wolf.”

“A wolf? ” Theon’s voice was incredulous. “It’s a freak! Look at the size of that thing!”

“It’s a direwolf,” Domeric interjected with his quiet voice, but he, too, was amazed at the sight in front of him. “They outgrow their cousins.”

“That’s the understatement of the fucking century,” Torr breathed out as he dismounted. It was quite telling that he had no snappy retort for once. “Holy hells, that’s one big wolf.”

“There’s not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in over a thousand years,” Jory said, uneasy. He had not yet sheathed his sword.

“I see one now,” Jon replied as he crouched by Robb’s side and scanned the pups. After a moment, he looked up to Jory. “Put away your sword, Jory. There’s no danger.” Jory was unconvinced, but duly obeyed.

The rest of the party had arrived and dismounted by now, standing wary and uneasy at a distance. Not so Bran; his brother had noticed the pup he was cradling, and, as any sensible person would do when in the sight of a baby animal, was instantly captivated. Bran gave a small cry of delight and moved closer to Robb to get a better look. Adorable though the pup might be, however, it was still a direwolf, so when Bran reached out to caress the pup, he was hesitant and timid.

“Go on,” Robb told him. “You can pet him.”

Bran gave the pup a quick nervous stroke, eliciting a small whine from the wolf.

“Here you go,” Jon interjected, handing Bran a second pup. “There are five of them.” Bran hugged the wolf pup to his face, thrilled.

“Direwolves loose in the realm, after so many years?” Hullen, the stablemaster, muttered tensely. “I not like it.”

“It is a sign,” Jory said.

A sign of what? Robb wondered. He struggled to imagine in what world would the return of direwolves be an ill omen.

“This is only a dead animal, Jory,” Father frowned. Snow crunched under his boots as he circled around the direwolf’s dead body. “Do we know what killed her?”

“There’s something in the throat,” Robb pointed out, quite pleased with himself for having the answer at the ready. “There, just under the jaw.”

Father knelt and, after a mild scuffle, yanked the shattered antler from the wolf’s throat.

A sudden silence descended over the party. The men looked at the antler uneasily, and no one dared to speak. 

Robb rolled his eyes. He was never one for superstitions, but they were almost universal amongst the commonfolk, and barring Jory (who was profoundly superstitious), none of their retainers was of noble birth. He looked down at his little pup, and booped its nose with a smile.

His father tossed the antler to the side. “I’m amazed she lived long enough to whelp.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” Jory said. “I’ve heard tales… maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came.”

“Born from the dead,” long bearded guardsman Anders put in. “Worse luck.”

“No matter,” said Hullen. “They be dead soon enough too.”

Robb turned to glare sharply at Hullen. “No. We will keep these pups.”

“You cannot do that, boy,” said Harwin, Hullen’s son.

He felt his blood boil. “I can, and I will. And don’t call me boy,” Robb rebuked him harshly.

“It be a mercy to kill them,” Hullen insisted.

You can shove your mercy up your—

“Father, please!” Bran cried out for their father’s support, as he hugged his own wolf pup tightly.

Father frowned, but said nothing. There was a glint to his grey eyes that told Robb his mind was working at full speed, but had yet to decide.

“It be better a swift death than a hard one from hunger,” Hullen repeated stubbornly.

“Ser Rodrik’s red bitch whelped again last week,” Robb pointed out, irritated with Hullen’s pigheadedness. “It was a small litter, only two pups. She’ll have more than enough milk.”

“She’ll rip them apart when they try to nurse,” Anders shook his head. “A bitch can tell the difference between her pups and those whelped by another.”

Father pursed his lips, troubled. Robb knew Hullen and Anders made a fair point, but he’d be damned before he allowed them to put down the wolf that had so easily burrowed a way into his heart. He’d fight them if need be.

“Father,” Jon interjected, and his voice was measured and even. “The direwolf graces our banners. Surely, this is a gift from the Gods, and it would be nothing short of a crime against them to give the pups death.” Father nodded, heeding Jon’s counsel. “Furthermore,” his younger twin continued, “there are five pups, three males and two females. One for Robb, one for Bran, one for Sansa, one for Arya and one for me. We were meant to have them.”

It was a good point, though he was short a wolf.

“What about Rickon?” Father asked, unconvinced.

“Rickon is three,” Jon pointed out as he picked out his own wolf, dark coloured just as himself. “I doubt the Gods would be dumb enough to gift a direwolf to a babe barely weaned.”

“I mean, the four of you can always just fight to the death for the ownership of each wolf,” Torr interjected, light-hearted and irreverent as always.

Every conversation and noise died as everyone turned to look at him.

“... Nnno, we’re not doing that,” Robb said warily. It would hardly be fair to Rickon, either way, since he's not yet four, all of his elder brothers had been trained in swordplay and WHY THE SEVEN HELLS AM I EVEN ENTERTAINING THIS THOUGHT?

Karstark crossed his arms and looked away. “You people are boring,” he pouted, disappointed.

Father blinked, shook his head, and passed his judgement.

“So be it. But I will not have you wasting the servants’ time with this. You will feed them yourselves. You will train them yourselves. And you will bury them yourselves if need be.”

“They won’t die,” Robb swore. “We won’t let them die.”

“And may the gods help you if you neglect them or train them poorly,” Father continued, his voice stern. “These are not hounds, they’re direwolves. If you kick them, you will find yourselves short a leg. Is that clear?”

“Yes, father.”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“Very well, then. Lads,” he said, turning at Torrhen and Theon, “round up the other pups and mount up. It’s about time we return to Winterfell.”

The remaining wolf pups couldn’t be more dissimilar; the one Torrhen picked up was quiet and serene, melting into Karstark’s embrace. Meanwhile, the other one tried to bite Theon’s finger as soon as he made to grab it, and clumsily swaddled down the brook, away from Greyjoy.

“This one’s Arya’s, all right,” Theon remarked wryly, following the pup.

“Guess this one is Sansa’s, then.”

“I see the resemblance,” Domeric smiled.

“Don’t you want a wolf of your own?” Bran asked his cousin.

Harry shook his head, eyes wide and afraid. “Having a direwolf for a pet? Are you crazy? I’m good, I’ll just ask Farlen for a hound instead. At least he won’t eat my face!”

“So long as you don’t forget to feed him,” Domeric remarked lightly, patting the boy on his shoulder as he guided him back to his pony’s mount on the bridge. Robb and Jon soon followed, both delighted with the pups in their leathers.

“Got any ideas as to what to name them?” Jon asked him, but before Robb could answer, Theon made a surprised noise behind them.

“Well, would you look at that!” he remarked.

“What is it?” Robb asked, turning to look at his friend.

In his arms, Theon held two wolf pups. “Guess she didn’t want to leave without her brother,” he said. Indeed, the grey-black one had noticeably settled down in the presence of her last brother, a white pup with open blood red eyes. 

An albino.

“Mine,” Jon blurted the instant his eyes met the white pup’s, handing Domeric the dark one without a second glance.

“I guess the Gods are dumb enough,” Domeric mused, bopping Rickon’s new wolf in the nose.

The arrival of the direwolf pups had taken Winterfell by storm.

His younger siblings had been understandably overjoyed by their new pets. Arya screamed shrilly to the heavens as she squeezed her new pup and jumped up and down in the spot, and though Sansa, always the perfect lady, hadn’t been as turgid as Arya in her glee, she was completely and utterly in love with the quiet and subdued wolf pup that Domeric had given her. 

Rickon, however, hadn’t been quite as sure when he first laid eyes on his wolf pup. The youngest of the mainline Starklings wasn’t fond of the hounds, intimidated by their howls and barks, and feared that the pup would bite his hand off. It was an irrational fear, given that the pups were so minuscule they could comfortably nestle inside Sansa’s small shoes, but then again, the boy was not yet four years of age, and children were stupid like that, Robb surmised.

At the sight of Rickon’s timidity, Anton had tried to claim the wolf pup for himself, but had seen himself roundly rejected by the pup, who despite being toothless and blind snarled and gnarled and tried to bite Anton until he gave up.

“Fine,” Anton growled, and stalked out of the kitchens in a huff.

Their other cousins, however, had been more gracious in their wolflessness. Lya was enthralled with the pups, and eagerly suggested names to her cousins. Harry kept to his word, and had asked Ser Rodrik for one of his newborn hound pups. And Maisie and Osric were just as ecstatic as Arya and Bran.

“Can we have one, mother?” Maisie had pulled on Aunt Dacey’s green skirts the instant she first laid eyes on the pups. “Please?”

“Please!” Osric clumsily echoed.

Aunt Dacey blanked.

As for himself, Robb sat with his friends by a table to the side, away from the fireplace around which his siblings and cousins crowded. Tight in his embrace, his pup was hungrily sucking from a towel wetted with warm milk.

“Do you intend on feeding him anytime soon, or what?” Torr asked his younger twin.

“Ghost keeps refusing his milk,” Jon told him, his own wet towel lying on the wooden table. In his arms, Ghost slept; if he were a cat, he’d probably be purring. “I guess he’s not hungry.”

“‘Ghost’?” Torr tilted a disapproving eyebrow. “That’s his name?”

“You’ve got a better idea?”

“‘Snow’?”

“That’s a shit name,” Jon deadpanned.

Torr huffed, offended. “And Ghost is so much better?”

“Fits him like a glove. Look at him; he’s not like the others. His fur is a deep white, and he hasn’t made a single sound since we found him. He’s quiet and pale as a ghost,” Jon explained. “So, I’ll name him Ghost.”

“It’s a good name,” Domeric interjected, shooting a nasty look at Karstark, who only mock-mimicked him in return. “What are you going to name yours, Robb?”

“I don’t know yet,” he replied honestly. He was half-tempted to name him after a Stark king of old, one of high glories and famous achievements, but none fully convinced him.

Maybe he could name him after King Alaric Longsword, who conquered the Wolfswood and took the oath of fealty of the Glover kings. Or he could name him after King Geralt the White Wolf, though his sobriquet, borne out of his albinism, would make it a more fitting name for Ghost than for his own grey-brown pup. Another name could be Sigurd, after King Sigurd the Bold, who slayed the last of the accursed Barrow Kings and took his daughter for wife. Perhaps after King Alexiel Lionsbane, who had marched his armies against King Lancel III Lannister and broke the power of The Rock for over three generations?

He could name his direwolf, too, after King Theon Stark, the Hungry Wolf, the most illustrious of the Stark warrior kings, but he’d be damned before he gave Theon the satisfaction.

Speaking of Theon, the Greyjoy heir had been quiet ever since they had arrived at Winterfell. Slumped over his chair, he looked at the baby direwolves by the fireplace with a longing glint to his dark eyes.

“You wanted a wolf too, didn’t you?” Robb gently asked his friend.

“Not really,” Theon replied, but the disappointment in his voice belied his words. “But it would have been nice, I guess,” he sighed. “Guess it’s just not meant for me.”

Robb knew that whatever bothered Theon ran much deeper than just a pet wolf, but he knew better than to push him for an answer. Though he had improved, Theon had always been loath to speak his heart, and when in his moods, he was swift to take deep offence even to the most light-hearted jabs.

Theon wanted to be a Stark; it only took one glance at his white and grey sigil to discern as much. The direwolf pups were only a bitter reminder of the infeasibility of such a desire, a reminder he couldn’t ignore nor pretend away.

“You didn’t get a wolf,” Jon said, “but maybe that’s because you’ll get a kraken instead further down the line.”

Theon tilted his head. “A kraken?”

Robb immediately understood Jon’s idea. “Yes,” he nodded his agreement. “The kraken is your sigil’s animal, just as the direwolf is ours. It’s only natural that you get a pet kraken!”

“And when at sea, you could have it destroy enemy ships!” Jon added. “At command!”

Amused by the thought, Theon smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his brooding dark eyes. “It’d make for a poor pet, though. I can’t have it on land with me.”

“Oh, look at you,” Domeric rolled his eyes in good-humoured annoyance. “You could bitch about anything, don’t you? You’re getting the most awe-inspiring pet in the world short of a dragon and you’re complaining? Sure, it isn’t as practical a companion as a hound or a direwolf, but a pet kraken is still leagues ahead of a white sun” — Torr frowned, evidently wondering exactly how you were supposed to have a sun as a pet — “, and a flayed man isn’t a desirable pet… or a long-lived one,” he added after a beat.

“How do you know?” Theon raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “You’ve got one at the Dreadfort, or what?”

“Not that I know of,” Domeric replied awkwardly. After a beat, he frowned. “Haven’t we’ve had this exact same conversation before?”

“Well, yes,” Greyjoy shrugged, “but that was almost ten years ago. Maybe things have changed. Surely, now that you’re of age, your father has brought you into the Great Bolton Conspiracy.”

“... The what?” Domeric was stumped.

“Sure, act like you don’t know,” Theon said, narrowing his eyes. “I’m onto you, Bolton.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll make you my pet flayed man, since you clearly know too much to be left alive,” Domeric retorted.

The Ironborn scoffed. “If you don’t make a cloak out of my skin, I’ll be severely annoyed,” Theon warned Domeric, wagging a finger in front of him.

“Then I have bad news for you, because the Seven Hells will freeze over before I’m ever doing that.”

“Why not?” Theon pouted childishly. “You’d do it to the Starks, why not me?”

“Are you saying you want to be flayed?” Jon frowned, utterly befuddled. Even Ghost, small ball of white fur in his arms, looked up and tilted his head in confusion, his piercing red eyes boring into Theon.

“It has nothing to do with what I want . It’s a matter of honour! By not fashioning a cloak out of me when he’d do it out of you, he’s stating that a Greyjoy isn’t worth as much as a Stark!”

The Greyjoys have very little to be proud of, while you Starks are quite probably one of the most prestigious Great Houses in Westeros, Robb recalled Margaery’s words in a letter a couple moons past. Theon, it seemed, had taken those words to heart.

“It has nothing to do with Greyjoys and Starks, Theon,” Domeric countered. “It has everything to do with the fact that your skin would make for a terrible cloak, because it’s ugly as shit and it reeks.”

“It also has great pox,” Torr added.

“SLANDER!” Theon shouted to the skies, holding his hand to his heart in mock outrage. “LIES!”

“You spend at least one day a week in the brothel,” Torr pointed out, a lean smile on his square face. “There’s no way you haven’t gotten a pox at least once.”

“If I went to any dingy and sleazy old whorehouse, mayhaps,” Theon rebuked him, nose turned up pompously. “But I’ll let you know, Karstark, that I am a patron at The Winter’s Rose, which is only the most refined and exclusive brothel in the whole North.”

“What are you idiots talking about?” Arya piped in, frowning. Theon’s shouts had piqued her curiosity, though they failed to distract the other Starklings from their gleeful gushing over the new wolves near the fireplace. Lya, in particular, seemed to be suggesting names to Bran at a breakneck pace, but he remained unconvinced, rejecting them just as fast.

“Trust me, little sister, you don’t want to know,” Jon sighed as Theon, Domeric and Torr continued arguing over nothing, then he smiled at his sister, who carried her own wolf in her arms. “Say, have you already chosen a name for your wolf?”

“I’ll name her Nymeria!” Arya beamed. “After the warrior queen of the Rhoyne!”

“That’s a good name,” Jon told her as he ruffled her hair. “Mine’s Ghost. And Robb’s…” he trailed off, a sly and teasing smile to his face.

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll come up with something,” Robb muttered, annoyed at the ease their siblings had for finding names for their new direwolves.

“You better hurry, Robb,” Arya said, “or all the good names will be taken!”

“Oh, yes. Ghost and Nymeria. Because I definitely was going to use one of those two,” Robb deadpanned. Both wolves turned towards him, an offended look in their faces. An impressive feat to be sure, considering Nymeria was still blind.

“Sansa named hers Lady, and Rickon’s calling his Shaggydog,” Arya told him.

“I thought you said ‘good’ names?” Jon said wryly. Wordless, Arya only shrugged noncommittally in response.

“Who names a direwolf Shaggydog ? He’s not a dog,” Robb frowned. In his arms, his nameless direwolf whined. “See? Even he agrees it’s stupid.”

“Speaking of stupid, you all got a silver to spare?” Torr interrupted them. Robb was about to ask what did that have to do with stupid, but Karstark spoke over him. “It’s for a good cause, I promise.”

“Which one?” Arya asked, curious.

“We’re going to pay for Theon's trip to the whorehouse.”

Speaking of stupid indeed.

Arya was bemused. “Charming,” she said flatly.

Robb frowned. “How is that a good cause?”

“It’ll get him off our backs for the whole day,” Domeric explained.

“Shut up and take my money,” Robb replied, pulling a silver stag from his belt pocket and throwing it in Theon’s direction without wasting a second.

“Seriously, Robb?” Arya shook her head in disappointment. Another silver sailed through the air, and she swivelled in the spot, eyes wide in disbelief. “SERIOUSLY, JON?”

Jon shrugged. “Hey, a full day without Theon? Worth every coin.”

“I’ll take it, but you offend me greatly, Stark,” Theon japed, a mock-scowl in his face.

“I can’t believe you lot,” Arya shook her head and stalked away. Jon waved lazily after her retreating figure.

Content with his new coins, Theon stood up from his chair and bowed with great flourish. “My good and merry gentlemen, it has been most diverting to partake in banter with ye, but, alas, our roads must now be parted, for duty calleth upon me.”

That’s a strange way to name Ros, Robb thought of the red-haired whore that Theon was so fond of. And a strange way to speak, too. None but the bards in their songs spoke in such a manner, and even then it was uncommon.

“Yes, yes, don’t let us keep you,” Domeric dismissed him with a wave.

“Alas, such discourtesy!” Theon shook his head melodramatically. “I desir’d naught but to inquire whether any of ye, O, fine gentlemen, would mayhaps find it in thine interest to join me on this particular venture.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Jon frowned. “You sound stupid.”

Theon didn’t even glance his way. “Shut the fuck up Jon no one asked you.”

“Now that you mention it, I wouldn’t be against joining you,” Torr mused. “But I just gave you my last silver.”

Robb frowned. “Wait, your last silver? That’s the one I just gave you earlier today!” His eyes widened as he realised something. “You made a bet with me when you had no money to make good on it?!” he asked, outraged.

“What can I say?” Torr shrugged his shoulders with nonchalant disinterest. “I’m a fiscal nightmare.”

You two-faced, backstabbing little sh—

“Well, thanks to you lot I now have four stags.” Theon scratched his chin in thought, distracting Robb from his murderous thoughts. “You think that’s enough extra coin to get Ros to agree to a threeway?”

“I say it’s worth a try,” Torr smiled as he stood up, and sharing a complicit laugh, both lordlings walked out of the kitchens with a spring to their step.

Sharing a girl with a friend? Robb deeply misliked the thought.

“That’s fucked up,” Jon muttered, clearly of a mind with him.

“They’d have to pay me to agree to that,” Domeric agreed. “And not even then; I’d just take the money and tell them to sod off.”

Barely a second after Theon and Torrhen left through the door, Maester Luwin appeared and approached him with a swift step.

“Robb, a letter bearing Lady Margaery’s seal has just arrived,” the maester said amiably, fashioning an envelope out of his sleeves and handing it to him. For a moment, Robb thought he saw the elderly maester flash him a knowing smile.

Robb’s ears turned red. “Thank you, maester,” he said stiffly, keenly aware of the devious smirks in his friends’ faces.

It wasn’t the first time one of Margaery’s letters found him in such a perilous situation, surrounded by the dastardly and dishonourable knaves he called friends. Robb knew from experience that to properly defuse the situation, he would need to be as cunning as a fox, and make full use of all the diplomatic skills he had honed for years.

“WELL IT’S BEEN GREAT BUT OH WOW WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME IT’S ALMOST NIGHTFALL I’M GOING TO BE OFF NOW SEE YOU BOYS LATER IF ANY OF YOU FOLLOWS ME I’M THROWING YOU OUT OF THE WINDOW YOU’VE BEEN WARNED YES JON I MEAN IT,” Robb stammered at full speed, jumping out of his seat and leaving the kitchens as swiftly as his legs could carry him.

That could have gone better, Robb internally kicked himself as he walked across the courtyard with long strides, wolf and letter both in his embrace. Nameless was sniffing the envelope curiously, looking for more milk. He was a rather hungry pup.

“Mother,” Robb dutifully nodded as he crossed his lady mother on his way to the great keep. Mother, bearing a thin smile, nodded back at him, but said nothing as she, too, walked in his opposite direction with purposeful steps. Robb noticed she had a small parchment in her grasp.

She’s likely looking for Father, he wagered. After every execution he carried out, Father had a habit of spending a couple of hours in prayer in the Godswood, so he’d most likely still be there.

By the time he arrived in his quarters, Robb found himself winded and having to stop to catch his breath against his locked ironwood door (it wouldn’t be the first time, after all, that Jon interrupted him while he was writing). It was quite unfortunate that his bedchambers were located in the second highest floor of the great keep’s great tower, particularly when you jump every other step in the stairs. Nameless whined a soft complaint.

“Easy, boy,” Robb breathed out, and gently laid Nameless on his bed. The tiny blind baby direwolf, finding himself in a new, unrecognisable place, took it all in with an eager nose. “Make yourself at home,” he said, and was quite surprised when Nameless promptly obeyed, curling in on himself against the bed’s warm furs. Within seconds, the wolf pup was asleep.

Huh, Robb tilted his head, then looked down to his letter, held shut by the wax seal bearing the rose of House Tyrell. Knowing his wolf might decide he’d rather feed than sleep at any second, Robb picked the small Ice-shaped letter opener in his desk and sliced the envelope open.

Within the first glance he immediately realised it wasn’t an answer to his last letter, but one bearing new tidings that couldn’t wait until her return to Highgarden from the capital. Curious, Robb began reading.

Dear Robb:

Loras won!

He was incredible! He laid Ser Hosteen Frey flat on his ass, and he ran circles around Ser Daven Langward, Ser Patrek Mallister, and even Uncle Garth Hightower (and he’s not called Greysteel for nothing) and in the final tilt, he defeated Ser Jaime Lannister himself! 

Half the court betted against him, and now, half the court is many golden dragons poorer. Lord Baelish, in particular, must be contemplating suicide; he wagered a VALYRIAN STEEL DAGGER! King Robert couldn’t stop laughing, and made a point of toying with his new dagger whenever he crossed glances with Lord Baelish.

Lord Tywin was quite displeased to see his golden son defeated, and left soon after for Casterly Rock, and took his daughter and grandchildren with him. The Kingslayer and the Imp were much more gracious in defeat than their father, though, and they congratulated Loras on his victory. They even sounded honest.

Garlan participated in the melee, and did great, too, though in the end Lord Yohn Royce took the prize after beating Thoros of Myr, the crazy red-priest with the flaming sword. Willas, meanwhile, was a stick in the mud and refused to participate in any of the competitions, instead talking with the Hand about hounds and eagles and gods know what else. And here I was, thinking he’d joined us on this trip to do something worth his time.

There’s not much else to say, in all honesty. King Robert drank a lot (as he always does), Queen Cersei looked like she swallowed a lemon (as she always does), Prince Joffrey failed to impress (as he always does), and my Father was rebuffed in his umpteenth attempt to arrange a betrothal between the Prince and me (as he always does. Honestly, you’d think he’d take a hint by now!).

We’re riding back to Highgarden tomorrow. I hope to see both of your letters waiting for me upon my arrival, but I know better than to expect a swift reply from you!

I jest, of course. If anything, the fact that our letters only take slightly over a fortnight is nothing short of a miracle, given the distances between Highgarden and Winterfell.

With love,

Maggie.

Dear Maggie:

Gods, I don’t even know where to begin with, so much has happened here in these past couple of days!

Before you worry, we are doing well here in Winterfell. Better than ever, arguably. But first things first: give Loras my earnest congratulations! Unhorsing the Kingslayer before even turning sixteen? It seems we have an upcoming tourney legend! I can’t wait to spar with him, even though I imagine it’d end with my ass flat on the ground.

Now, I know this will sound utterly fantastic, and even unbelievable; hells, I can hardly believe it myself and I was there! The other day, when returning from a ride in the neighbouring hills, Jon and I found a litter of baby direwolves!

It’s true! They were huddled around the corpse of their mother, and she was the size of a horse. Good thing she was dead by the time we got to her, because otherwise I don’t think it would have been a particularly fun time had Jon and I stumbled across a live, full grown direwolf, especially considering the state a nearby stag was in.

I can’t even begin to describe the sheer shock and awe I felt when I saw them. And one of the little wolves looked at me and my heart just melted. There were six wolf pups, four males and two females. Does that sound like another direwolf litter you know of?

Jon said they were a gift from the Gods, and managed to convince Father to let us adopt them! So we now all have our own direwolf pups, and they’re the best thing ever. Jon has named his Ghost (he is an albino), Sansa calls hers Lady, Arya’s is Nymeria, Rickon called his Shaggydog (terrible, I know), and Bran is still undecided. I’m on the same boat as Bran; every name I try just doesn’t sound right. Any suggestions are appreciated.

But if you thought that was everything, you’d be wrong!

As I’m sure you’ve heard at least a week before I did, the old Hand of the King, Lord Jon Arryn, died recently. And, as you’ve absolutely heard by now, King Robert himself is travelling to Winterfell now!

I know that you’ve told me that I should temper my expectations, but I’m still very much looking forward to meeting the King. I am aware, as you’ve told me repeatedly, that he has aged poorly and is merely a shadow of the legendary warrior he used to be. Nonetheless, he’s still my Father’s best friend from his childhood and youth, like Theon or Torr or Domeric or even Jon are to me. He must have so many embarrassing stories about Father, and I can’t wait to hear them all!

Father isn’t very excited, though. I guess it’s understandable; Lord Arryn was like a father to him, so he’s grieving too much still for the news of King Robert’s visit to bring him joy. There’s also the fact that he mislikes the Lannisters, but you already knew that. 

Love,

Robb

P.S: BETTING A VALYRIAN STEEL DAGGER? JUST HOW STUPID CAN LITTLEFINGER BE? HELLS, WHERE DID HE EVEN GET ONE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Chapter Text

Ned didn’t put faith in omens, but even he couldn’t help but find himself unnerved at the fact that the first snowflakes started falling the moment the vanguard of the King’s cavalcade crossed the east gate, flanked by the household guards and chosen aristocrats he had sent to welcome them despite the King’s refusal of a traditional reception outside the city gates.

Winter is coming, he thought, and terrible things follow in its wake.

That being said, Ned could hardly call the foreign riders flocking into his home ‘terrible’. While he certainly held nothing but disdain for men such as Ser Jaime Lannister, Sandor Clegane or Tyrion Lannister, they were not a threat; rather, merely enforcers for the old lion of Casterly Rock that he loathed so.

Ned held Lord Tywin in the utmost contempt, a tireless and burning hatred that had guided his actions for a decade and a half. But his sons were superfluous to him. Whatever they might fashion themselves to be, they were nothing but the shadow of the father.

Certainly, it was easy to mistake Ser Jaime Lannister for more than that; a handsome rogue, he was a passionate and dangerous man, unparalleled in his skill at arms and in his arrogance. But what he lacked in honour or principles, he lacked, too, in guile and cunning. The Kingslayer was a sword, nothing more, a glorified brigand. He wasn’t even his father’s heir, per the sworn oath that had bought the white cloak he draped himself in.

Not that Ser Jaime was faithful to his oaths, anyways. He’s a man without honour. Ludd Whitehill’s face was purple as he gasped for air. But so am I, Ned clenched his right fist.

The stunted little monster that was the Imp, Tyrion Lannister, on the other hand, was a renowned whoremonger and hedonist. He was not a threat. If anything, Ned could call him an asset, as he seemed hellbent on being the bane of Lord Tywin’s existence. He had killed his mother during his birth and now he wasted his days and gold sullying his father’s name with his rotten debauchery. So long as Tyrion Lannister lived, Lord Tywin would have a persistent thorn by his side. And should the Imp succeed to the throne of the Rock, the late Tytos Lannister's mismanagement would pale in comparison.

No. The Lannister brothers were not lions but cats, and for that, he would offer them bread and salt.

Close behind the vanguard came the bulk of the King’s procession. They poured through the castle gates in a river of gold and silver and polished steel, followed closely by the cheering, singing and dancing population of Winterfell. Three hundred strong, they were bannermen and knights, sworn swords and freeriders that attached themselves to the royal procession, eager to share in the festivities sure to follow. Over their heads, a dozen golden banners whipped back and forth in the northern wind, emblazoned with the sable crowned stag of House Baratheon.

And riding in the centre, flanked by two white cloaks Ned knew not, was…

Seven Hells.

He was aware that King Robert Baratheon no longer was the lean and powerful-looking man along which he had rode forth to war in two separate occasions; Stannis and Renly both bemoaned in their correspondence that Robert indulged in drink and feast too eagerly, his body slowly decaying into hedonistic indolence. Ned knew it all too well.

Yet, reading about it in a parchment and seeing it with his very own eyes were two entirely different things. It was as if the Robert in front of him had swallowed whole the Robert he used to know: the king now had a girth to match his size. Where he used to be either clean shaved or with a closely trimmed beard, now he had a coarse and wiry pitch black beard that covered his jaw to hide his multiple chins and his sagging dewlaps. Whereas the Robert of old could dismount a warhorse as swift and easy as a man blinked, now he required two pages to bring him a stool. 

Yet, the obese man in front of him was still his king. So Lord Eddard Stark bent his knee. His whole household, family and retainers and servants, arrayed behind him, followed suit.

“Your Grace,” Ned said, as Robert came to a stop in front of him. “Winterfell is yours.”

Wordlessly, Robert made a small gesture with his right hand. Rise, it said. So Ned duly obeyed.

Silence engulfed Winterfell’s east courtyard. It was awkward and tense. And surreal, so deeply surreal. 

There they were, lifelong best friends, together again after nine years with naught a letter sent to each other. Their youth had left them, and the armour they used to wear in front of each other was nowhere to be seen. 

Where did they stand now? What could they say to each other, now that Ned struggled to even recognise the man in front of him?

“You’ve got fat,” Robert blurted out, his voice sharp and contemptuous.

Cat looked positively incredulous. Robb glanced at Ned out of the corner of his eye. Jon frowned. Sansa appeared lost. Arya wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. Bran blinked. Rickon was confused. To the other side, Dacey pursed her lips, biting a retort. Anton smirked with wry amusement. Harry bristled. Lyarra cringed. Maisie was distracted, looking up at the waving banners. Osric tilted his head, too young to understand what was happening.

Ned only levelled a flat stare at Robert, glanced down his girth, looked back up into Robert’s blue eyes, then raised an eyebrow.

And then, as one, both men smiled, rumbled a laugh, and embraced each other as long-lost brothers.

“Nine years,” Robert muttered as they parted. “Why haven’t I seen you? Where the hells have you been?”

“Guarding the North for you, Your Grace.”

“You couldn’t even be arsed to send me a raven every now and again,” Robert retorted, but whatever edge his voice could have was softened by his joy in seeing Ned again. He turned towards Ned’s right. “Caaaaaaat!” he bellowed, and promptly embraced her in a bone-crushing hug.

“Your Grace,” Cat greeted him with a strangled voice. After a second or two, Robert let her go, and moved further down the line.

“What do we have here?” Robert appraised his namesake. “You must be Robert.”

“Yes, Your Grace. It’s an honour,” clean-shaved Robb nodded courteously, and shook the King’s hand with a firm hold.

“Hell of a grip,” Robert smiled satisfied. “Gods, you’re your father’s spitting image,” he said to Jon.

“So I’ve been told, Your Grace,” Jon bowed his head respectfully, but there was disappointment in his dark grey eyes.

Robert moved on to Sansa. “Sansa, right? My, you’re a beauty, just like your mother.” 

Sansa flushed and curtsied. 

“What’s your name?” the King asked his second daughter.

“Arya,” she said bluntly.

Robert raised an eyebrow.

“... Your Grace,” Arya added belatedly. To Ned’s side, Cat sighed a long-suffering sigh.

The King huffed a laugh, and ruffled Arya’s hair with his huge hand. “I like you already.” He moved on to Bran. “Show me your muscles.”

Bran complied, eagerly flexing his bicep. There was not much to show, given the long and thick sleeves of his doublet, but it was enough to amuse Robert, who laughed huskily.

“You’ll be a great knight one day,” Robert told Bran, “like your uncle Brandon.”

And hopefully less stupid, Brandon’s shade remarked with good humour.

Hard duty, that one, Ned replied, a bittersweet smile on his face.

You wound me, Ned, his brother’s ghost replied in mock hurt. Truly, you do.

As Robert patted Rickon’s head, then wound back and greeted Benjen’s family, the other riders were dismounting as well, and grooms stepped forward to care for their mounts. Robert’s queen, Cersei Lannister, dismounted from a smaller wheelhouse with her younger children, for the monstrous wheelhouse in which they had ridden for the whole voyage, a massive triple-decked carriage of oiled oak and gilded metal pulled by forty heavy draft horses, was too wide to pass through the city gates, much less the castle’s.

Ned knelt in the snow to kiss the Queen’s ring. “My Queen. I hope Winterfell is of your liking.”

Cersei Lannister’s polite smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, contemptuous and calculating emeralds that glistened in the light. Her golden hair was covered in a hood of crimson wool, dotted by the softly falling snow. Out of Tywin’s three children, his daughter was the only one worthy of being called a lion: proud, unpredictable, and dangerous. Ned would do good to gain the Queen’s good graces. If such a thing was even possible.

Prince Joffrey stepped forward. “Lord Stark,” he greeted him with a gracious bow of the head. The Crown Prince took after his mother, remarkably tall and handsome, with golden curls and emerald eyes, but he was still a boy and his voice had not yet broken. “It is an honour to meet you. My father has told me a great many tales about you.”

Ned had heard tales about Prince Joffrey, too, and none of them too kind. He wasn’t too concerned, though; he’d yet to meet a prince who wasn’t a misbehaved and willful brat in his boyhood. Sure, he’d yet to meet any prince besides Rhaegar Targaryen, and though in his adulthood he plunged the realm into chaos he had been a remarkably well-behaved child, but that was all besides the point, wasn’t it?

“My Prince,” Ned dipped his head in response. “Welcome to Winterfell.”

Princess Myrcella followed, performing a dainty curtsy. “Lord Stark,” she greeted. An adorable little girl, her fair features and amber curls portended her as a future great beauty like her mother, but her green eyes couldn’t be any more different from the Queen’s, kind and warm. Her voice was likewise soft and gentle, and Ned took an instant liking to her. She was of an age with Bran; perhaps…

He shook his head. You’re getting ahead of yourself.

Prince Tommen, on the other hand, was a plump and timid boy with golden-platinum hair that grew longer than Arya’s. The youngest of the King’s children barely managed to establish eye contact with him before turning his gaze downwards again and mumbling his greeting. Idly, Ned wondered how he would have fared if the direwolves were present, instead of confined to the kennels.

The instant the formalities were through, Robert looked at Ned.

“Take me to your crypts. I want to pay my respects.”

Ned smiled, his heart warmed even as the snows intensified. He hadn’t yet forgotten about her, after so many years.

“At once, Your Grace.”

“My love,” Queen Cersei protested. “We’ve been on the road since dawn for many moons. Surely the dead can wait for a couple of hours more.”

If looks could kill, Robert’s would have smashed Cersei’s chest in like a warhammer, silencing her. Her twin brother stepped forth and took her quietly by the arm. Without saying another word, Robert nodded at Ned, and Ned complied. He called for a lantern, and upon receiving it, both men walked away, the courtyard melting behind them as grooms started directing the visitors to their lodgings, servants returned to their tasks, and everyone else was eager to get out from under the growing snows.

They went down to the crypts together, Ned and this strange man he struggled to recognise. The stone steps were narrow and winding, and the air underground was deathly cold. Ned went ahead, his lantern lightning the way.

“Gods, I was starting to think we would never reach Winterfell,” Robert complained as they descended. “We’ve been on the road for over a hundred days! In the South, the way they talk about my Seven Kingdoms, a man forgets that your part is as big as the other six combined.”

“I trust you enjoyed the journey, Your Grace?”

Robert snorted. “Bogs and forests and fields, and maybe a handful of decent inns. It has its charm, I suppose, but I’ve never seen such a vast and neverending emptiness. With all the charters and privileges you’ve been granting like a madman I’d thought you’d have something to show for it! Gods, Ned, where are all your people?”

“Most merchants keep to the Wolfsroad these days,” Ned said, referring to the newly overhauled road that crossed the North from west to east.

“Ah, yes, that new road of yours. Jon told me about it. What of it?”

“There’s not much to say, Your Grace. Merchants move their supplies across it to avoid the Neck, so most of the North’s modest new wealth is clustered around it: towns, emporiums, fairs, inns…”

“Had I known, I would have travelled by ship,” Robert grumbled. “Gods, what a tedious trip. That accursed wheelhouse couldn’t last a day or two without throwing an axle. And the snow. The snow! Summer hasn’t even come to an end and I’ve already seen more snow in these past moons than during all the winters I’ve lived combined.”

“Snows are common in the North, even in the summer. Everyone knows as much.” The more they exchanged words, the more Ned saw of his old friend, hidden beneath the stones of fat. “They are usually mild, however. Hardly comparable to those in winter.”

“Is that so? I dread to think how this place will be when winter comes.”

You and I both, Ned thought as they reached the bottom of the stairs. Behind him, Robert breathed heavily, face red. The pleasures he so enjoyed had taken their toll.

“Your Grace,” Ned said respectfully. “She’s further down, with Father and Brandon.”

In the darkness of the crypts, shadows danced and lurched beyond what meagre light his lantern brought. Eight aeons worth of dead filled the subterranean vaults that spread in all directions, a colossal multi-levelled maze of cold granite and dark stone, an endless procession of pillars that marched ahead, two by two, into the dark. The lower levels, the oldest of them all, had long since caved in.

Ned led the way between the pillars and Robert followed wordlessly, shivering in the subterranean chill. It was always cold down here. Cold, dark, and silent. Their footsteps rang off the stones and echoed as they walked among the dead. 

Sitting on stone thrones built on top of the sepulchre that held their mortal remains, the likenesses of the Lords of Winterfell observed them with blind eyes that stared into nothing. Great stone direwolves curled around their feet. 

The shifting shadows of Ned’s lantern made the stone figures of both men and wolves seem to stir on their thrones as the living passed by. Ned knew each of his long-dead ancestors by heart, as close and intimate to him as his own living kin. There sat Lord Alaric, infamous for his miserliness and his hosting of Queen Alysanne. There, Lord Cregan, whose brief stint as Hand of the King was legendary. Not far away, in quick succession, followed lords Jonnel, Edric, Barth and Brandon, Cregan’s ill-fated sons. Then came Lords Rodwell and Beron, Brandon’s sons, and then Lord Willam and his son, Lord Edwyle, with Artos the Implacable in between them. And then…

“Here,” Ned told his king. Beyond this point, the tombs were empty and unsealed, black holes in the stone that awaited for Lord Eddard and, gods willing, Lord Robert and his own descendants after him. It was a sobering thought, but one Ned was loath to dwell upon.

Robert nodded silently, knelt, and bowed his head.

There were three tombs, side by side. Lord Rickard Stark, Ned’s father, had a long, stern face. The stonemason had known him well. He sat with quiet dignity, stone fingers holding tight to the iron longsword across his lap, as ancient custom dictated he must in order to keep vengeful spirits at bay.

In two smaller sepulchres on either side were his children. Tradition held that only the Lords of Winterfell had a statue erected, but Ned had found long ago that he didn’t care. He missed his siblings too much to never see their faces again.

It would never not be surreal to Ned to see the eternal youth in his elder brother’s face. Though he was barely a year older than himself, to Ned, Brandon always appeared much older than that, a man already when he was still a boy. Though the stonemason’s portrayal of Brandon’s visage was faithful, it felt near unrecognisable to him. Brandon’s face was made to smile and laugh and scowl; cold solemnity was ill-fitting to his features. And the face was young, so unfairly young.

Not for the first time, Ned cursed Aerys for taking his brother, and he cursed Jaime Lannister, too, for stealing his vengeance.

And Lyanna…

“She was more beautiful than that,” Robert said after a silence. His eyes lingered on Lyanna’s stone face, as if he could will her back to life. If only, Ned brooded. Finally he rose from his crouch, though his girth didn’t make it easy for him. “Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this? She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean.”

“She was a Stark of Winterfell,” Ned said quietly. “This is where she belongs.”

"She belonged with me." The King touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were flesh. “In my dreams I kill him every night,” he said, voice raw with grief and hatred and love. “A thousand deaths will still be less than what he deserves.”

Knowing what he did, there was nothing Ned could say to that. His feelings towards Rhaegar were ambivalent at best. After a long lull of silence, he said, “We should return, Your Grace. Your wife will be waiting.”

“Fuck my wife,” Robert muttered sourly. “And cut it out with the ‘Your Grace’ shit already. I’ve seen you passed out in your own piss and bile more than once, and you’ve seen me worse still. We’re more to each other than that.”

That was a fair point, but back then they were only lads with no lands nor titles to their names, equals between each other. Things were different now. Now, Robert was his king and liege.

And his king commanded he stop referring to him as such, so Ned obeyed.

“Robert,” Ned tried again, then paused. There was a reason why Robert had rode north. “Tell me about Jon.”

Robert sighed. “I’ve never seen a man sicken so quickly. We gave a tourney for Joffrey’s name day. If you had seen Jon, you would have thought he would live forever. Yet, a fortnight later he was dead. Whatever it was, it burned right through him. I loved that old man.”

“We both did.”

“He never had to teach you much, but me… you remember me at sixteen? All I wanted to do was crack skulls and fuck girls. He showed me what was what.”

Ned gave Robert a sceptical look.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Robert retorted. “Not his fault I didn’t listen.”

Both men laughed softly, reminiscing and yearning for a past long gone that would never return. A past with no duties nor honours nor demons and shades haunting their minds.

Ned spoke again after a moment. “Catelyn worries for her sister. How is Lysa handling her grief?”

Robert shook his head. “Not well, Ned. Not well at all. In all the years I’ve known her, I never felt as if she had a solid grasp on reality. All those miscarriages and stillbirths took a toll on her mind, but now? I think losing Jon has done it for good.”

“Is it truly so bad?”

“Worse, even. Woman’s gone mad. She’s taken the boy back to the Eyrie. I had hoped to foster him with Tywin Lannister at Casterly Rock.”

The words left his mouth unbidden. “I can see why she preferred to leave,” Ned snarked. 

“Don’t you start,” Robert said in a warning tone. “I mislike the Lannisters as much as the next man, but the boy is sickly and weak, and Lord Tywin’s iron hand should be enough to straighten him out.”

“If he doesn’t break him, first,” Ned retorted sharply, and shook his head. “I will take him as a ward, if you wish. If your concern is the boy’s good rearing, keep in mind that Lord Tywin has never fostered a ward before, whereas Domeric Bolton, Steffon Dustin, Daryn Hornwood and Jon Umber call Winterfell their home. Lysa should consent to that, too,” he added. “Catelyn and her were close as girls, and she would be welcome here as well.”

“A generous offer, my old friend,” Robert sighed. “If only you had made it before. Lord Tywin has already given his consent. Fostering the boy elsewhere would be a grievous affront to him.”

“... And?” Ned raised an unimpressed eyebrow. He cared not for Lannister pride.

Robert stared at him incredulously for a moment, then a wide smile spread across his face. The King shook his head, then he put a massive arm around Ned’s shoulders. “I had planned to wait a few days to speak to you about this, but I see now that even today we remain of one mind. Come, walk with me.”

They started back down between the pillars, leaving behind Lord Rickard and his children. Blind stone eyes followed them as they passed. The King kept his arm around Ned’s shoulder.

“You must have wondered why I finally came north to Winterfell, after so long.”

Ned knew it all too well, but kept from giving voice to his suspicions. It would be quite presumptuous of him. 

“For the joy of my company, surely,” he said lightly.

Robert snorted a laugh. “Ned, I love you dearly, but not enough to be a hundred days on the road.”

“You wound, me, Robert,” Ned smiled. “And here I thought we had something special.”

“Ah, we do, Neddard, we do. But much as I wish I did, I have come not as your friend but as your king. It is political concerns that have brought me here, not amity.”

“Do you intend to see the Wall, perhaps?” And that was a political concern, too. An ever more pressing one, it seemed. “Mance Rayder continues to gather his forces, and the Night’s Watch is a shadow of what it once was. Lord Commander Mormont says—”

“No doubt we will touch upon it again one of these days,” Robert cut him off disinterestedly. “I have more pressing concerns than a wall that has stood since the end of the Long Night. These are difficult times, Ned. You know as well as I do that I’m surrounded by nothing but liars and schemers and sycophants,” the King shook his head in contempt. “Jon Arryn was the only good man in that accursed pit of vipers, and now Jon Arryn is gone. He will not be easy to replace… but we’ll manage, you and I.

“Those years we spent in the Eyrie… Gods, those were good years. We dreamed of being heroes, you remember? Like the hedge knights of tale and song, riding across the realm doing right and righting wrongs, having nothing but the swords on our backs and the stars over our heads.”

“I remember.” It was a fantasy they had lived, too, for one wonderful moon. It was his fondest memory to date, despite all the misadventures. Perhaps because of all the misadventures. “Those were simpler times.”

“They could come again,” Robert said. “You and I, Ned. Our names belong in the same breath. Together, we overthrew a dynasty, and put down a rebellion. We were meant to rule together, as King… and his faithful right Hand.”

I knew it, Ned thought. He felt no satisfaction in his vindication.

With Jon Arryn’s demise, Robert was short a Hand of the King, and when they stood beneath the walls of Pyke almost a decade ago, the King had already requested his help. Back then, Ned had refused him, for Robert had Jon Arryn to help him in the capital; for his part, from the safety of Winterfell, far beyond the reach of the schemers of the capital, he would seek to create a coalition to curb the Lannister’s reach. 

Yet, now Jon Arryn was gone… and so was the time of quills and ravens.

Ned bowed his head in acceptance. “You honour me, Robert.”

“I’m not trying to honour you. I’m trying to get you to run my kingdom while I eat, drink, and whore my way to an early grave,” Robert slapped his gut and laughed.

“Oh, is that so?” Ned raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Stannis had deplored him those same words ten years ago, on the burnt piers of Lannisport. He would have no part in enabling it. “Then I refuse.”

Robert wheeled around on the spot with a speed belying his weight.

“What did you just say?” he said, equal parts stupefied and outraged.

Ned was unafraid. “I will help you rule, Robert. Not do it for you. If you want me to be your Hand, then you’ll have to act like the King you are.”

“By what right do you dare demand terms from me? From your King?!” Robert bellowed, deeply aggravated, his voice echoing through the crypts.

“By the right bestowed upon me by our friendship,” Ned told him. “As your faithful bannerman, I cannot demand anything from my liege lord. But we are more to each other than that, are we not?”

Robert’s red face contorted in a flurry of emotions. Ned kept his stoic composure unabated. In the end, Robert bent first.

“Fine,” he sighed scornfully. “What in the seven hells do you want from me?”

“I want you to attend your small council meetings, for starters. Mind numbing though they might be, a horse with an inattentive rider is a horse that rides off a cliff.” Just ask the late Lord Luthor Tyrell. “I want you to see the people you rule over. I want you to know them, and I want you to care for them. And I want you to be a better man, like I know you can. I want you to pull your weight, Robert, not drink and whore every waking hour whilst other people manage your kingdom to their own ends.”

“Jon would never have dared to talk to me like this,” Robert rumbled dangerously.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Ned agreed. Fathers, by blood or fosterage, were wont to turn a blind eye to their children’s flaws. Brothers did not. “But I’m not Jon Arryn.”

“No,” Robert sighed. “You’re not.” He smiled softly. Robert held his hand out for Ned to grasp, and so he did. “You’re just the man I need, Ned. You’ll make things right.”

“We will make things right, Robert. I cannot do it without you… just as you cannot do it without me.”

Robert’s smile was bittersweet. “If Lyanna had lived, we would have been brothers, bound by blood as well as love. Well, it’s not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joffrey and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I would once have done.”

“Much as it would please me, that won’t be possible,” Ned shook his head. “Sansa is already betrothed to Domeric Bolton.”

“Eh,” Robert shrugged. “You have two daughters, do you not?”

Ned froze, a cold chill running down his spine.

He could feel a dull ache drum in between his ears.

“I liked your Arya more, anyways,” Robert continued with an off-hand comment, letting Ned’s hand go to accommodate his belt.

Ned winced as his migraine intensified. “I was thinking of a match between Bran and Myrcella, in all honesty…”

“A double marriage with royalty? I never took you for a greedy man, Ned,” Robert laughed lightly. “I’d love to, but Cersei would have my nutsack on a spike if I betrothed Myrcella to a northerner, and to one who’s not even the heir of Winterfell to boot, but your Robert’s already taken…”

Ned rubbed the sides of his head. Robert’s words were muffled, as if spoken through a padded cloth stuffed into Ned’s head. Just trying to keep up with Robert was taking an inhuman effort. “I mean just their betrothal.” At Robert’s raised eyebrow, Ned elaborated. “Only having Bran and Myrcella marry each other, not Arya and Joffrey…”

“Oh,” Robert understood. He frowned. “Oh, no. That’s not up for argument, Ned. I should have married a Stark, but the gods took her from me. My son will fulfil the oaths I took when I betrothed myself to Lyanna. Baratheon will take a Stark for a bride, once and for all. My Joffrey will marry your Arya, and I won’t have it any other way.”

Charming, Lyanna’s ghost snarked. Though snide, the Shade’s comment gave Ned an idea.

“So he will, but is it really necessary to arrange a betrothal already? Arya only turned nine this past second moon. She’s too young…”

“Too young to be married, yes, but not to be betrothed,” Robert scoffed. “You’re one to talk, either way. Renly tells me you’ve been trying to arrange a betrothal between your Robert and Margaery Tyrell for the past decade. It’s the sole fucking reason I keep refusing Mace’s neverending begging despite everyone and their mothers telling me to agree, for crying out loud,” he said, profoundly annoyed. “Gods know that would stop him from badgering me all the time.”

Damn you, Renly, Ned spared a beat to curse the King’s brother, then returned to the matter at hand. His head ached as if pummelled with a morning star.

“I meant no offence, Robert. It’s just that… Arya has a wildness to her. She won’t appreciate being told what to do. In that sense, she’s much like Brandon was… and like Lyanna.”

Just as intended, Robert froze at his late love’s name. “Explain yourself,” he demanded.

“Arya is her aunt come again. Did you know that when I first brought her the news of your betrothal, Lyanna was reluctant to marry you? Only after meeting you at Harrenhal did she finally fall in love,” he lied. Or rather, he didn’t lie; he just didn’t specify the identity of the man who had taken her heart beneath the shadows of Harrenhal’s black and twisted towers. “Lyanna didn’t want to marry a man she didn’t know nor love. Arya won’t, either.”

“She’ll know Joffrey,” Robert muttered weakly, but his heart wasn’t in protesting. His voice was strangled and his heart was in turmoil, old wounds bleeding. Robert’s gaze was lost in the depths of the crypts from which they had come from.

“But she doesn’t now, and she won’t appreciate being told to marry him. Such is the fact of the matter.” Ned paused for a brief instant. “However, I could bring Arya with me down to King’s Landing. Joffrey and Arya will grow together. They will get to know each other. Mayhaps even fall in love. They may not be betrothed, but if they are already living together in the same keep, then really what need of a formal betrothal do we have at this moment? They’re just kids. We have time, Robert.”

It was what he had done with Domeric Bolton. It was what he hoped had happened with Margaery Tyrell. It was what had occurred with Alys Karstark, and what would ensue with whichever girl Bran chose when his time came. It had worked for them all. Why wouldn’t it work for Arya and Joffrey?

Silence fell upon them. In the end, Robert nodded, mollified. “Aye, you’re right.” He shook his head. “You’re always right, damn you. We’ll hold off on the betrothal for now, but I still want to see them marry before the Stranger comes for me.”

“And so they will,” Ned nodded. “I’m sure of it. She just needs time to get used to the idea before having it hoisted upon her.”

“I will never marry Joffrey!” Arya swore with deep vehemence. “He’s stupid and ugly and I hate him!”

Ned blinked tiredly, his head drumming terribly. How he ached for a feverfew tea.

I told you. Didn’t I tell you to tread carefully? You walked yourself straight into this, Ned, Lyanna chided him, and Ned couldn’t do anything but agree.

He should have kept Arya in the dark about his plans for her match, just as he did with Robb and Sansa, merely nudging them in the right direction. But Arya had always been his weak spot, his cherished baby girl. When he met her grey eyes, so much like his, so much like Jon’s, so much like Lyanna’s, he found himself unable to lie.

So he told her everything.

And predictably, Arya didn’t like it.

Not one bit.

“That’s not a nice thing to say, Arya,” he told her. “You barely even know him.”

“It doesn’t matter! Even if I did knew him, I wouldn’t like him!”

“Arya…”

“Jon says he looks like a girl!” she retorted stubbornly, as if that settled everything. And given how Arya adored her elder brother, perhaps it did.

Great. Now he had to admonish Jon, too.

Ned rubbed his eyes. “Arya, I will never force you to marry someone you don’t like. You know that, right?”

“But you’re telling me I have to marry the prince!” Arya protested.

“No, I’m telling you the King wants you to marry his son.”

His daughter looked even more distressed. “How is that any better?!”

“What the King wants and what the King gets are not necessarily one and the same.” And wasn’t that the story of Robert’s life? “If you don’t want to marry Joffrey, I will not force you, and I will refuse the King’s offer without a second thought,” he said earnestly.

“Then why don’t you?” Arya pouted, her resistance burnt out. “Is it because you’re playing politics?”

Ned closed his eyes and sighed. Gods, how much easier would his life be if he could only lie to her. “To a degree, yes. I don’t mean to frighten you, child, but neither will I deceive you: King’s Landing is a dangerous place, filled with evil men who will wish us ill just for having the gall of meddling in their games. Having a betrothal tying us to the royal family serves as a shield for both of us.” And, he had realised, it would also block Joffrey as a contender for Margaery Tyrell’s hand, exponentially bolstering Robb’s suit and securing the Tyrell alliance which was the cornerstone of his external politics once and for all, but that he left unsaid.

“I understand,” his daughter lowered her head, and Ned knew she did. Arya had always been a quick one.

“But it is more than just politics,” Ned said as he put his arm around his daughter to comfort her. Arya leaned into his embrace. “One day, too, you shall marry.”

“I don’t want to marry no one,” she muttered.

“You will,” he repeated. “Your mother wants you to marry a high lord, and there is no higher lord than the future king. You would be his queen, and your sons would rule from the Wall to Dorne. Perhaps even beyond.”

“But I don’t like him,” she said mulishly.

“You don’t know him,” Ned reminded her. “And neither is your match set in stone. What you have in front of you, Arya, is an opportunity. An opportunity to get to know your future husband before your marriage. An opportunity to learn to like him… or to learn that you never will. But you’ve got to take it. You have to go with an open mind and try.” Please.

Arya looked down to her feet, chewing her lip. “I don’t know…” she said reluctantly. His daughter saw the sense in his words, but was loath to agree to them. She would need a further incentive for that.

He knew exactly what it would take. He had his misgivings, but what else could be done? Ned sighed deeply, so deeply that the ground would have rumbled if a sigh could cause the ground to rumble.

“If you promise to try and get along with Joffrey,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I will get you a swordfighting teacher.”

Arya’s head turned so fast to look at him she must have pulled her neck. “Truly? You promise?” she asked, voice soft and full of wonder.

“I swear it, by the Old Gods and the New,” Ned said, hand to his chest. “But only if you uphold your part of the deal.”

Swift as lightning, Arya jumped at him, causing Ned to stumble back onto her bed as his tiny daughter clung herself to his neck in a tight embrace.

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!” she jabbered into his neck. Ned smiled, and hugged her in return, running his hand through Arya’s messy and tangled hair. Arya pulled her head back to meet his eyes. “I will do my best, I promise!”

His daughter’s glee thawed any lingering doubts. “I know you will, Arya,” Ned placed a soft kiss on Arya’s forehead and hugged her once more. “I know you will.”

Chapter Text

Making promises was much easier than keeping them, Arya knew. But she had no intention of breaking her word. We Starks keep our oaths, she told herself.

Of course, that was quite the tall order when just a glance at Prince Joffrey’s face made Arya sorely wish she wasn’t a Stark but a Snow. Hells, even a peasant! Whatever way out the Gods offered her, she’d take it, so long as it meant getting out of her promise without disappointing Father.

Yet, however terrible her father’s disappointment might be, it paled in comparison to the sheer murderous wrath that would surely take over Arya’s sister.

If it had been up to her, none of her siblings would know of it, but Sansa had puzzled at the sudden switch of the sisters’ princely partners for the opening procession, and so Arya had found herself forced to inform them of her looming damnation.

Her brothers had been uncertain of what to make of it. On the other hand, Sansa’s reaction took Arya by surprise.

“You are to marry the Prince?” Sansa had gasped, then embraced her in a bone-crushing squeeze. “Oh, Arya, I am so happy for you!”

“I’d rather not,” she had choked out, but her sister was too taken by her flights of fancy, rattling off incessant nonsenses about how wonderful life at the royal court would be, and the feasts and the knights and the tourneys and the singers and only Gods know what else, because Arya certainly made no attempt of discerning her sister’s babbling.

Then, suddenly, Sansa jolted backwards, her eyes widening as she just realised that it was Arya who was going to marry the Prince. She even raised her dainty hands up to cover her gasping mouth, the colour draining from her horror-struck face. So dramatic, Arya had fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“You are to marry the Prince?! You?! Oh, but Arya! You cannot be the queen! Your courtesies and manners are worse than those of a drunken wildling!” Robb snorted, amused. Jon’s thoughtful gaze was broken by a fleeting smile.

“Yeah, thanks, Sansa,” she had retorted dryly. “I love you too.” 

It was hard to pretend her aghast expression didn’t sting. Arya could absolutely be the queen if she wanted to. She just… didn’t.

Then, to Arya’s surprise and horror, instead of listing all of her countless, neverending failures in her pointless quest to be a ‘proper lady’, as she almost always did, Sansa had proceeded to do something much, much worse:

She smiled deviously.

“That, however,” her elder sister said in a mischievous tone, a burning fire in her blue eyes, “can be fixed.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Arya decided, taking a step back.

“Run!” Jon barked, but there had been no escape, just as there would be no escape from her imminent betrothal.

And as they walked down the Great Hall, arm in arm, dread gnawed at her insides. She waddled like a duck in a dress too large for her body, her hair made up in an intricately elaborate bun that made her scalp hurt, and her face powdered so thickly it itched to the seven hells and back. Sansa’s tyrannical attempts to make her presentable had resulted in nothing but utmost discomfort and a self-conscious desire to spontaneously combust. I look ridiculous. I feel ridiculous.  

Out of the corner of her eye, Arya peeked warily at the Prince. Despite being only twelve, Joffrey was tall; taller than both Robb and Jon, perhaps only surpassed by lanky cousin Anton in height. His face was well proportioned, his eyes gleaming green, his skin fair, and his blond curls dripped down past his high velvet collar.

Jon was right: he looked like a girl.

A pretty girl, to be sure, but a girl nonetheless.

Prince Joffrey was handsome, polite and courteous, and made a point of gallantly helping her to her seat (not that Arya needed or wanted his help, anyways, but Mother and Sansa both would be livid, and so she bit her tongue and accepted it), yet something about Prince Joffrey just rubbed at her in all the wrong ways. 

Was it his pouty, petulant lips, as if always on the verge of a sneer? Was it the bored way he looked around at Winterfell’s Great Hall, unimpressed by her home?

Or was it just the fact that she just didn’t want to marry him?

If you don’t want to marry Joffrey, I will not force you, and I will refuse the King’s offer without a second thought, Father had told her earlier that day, but she knew better than to believe him. Arya loved him with all her heart, but she wasn’t stupid; this was the Prince they were talking about, the future King of the Seven Kingdoms. Politically speaking, it was too good of a match to let it go to waste, her feelings be damned.

Prince Joffrey and her were as good as married.

Where Sansa had been ecstatic by her own betrothal to Domeric, Arya only felt dread and sadness, powerless and adrift. And so, as the feast raged around her, she despondently pushed her food around with her cutlery, stewing in her own misery, her stomach twisting and contorting, queasy and squeamish.

I don’t want to marry the prince, she brooded. I don’t want to marry anyone.  

Prince Joffrey’s polite compliment shook her out of her daze. “You look most lovely, my lady.” 

Arya only stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

Underneath the table, Sansa stomped on her foot. Hard.

“Err… thanks?” Arya said lamely.

Prince Joffrey took her delay in stride, nodding politely, then turned his glance away.

Sansa sunk her head in her palms.

Arya gulped.

She was not to dwell for too long on the gruesome punishment Sansa was surely to be conjuring, as her attention was called by the man in black that approached the dais. He was a crooked and ugly fellow, his garments were tattered and filthy, and his noxious smell was enough to make her guts churn. However, before the black brother could speak, the King bellowed “Not now, it’s my day off!” and redirected his attention to the comely maid that sat on his lap.

Father was more gracious in his dismissal. “I beg your forgiveness, my good ser, but now is hardly the time for such matters. Enjoy the festivities. The King and I will grant you an audience in the morrow.”

The black brother was unperturbed. “Aye, m’lord Stark,” he nodded. “Lest I forget, your brother sends his warmest regards.”

Father’s jaw clenched. “You have my thanks,” he replied stiffly.

I miss uncle Benjen, she mused, turning her gaze back down to her mashed potatoes and roast chicken. Yet barely anyone ever talked about him since he had left. It was as if he was dead, and his name forbidden, forgotten. That’s stupid, she brooded. He’s right there, it’s not like we can’t send ravens to the Wall.

Jon tried to strike up a conversation. “Do you enjoy sparring, my prince?” 

“Not really.”

Robb blinked in utter confusion, as if such a thought was unfathomable. “Why not?”

“I just don’t,” Joffrey replied noncommittally.

The twins shared a look. Jon tried again. “What about hunting?”

“Bores me.”

“That’s because you haven’t hunted in the Wolfswood; running through the sentinels, the howling of wolves in the distance, the cold wind lashing at your face, snow melting afoot… It’s a magical experience like none other,” Robb smiled. “Surely you’d enjoy it then.”

Joffrey didn’t even deign to raise his sight from his plate. “Probably.” He was evidently uninterested in any type of conversation, and so, after sharing a short glance, Arya’s brothers complied begrudgingly, instead talking with each other. They sat too far away for her to interact with them, even if she felt like talking. Which she didn’t—she felt like throwing up.

And so the feast raged on and on, as courses of food were brought, devoured and taken, drinks were spilled, friends were made, and revelry abounded around her, without her. How could she feel so cold when the air was so thick and hot?

Next to her, Sansa, Bran and Maisie had managed to coax some conversation out of a timid Princess Myrcella, who by the third course was as hearty and ebullient as her kingly father, laughing in a most unladylike manner at Maisie and Bran’s japes, even if Arya knew by personal experience that they were painfully unfunny. Sitting by his genial elder sister, Prince Tommen focused entirely on his food, shoulders hunched over and his scaredy eyes darting all around. Rickon, meanwhile, was stuffing himself with honeyed beef, roasted peppered sausage and spiced chicken breast like a starving hound, caring for neither manners nor niceties as he poached food from Osric’s plate when the youngest of the Starks wasn’t looking.

In a table further down the line, the wards of Winterfell were getting rowdy, with lightweight Olyvar Frey chugging horn after horn of mead at his friends’ bellows of encouragement and laughter. They seem to be having fun, Arya mused. Even Domeric, hardly the most gregarious carouser, laughed and japed and drank with glee as the wards engaged in an impromptu drinking tourney. She could only imagine how much her brothers would rather be sitting with them than with the prince. 

Arya spared a sideways glance at them, then immediately regretted it; while her eldest brother played absent-mindedly with his cutlery, deep in thought, Jon was shooting a nauseatingly longing gaze at Alys Karstark; Karstark, who somehow found the concentration and tranquillity to read a book in spite of the roaring feast, dim torchlight, her brother’s rapidly growing inebriation and Theon’s general existence.

All she does is read, Arya rolled her eyes. What does he even see in her? How can Jon be so stupid?

Just then, Alys looked up and her eyes met Jon, causing Arya’s brother to blush furiously and turn away. Alys smiled to herself, her face tinting a soft red as she looked back to her book.

Arya retched.

Going off Sansa’s shrill scream, it was safe to say that she was less than pleased with her.

“I figured I’d find you here.”

Interrupted, Anton lowered his sword arm. It did not ache with exertion.

“So you did,” he said flatly as he turned to look at Steffon.

The heir to Barrowton was dressed splendidly, a golden satin jerkin emblazoned with the crown and axes of his House worn over a high-collared velvet doublet of sable, and a woollen, cotton and linen gambeson of exquisite craftsmanship beneath. His dark leather boots shone under the light of the torches, and his embellished dress sword, though blunt-edged, tied the whole outfit together. 

Unfortunately, with his smooth face, bright eyes and combed fair hair, Steffon looked like nothing but an overly dressed child. To be fair, that was precisely what he was, having only turned thirteen the past week, and still short a growing spurt. He stood a full head shorter than Anton, but most did. He had inherited his mother’s freakish height, after all, and the fact that she still towered over him augured further growth to be had.

Wearing a white and silver silk jerkin over a green gambeson with black lining, Anton’s garments were nowhere near as ostentatious as his friend’s, but they were enough for his Mother and Lady Aunt both to consider them ‘acceptable’ for the festivities. Not that he cared for them; he had ditched the feast as soon as it had started. Far from the festivities, Anton had removed the silk jerkin in favour of some of his usual plate armour. It wasn’t the full set, but it was more than enough to reclaim that comfortable, steady weight over his body that kept him solid and grounded.

As Steffon approached at a light stroll, Anton saw that he held a glass of wine in each hand.

“Two glasses?” he raised a curious eyebrow, driving his training sword into the ground. “Never took you for a drunkard, Dustin.”

“It’s not mine,” Steffon smiled, outstretching his left arm towards him. “It’s yours, Stark.”

“Does Lord Stark know you’re sneaking out wine from the feast?” the lord’s nephew questioned.

“He allowed us a glass each for tonight, in the King’s honour. And it would be a shame if you missed out on it in favour of brooding in a corner like a little bitch.”

Anton chuckled at that. “It would be, wouldn’t it?” he said, accepting his friend’s glass.

Steffon raised his cup. “To the King’s health,” he toasted dutifully.

The King could keel over and die for all he cared, but rather than voicing those thoughts, Anton let out a noncommittal grunt. “Eh. I’ll drink to that,” and so they did.

As soon as the wine had passed his throat, Steffon pulled his glass and grimaced. “Oh, this doesn’t taste well at all,” he muttered. “With the way my lady mother speaks of the Arbour Gold, I expected something…”

“That didn’t taste like absolute fucking shit?” Anton suggested. Sweet and sugary and spiced, countless flavours warring for supremacy, and all losing, overwhelmed by an exceedingly bitter taste of alcohol. The wine had been a supreme disappointment. Just like the King. Just like the Queen. Just like the Lannisters and Baratheons and the whole royal court. Just like his family. Just like every single thing in this accursed existence. Gods, life fucking sucks, huh, he mused caustically.

Steffon shook his head. “A crass way to put it, but yes.”

“I’d like to think it’s perfectly warranted, thank you very much.”

“Oh, no,” a sharp voice interrupted them from above. “Let me stop you right there.” Both youths turned in its direction.

Sitting on the ledge above the Great Hall’s door, a malformed and hideous gargoyle clad in scarlet and gold stared down at them with mismatched eyes under an oversized brow and curls of flaxen hair. Tyrion Lannister grinned at them. 

“I will not stand by as you slander the best wine the Seven Kingdoms have ever seen,” he stated.

Anton crossed his arms, tilting his head to the side. “I was going to say that in that case you should sit down, but you seem to be doing so already.”

The Imp snorted a laugh in amusement. “Well said.”

By his side, Steffon bowed his head in respect. “My Lord Tyrion.”

“I am no lord, boy,” the Imp waved Dustin’s greetings off.

Steffon brow furrowed. “How else am I to refer to you then, my lord?”

“You can call me The Imp. Everyone does so, anyway.”

“That would be deeply disrespectful, my lord.”

Lannister laughed. “A Northern lordling mindful of his manners?” he said, amused. “Now I have seen everything.”

“I aim to surprise, my lord,” Steffon flashed the Imp a lean smile.

“Are you two done courting each other, or should I find you a room?” Anton scoffed snidely.

Steffon sighed. “Pardon my companion, my lord of Lannister. They never taught him any manners.”

“Oh, they tried,” Anton muttered disinterestedly. “They failed.”

“Direwolves seldom need manners. Who is going to reproach them for such banal matters, when their fangs are sharp and their packs numerous?” The Imp leaned back on the wall. “You’re Lord Stark’s nephew, are you not?”

“So I am. What is it to you?”

Lannister snorted but said nothing.

“How did you get up there, anyway?” Anton frowned. 

Tyrion flashed him an enigmatic grin. “I have my ways.”

“What, did you ask Hodor to put you up there?”

“Nope,” the Imp said, popping the p with self-satisfaction.

“And how do you intend to come down?”

“Do you doubt my ways, Stark?”

“Unless your ‘ways’ involve tripping and breaking your head with the ground, yes, very much so.”

Lannister barked a laugh, then without any further word pushed himself off the ledge into the empty air. If Anton had hoped he would crack his head open like an egg, he was to be sorely disappointed: Tyrion Lannister spun himself around in a tight ball, landed lightly on his hands, then vaulted forwards to stand on his feet.

Anton blinked. “How the fuck did you do that?”

“It might come as a surprise, but dwarfs are oft nimble fellows,” the Imp shrugged his question off. “Where you earn spurs, we earn motley dresses and caps with bells. And we Lannisters are nothing if not overachievers.”

“Did your lord father teach you those tricks?”

“My lord father?” Tyrion was genuinely amused by Steffon’s question. “He threw a fit when he found out my uncle Gerion had been teaching me tumbling tricks. Said I was disgracing the good name of Lannister with my cartwheels and jumps.” The Imp flashed a savage smile. “Naturally, that only made me enjoy them all the better. Why, if it weren’t for the fact that bearing the golden lion upon my breast pays more, I’d join a mummer’s troupe.”

“You’re not fond of your House,” Anton observed.

“And neither are you,” Lannister shot back without missing a beat. His mismatched eyes had a keen glint to them as they bored into him. “Why else would you be freezing your balls off here, when there’s a feast going on?”

Anton’s hackles rose. “Why are you?” he deflected.

“Too hot, too noisy, and I’ve drunk too much wine,” the dwarf told him. “Besides, I’ve learned from personal experience that it is considered rude to vomit on your brother, so I excused myself.”

“Most would consider that common sense,” Steffon mused.

“Do tell that to Lord Stark’s youngest daughter. She seems to have missed the raven,” the Imp smiled wryly. “You didn’t answer my question, boy,” he told Anton.

“Nor do I intend to,” he snapped.

“I suppose that’s fair,” Tyrion smiled lightly, and Anton was keenly aware that the Imp could see through him without any effort whatsoever. That only angered him further. 

Anton bristled. “Why do you care?”

“Oh, no, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t.” The Imp shrugged his shoulders in a glib manner. “Truth is, I am nothing but a curious fellow, and seeing a lone wolf in the snow is sure to raise some questions. So, I am asking them.”

When the cold winter comes, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

And they have rejected you.

They have cast you away.

To die in the snow.

Alone.

“Fuck off,” Anton spat, hands trembling in rage. “Fuck off and die, you pathetic little monster.”

“Oh my, did I touch a nerve? My apologies,” Lannister began disingenuously. “Dwa—“

“I don’t give a fuck about your apologies,” he snapped, stopping the dwarf in his tracks. “You can shove them up your ass for all I care. Who the fuck do you think you are, coming into my home and demanding that I answer your stupid fucking questions? And for what? To indulge your whims? Fuck off, dwarf, and leave me the fuck alone.”

“Your home?” The Imp raised an eyebrow. “Yours? My sincerest apologies, Lord Eddard, I had not recognised you! I was under the impression that you were a grown man, not an angry little boy playing pretend in a suit of plate.” The Imp smiled, cruel and condescending. He pointed at the cup in Anton’s hand. “Are you going to drink that?” 

For a brief moment, Anton imagined himself throwing the wine in the misshapen and hideous face of the Lannister monster. The cruel joke of a man would be surprised, and soaked, and oh so humiliated, to find that the wolf disdained the lion’s pride. A sweet thought it was, but it would delay the accursed Imp’s departure, and Anton had no appetite to suffer his presence even one more second than he had to.

Instead, he shoved the glass of Arbour Gold in the Imp’s hand. “Here,” he snarled. “Take it, and go fuck yourself.”

“Much obliged,” the Imp bowed mockingly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go find a whore that’ll do the fucking for me. Good night, merry gentlemen.”

Steffon sighed, shaking his head and watching as the Imp swaddled his retreat. “One day, Anton. Just… one day without pissing other people off. Is that too much to ask?”

“Perhaps,” he snapped.

“This is why you don’t have any friends.”

“I have you.”

“Against my better judgement."

“Then why don’t you leave, huh?”

“We don’t choose who we love, Anton.”

He stared flatly at Steffon.

Dustin pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do.” Anton sighed. “I know I don’t say it often… or ever, really, but I’m… thankful… for your friendship,” he said begrudgingly. “Truly.” The honesty of his heart sounded disingenuous to his ears.

Fortunately, Steffon's knowing gaze disagreed with him. Unfortunately, he did not leave it at that. “Thankful enough to promise to not be an unbearable arse towards everyone else all the time?”

Stark raised a finger in warning. “Don’t push it.”

“Eh,” Dustin shrugged, “can’t say I didn’t try.” Steffon took another sip of his wine, then shook his head, stifling a retch. “Eugh, no. It does not get any better over time.”

“Maybe you just haven’t drunk enough.”

“Enough to know better,” Steffon said, flippantly throwing what was left of the wine over his shoulder.

Anton chuckled. “The King won’t be happy at the waste of such a good wine,” he said wryly. The Southron wine might taste marvellous to them, but it was too fruity for Northern tongues. Here, they liked their drinks plain.

“Then clearly the King needs to find himself better standards, because this tastes like walrus’ shit,” the heir to Barrowton sentenced flatly.

“How do you know what walrus shit tastes like?” Anton questioned. Steffon’s blank stare made him crack up. “Just kidding,” he chuckled.

“Idiot,” Steffon shook his head, then smiled. “But enough about that. The night is still young, the feast is depressingly dull, and I feel like whacking that thick skull of yours. You’re up for a spar or two?”

Anton smiled back at his friend, already pulling his sword from the ground. “Do you even need to ask?”

“I’m sorry…?”

Sansa refused to even look in her direction as she retook her seat. “You will be.”

Well, Arya sank into her chair, longing for the sweet embrace of death, at least this night can’t get any worse.

Of course, it was at that moment that the King saw fit to speak up.

Pushing the buxom maid off his lap, the King rose up to his feet. Even from a distance, Arya could see that his blue eyes were beady and unfocused; he swayed on the spot, face red in inebriation, and his silks matted with sweat, stained with food and drink. It wasn’t the most inspiring view.

“Ev’ryone. Ev’ryone!” the King bellowed, his mighty voice cutting through the noise of the feast like red hot steel through butter. “Yer King… Would hav’a word.”

The great hall fell silent. Confusion met expectation, as the attendees wondered what would follow. Next to him, Father looked at the King with an inscrutable gaze.

“When I was jus’ a wee lil’ boy, my father, Stranger guide his wae’, sent me to the Vale to be foster’d,” he began, his voice thick and slurred with inebriation. “I wasn’t happy. I thought… I thought he want’d to get rid of me. Who coul’ blame ‘im?” he rumbled a low laugh. “I… I was a mess. Guess I still am, heh? But I wouldn’t be his trouble anym’re. Now… Now I would be Lor’ Arryn’s.

“Jon… he was the father mine ne’er was. He taught me to hunt. He taught me to fight. He taught me everythin’ I know. I loved that man, I did. I still do,” he said, with a wet sniffle, which he drowned with a deep swig of his ale. “But. But I wasn’t the only lon’ly kid in his co’rt. There was ano’er. A small, shy, grey little northerner, wrapped in furs and with a frozen sense o’ humour. Ye’ know him all too well, don’t ya? ‘Twas no other than Eddard Neddard Neddy Neddity Ned ‘imself!” Next to the King, Father was shaking his head subtly, willing the King to shut up. 

The King did not. “A true friend. A true bro’er. Lil’ Ned was the bro’er Sour Stan ne’er was. He ev’n invited me once to Wint’rfell, to meet his family. I was just a kid back then, I doub’t any’un even remembers. Nothin’ coulda’ prepared me for the cold, but the hearth was warm, and the people warmer still,” he said, eliciting cheers from the Northerners.

“An’ I met Neddy’s family; his fa’er, Lor’ Rickar’, was a scary man, all stoic and stern, like one of yer kingly stone statues come to life. His mo’er, Lady Lyarh’a, was even scarier. I thought she would eat me fer supper.” Laughs echoed across the hall. Father was rubbing his eyes tiredly, but Arya could see a fond, sad smile in his lips. “His bro’ers were so much fun, too. Bran’on left me flat on me arse on the trainin’ groun’,” he laughed, and drank again, a deep chug that elicited cheers from his equally drunk audience. “An’ Benjen… well, he tried. Did he try, eh, Ned!” the King bellowed, blissfully unaware of the shadow that crossed Father’s face at his younger brother’s mention.

Suddenly, the King’s smile faded, his face sobered.

“An’ his sister…”

Everyone fell silent then. The King took several seconds before speaking again, his eyes watering and his mouth agape as he stared into nothing.

“... She was the mos’… mos’ beautiful pe’son I’ve ever seen,” he finally said, voice weak and fragile, and even more slurred. “All it took was a smile an’ then I knew, I knew I woul’ marry ‘er one day. My ‘eart was ‘ers, forever and always…” Sitting next to Father, Mother was looking apprehensively in the Queen’s direction. Queen Cersei looked none too pleased about that statement, her eyes narrowing into venomous slits. “I tol’ Ned that very night that I woul’ marry her. I swo’e on all the Gods, Old, New and in between… and then I swore the same to her fa’er. And to ‘er. But the Gods took ‘er away from me,” he said, and for a moment, Arya thought he would begin to cry.

He didn’t. "Rhaegar Targaryen ,” he snarled instead, pure hatred coursing through his voice, “took ‘er away from me.” Some people booed and jeered at the name, but most kept quiet. “An’ so my oath that Ba’atheon would mar’y Sta’k wen’ unfulfilled… Until now.”

Arya’s blood froze.

No.

“It is with the greates’ pleasure that I, Kin’ Ro’ert Ba’atheon, fi’st of ‘is na’em… titles, titles… announce to ye and the whole ‘ealm… that me son an’ ‘eir, Joff’y, will mar’y… will mar’y A’ya Sta’k…”

No, no, no.

“... when they both come o’ age, an’ when I die, will suc’eed me on the th’one… an’ their childr’n af’er ‘em! Let it be known fa’ n’ wide!” He rose his tankard high. “A toast! A TOAST!” he roared, “FER YER FUTU’E KIN’ N’ Q’EEN”

He promised. He promised!

The Great Hall erupted in deafening cheers, drunken and ecstatic attendees clamouring for the good health of the future royal couple, cheering for the first Stark, indeed Northern, queen the Seven Kingdoms had ever known. Next to the King, Father sunk his head deep into his hands, as Mother questioned him sharply, upset and confused.

The Queen, however, only stared in Arya’s direction, her terrible green eyes appraising her, undressing her, eviscerating her…

Arya did the only thing she could do.

She stood up from her chair and ran.

Chapter Text

The heat gave Ned the most wretched migraines.

That was not to say he had an intrinsic aversion to warm weather, like many of his countrymen. Growing up in the Eyrie, he had developed a resistance to its hot and sweltering summers. But where the Eyrie was open and cloudy and windy even in the torridest of days, Catelyn’s chambers were hot and steamy and suffocating. 

Built over natural hot springs, the scalding waters rushed through the walls and chambers of Winterfell like blood through a man’s body, keeping the castle warm and cosy even during the harshest of winters. Some chambers were warmer than others, however, and none were hotter than the Lady’s Chamber.

Most of the time, just standing within its warm walls was enough for Ned to break into a sweat. Now, after a long and exhausting lovemaking, he felt close to a heatstroke. Once they were done, he barely had any strength of both body and mind left to roll off the bed, but he needed to, if he didn’t want to meet his end in this accursed oven, sprawled naked over his wife.

He refused to go out like that. Gods knew it would be scandalous enough to overshadow his entire life’s work. Ned could even imagine a ghost of a smile pass through Robert’s grieving face as he japed forevermore that Ned ‘just couldn’t stand the heat’.

The idea of his death becoming a punchline to Robert’s execrable jokes was enough to spur him into action. Dazedly, his world spinning and hurting, he waddled his way towards the windows, and with what little force remained in him pushed them wide open, taking in the cold air of the night with the deepest breath in his life.

Just like that, the world came back into itself.

And there he remained, for how long he didn’t know, breathing in and out, eyes closed as he relished the cold to which he belonged.

Still, he frowned.

There was a nip in the air. 

And it was colder than usual.

“Winter is coming,” Ned muttered.

He heard Cat snort in a rather unladylike fashion from the bed. “You always say that.”

Ned allowed himself a brief respite of humour. “They’re the words of my house. Surely you can’t blame me because Bran the Builder happened to have weather prediction as a pastime?”

“Well, I certainly can’t scold the Builder himself, so I’ll take what I can get,” she replied, absent-mindedly going over the mind-puzzles the maesters had fashioned for her amusement.

“Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?” He had no problem picturing his lady wife stomping into the depths of the crypts, exhumating the greatest of Westerosi heroes, bringing him back to life through deeply forbidden and godsforsaken rituals, and tearing him a new one for coining the phrase that would prove most vexatious to her as her husband uttered it over and over again. It was almost a pity that the lower levels of the crypts were collapsed beyond passage, and that his wife wasn’t a necromancer.

...

As far as he knew.

He narrowed his eyes.

Ned had learnt years ago to never underestimate his wife. At this point, Cat secretly being a necromancer wasn’t as outlandish as one would think. 

He wasn’t sure if the thought terrified or aroused him. 

Perhaps a bit of both.

“You’re in a good mood,” he noted instead, casually turning to look at her, elbows still leaning on the windowsill.

“Would you rather I wasn’t?” his wife teased him with a coy look.

Ned rolled his eyes, amused. “More than usual, I mean.”

“How could I not, when my daughter will be queen?” Cat said simply, and his own good humour defenestrated itself as soon as the words left her mouth. He scowled. His wife must have noticed, as she levelled him a serious look. “What I find strange is that you seem so displeased by it.

He grimaced. “Robert made a liar out of me.”

“Did he, now?” Cat harrumphed, a sassy hint to her voice. She was still annoyed with him about that.

“For the thousandth time, Cat, I told you the truth. Or what was the truth, at the time. We had agreed on an unofficial betrothal, to give Arya time to get used to the idea instead of hoisting it upon her with no warning.” He rubbed his eyes. “I told Arya as much. I promised her that I would refuse the offer if she didn’t like it. I promised her, Cat. And then that… accursed, drunken fat-arse goes and makes it official in front of everyone!” he spat, and turned to look at the darkness outside. He sighed. “And there’s nothing I can do about it. My hands are tied.”

“Maybe it’s better that way,” Cat mused.

Ned tensed, his temper sizzling. “What do you mean?”

“You know Arya. If it were up to her, she would refuse every single offer in the world, if only to be a contrarian. And you would let her,” she reproached him.

Ned didn’t even bother to argue against that. “Yes,” he stated bluntly. “I would.” He couldn’t have history repeat itself.

“No. You cannot break the betrothal, Ned,” Cat warned him. “Don’t you see the King means to honour us?”

“Honour us?” Ned laughed incredulously. “Is that what you call strong-arming me into compliance? I know he wants his son to marry a Stark, and despite everything I was of half a mind to agree, but double-crossing me in front of the whole realm? It’s unacceptable. He’s gone too far.”

Cat took his laughter poorly. She incorporated herself, irked. “Kings aren’t used to being told ‘mayhaps’. He takes what he wants, as is his right. We should be honoured that he has chosen our daughter as his son’s bride.”

“I’d sooner be honoured by him keeping to his word,” Ned retorted. “That is no way to treat a bannerman. That is no way to treat a friend. That is no way to treat a brother,” he finished, sadness in his voice.

Cat’s eyes softened. “Perhaps he meant no malice by it. Perhaps he was so pleased by the match that he wished to celebrate, yet too drunk to remember the exact terms of your agreement.”

Ned pursed his lips. Yes, that made sense. For all of his faults (of which there were legion), Robert had never wronged him intentionally. At least, not when he was in his senses. And he wasn’t in his senses during the feast, now was he? The drink was like a devil upon him, twisting and contorting him into a pale shade of the man he could be.

It was no consolation; either his friend wronged him deliberately, or he was that far gone, held in thrall by the excesses he loved so much that he knew not what he did. Both alternatives tore at his heart.

And Arya… 

The image of his little girl sprinting away from the great hall still haunted his thoughts. He had given her his word, and been made a liar within a day. Ned feared that her faith in him was now forever broken. 

“I suppose,” he said measuredly, “that could have been the case. I’ll wait until he sobers up, and then I’ll confront him.”

“Confront him?” Catelyn frowned, alarmed. “No. You can’t do that. You musn’t do that. Demand his contrition if you must, but you cannot break off the betrothal.”

“He made a mistake,” Ned protested. “I will tell him so. And he will rectify it. I didn’t agree to the match.”

“You agreed to the principle of the match, and that was enough for him. How wroth will he become, if he thinks he’s been misled?”

“Were it the first time,” he said defiantly, but he knew his opposition was borne out of righteous anger and painful regret, not a possibility of victory. Inside, he knew this bout had been lost the instant the King stood. It only angered him further.

Catelyn did not let go. “You knew the man, but the King is a stranger to you. Pride is everything to a King, my lord. He will be blindsided and outraged by your sudden refusal; overnight you have come to reject that to which – in his eyes – you agreed yesterday. He will grow suspicious, and sooner rather than later he will begin to suspect that you oppose him. So would the rest of the realm. And who would take the post of Hand, then? Tywin Lannister? Can’t you see the danger that would put us in?”

“I know, I know, I know!” he despaired, furious with frustration. He hung his head down, clenching his jaw. “Others take it all,” he cursed softly, the fight gone out of him. He had his back against the wall, and his hand was empty. There was nothing to be done, but live with the regret of failing Arya like that.

He didn’t know if he could.

Before he could say anything else, however, there was a knock on the door.

“Laird Stark,” guardsman Wyl called, his young voice thickly accented. “Maestre Lywin at the dyr. Says it’s yrgent.”

“Not now,” Ned snapped. He wasn’t in the mood.

“Me Laird,” Wyl began again, “He saes it cannot waet.”

Ned sighed deeply, trying to regain his composure. “Fine.” After a brief moment, he closed the window and crossed over to his wardrobe to put on a robe. For her part, Catelyn merely pulled the furs to her chin. “Let him in, Wyl.”

The maester waited until the door had closed behind him before he spoke. “My lord,” he began, “my deepest apologies for disturbing you at these hours. I have been left a message.”

“Been left?” Ned repeated, his already sour mood only worsening. “What do you mean, ‘been left ’?”

“A carved wooden box was left in my study during the feast. My servants saw no one, but it must have been brought by someone in the king’s party. The craftsmanship was unlike that of any of our artisans.”

“A wooden box?” Catelyn asked from her spot in the bed. “What was inside?”

“A fine new lens for the observatory; Myrish, by the look of it. A very expensive one,” Luwin answered.

“A new lens. Amazing,” Ned stated flatly. What little patience he had left was thinning at an alarming rate. “And you’re telling me this… why, exactly?”

“A lens is an instrument to help us see,” Catelyn remarked. “What is it that they would have us see more clearly? And how much will it cost us?”

Ned barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. He loved Cat with all of his heart, but her superstitious misgivings over everything and anything could be quite grating.

He was startled into focus, however, by Luwin’s nod of assent. “I asked myself the same thing, so I decided to take a closer look at the box,” the maester said, fashioning a tightly rolled parchment out of his oversized sleeve. Ned stiffened at the sight, his anger and annoyance smothered by a sudden sense of foreboding. “I found the true message concealed within a false bottom when I dismantled it. Alas, it is not for my eyes.”

Ned deeply misliked the convoluted manner in which the letter had found its way to him. It augured no good.

“Very well, then,” he said. “Let me have it.”

Luwin shook his head. “My apologies, my lord, but the message is not for you, either. It is marked for the eyes of the Lady Catelyn, and her alone. If I may?”

Catelyn nodded. The maester placed the parchment on top of her nightstand. A small blob of blue wax held it sealed.

“Stay,” Ned commanded the maester, who had begun to retreat. “I fear we might require your counsel.” He had a bad feeling about this.

“As you wish, my lord,” Luwin nodded.

Ned turned back towards his wife, and his stomach sank when he saw the look on her face.

“Cat? What is it? You’re shaking.”

His wife was pale, eyes wide, and shivering. It was not from the cold.

“It’s from Lysa,” she said quietly, showing him the falcon of Arryn in the wax. “There is grief in this message, Ned. I can feel it.”

So could he. Their lives would never be the same after the letter was read, he knew. “Open it,” he ordered, bracing himself.

Catelyn broke the seal and began to read. Ned anxiously awaited for her to speak again.

She did not speak. Instead, Cat jumped to her feet and towards the hearth, catching a candle’s flame with the letter and throwing it into the cold kindling, all within a matter of seconds.

“What are you doing?!” Ned asked, shocked. He didn’t even know where to begin. Perhaps from the fact that she was stark naked. By his side, the maester was staring at the floor tiles with studious intensity. “Maester Luwin—”

“Maester Luwin has delivered all of our children but the twins,” she interrupted him, her voice grave. “This is no time for false modesty.” Still, she shrugged her way into a dressing gown. With that taken care of, Ned’s mind moved onto the next thing; which, in hindsight, was probably the most important of the two.

“The letter,” he said, looking at the fire burning in the hearth. “What was it?” He asked not why she had burnt it; he could very well guess the reason.

“A warning,” she said softly, without meeting his eyes.

A deflection. Ned’s stomach sank further. “Cat.”

“She says…” his wife pursed her lips, then looked straight into his eyes. “She says Jon Arryn was murdered.”

Impossible, he wanted to protest. Not every death is the result of foul play. Jon was almost eighty years of age; regrettable though it was, Ned knew that his death was only a matter of time.

Furthermore, could they truly trust Lysa’s words? Should they? The poor woman was recently widowed, and surely sick with grief, to boot. I never felt as if she had a solid grasp on reality, Robert had said, sad and regretful. All those miscarriages and stillbirths took a toll on her mind, but now? I think losing Jon has done it for good.

Ned froze.

That wasn’t the only thing Robert had said, was it?

I’ve never seen a man sicken so quickly, the King’s voice echoed in his mind. We gave a tourney for Joffrey’s name day. If you had seen Jon, you would have thought he would live forever. Yet, a fortnight later he was dead. Whatever it was, it burned right through him.

Jon Arryn was the Hand of the King; he had been so for over a decade and a half. He was the true power behind the throne, the tireless workhorse that kept the kingdom running while Robert revelled in his own decadence. The man that kept the realm afloat, safe from those who would bleed it dry.

And he was gone.

His demise left behind a vacuum of power, to be taken advantage of by the vultures and crows that had been lurking in the shadows for so long, biding their time to rob it blind.

He was an old man whose sudden death would cause no undue suspicion.

It made too much sense.

“Poison,” Ned breathed, a numb feeling overtaking him. Somehow, he knew the answer before even asking. Still, he had to know. “Did she say by whom?” 

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“The Lannisters.”

He closed his eyes. 

“Of course they did. Of course they fucking did,” he spat venomously, white hot rage coursing through his veins. The Lannister cancer had been trying to take over for a decade now, only held at bay by Jon Arryn’s steady hand. It had tired of waiting, it seemed.

“That is not an accusation to make lightly,” Maester Luwin said, shaken by the revelation. “Can we trust her word, my lady?”

“Lysa is impulsive, yes, but this message was carefully planned and cleverly hidden. She knew that her head would be on a spike right now if the wrong people had found that letter. To risk so much, she must have been certain beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“How?” Ned asked suddenly. At Catelyn’s tilted head, he repeated: “How does she know? Does she have proof? And how did she even manage to escape from the capital with that information in the first place? Whatever we can say about Tywin Lannister, we cannot say that he is careless or sloppy,” unlike Lysa  he didn’t say, but was heard all the same. “If he had even the slightest suspicion that your sister knew something, he would have never let her leave. Gods know it wouldn’t be the first time he slaughtered an entire family.” 

“Lysa has never been the most subtle person, that much is true, but neither is she stupid,” Catelyn snapped testily. “She knew damn well what was at stake. Besides, she never specified which Lannister did the deed, my love,” she retorted. “Lord Tywin was not in the capital at the time of Lord Arryn’s demise. According to Robb’s letters, he had left the city the day after the Prince’s name day; Lord Arryn died a fortnight later.”

“A convenient alibi,” Ned growled. “Surely he left everything arranged beforehand, and gave himself enough time to scurry back to his rock before striking. Who would suspect the man that wasn’t even there?”

“That much is true, but you said it yourself, my lord,” Luwin interjected. “Lord Tywin is far too cunning and careful to leave a trail to be followed. Yet, such a trail exists. If Lady Arryn found out, then it must have been done by a less thorough person. His children, perhaps.”

“You speak sense, maester,” Catelyn said.

“It wasn’t the Kingslayer,” Ned knew immediately. “This is too refined for him. Jaime Lannister is not a man to kill another with poison. If he wanted Jon dead, he would have cut him down where he stood, as he did with Aerys.” A cat he might be, but he still had claws. And sharp and long they were, stained with blood and dishonour.

“Poison is oft called the weapon of a woman,” Luwin mused, “or the weak of body.”

Catelyn nodded thoughtfully. “The Imp cares for nothing but his own pleasures, so it must surely be the Queen.”

Ned wouldn’t be so quick to discard the Imp. He was a hedonistic little monster given to every depravity, that much was true, but he had smart, cunning eyes that saw much and said nothing; the type of eyes that Ned knew you could only disregard at your own risk, for they were the eyes of a masked mummer surveying his audience. Tyrion Lannister may play the fool, but now Ned doubted he truly was one.

That being said, he didn’t think the Imp was behind the murder, if for the sole reason that he extracted no benefit from it. Neither did he seem like an agent of Lord Tywin; the animosity between father and son was legendary across the realm. They’d both sooner die than help each other.

That left the Queen. The proud lioness with the rotten heart.

Now that he could very well believe.

“Perhaps,” Catelyn continued, “she wished to have her father take Lord Arryn’s stead as Hand of the King. Which means…” she trailed off, her blue eyes coming to a stop on his own.

“Which means she will want me gone, too,” Ned finished for her. He exhaled through the nose, mirthless. “Well, I’ll be damned before I give her the pleasure.”

Eddard sprung into action.

“The road is clear now. Hate it though I may – and make no mistake, I do hate it –, Arya must marry Joffrey. We must give them no grounds to suspect we hold anything but the utmost devotion within our hearts, and so secure our place by the King’s side.” As well as the Tyrell match, once and for all. Ned suspected they were going to need Highgarden’s support. 

“You must be careful, my love,” Cat said, grabbing hold of his arm. Her blue eyes were wide and fearful, but just as resolute to seek justice.

“My father was once summoned to the capital by a king. He never came home again.” It still hurt. It spurred him onwards; he would not have Robb know the same pain he still held in his heart. “I have no intention of following his example.”

“A different time, my lord,” Luwin said. “A different king.”

“Yet the same old game of thrones,” Ned stated. “And we must play it to win. Much as I wish to bring the Lannister to justice as soon as possible, we will need all the information we can gather before poking around the lions’ den, where the shadows have eyes and the walls ears. Any false step and I’ll end up losing my head, and I rather like it where it is. In the meantime…” He turned towards his wife. “Cat, do you truly believe Lysa has concrete evidence?”

“With all my heart,” his wife nodded. “If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have come to us.”

“Then you must get in contact with her. Find out what she knows.”

“It would be too great a risk to write to her about such matters. It should be done in person,” Catelyn replied.

“Invite her to Winterfell if you must,” he replied, “but you must find a way to her.”

“The young Lord Robert has only just come into the lordship,” Maester Luwin interjected softly. “He must be seen by his lords, if the Vale is to avoid unrest.”

“And Lysa will go nowhere without her son,” Catelyn stated, certain. “I will go to her, under the pretence of visiting my grieving sister in her time of need.”

“If that is to be the case, then take a detour to Riverrun first. If the world is to believe you are visiting your family, perhaps you should visit them all.”

Cat nodded. “It will be done, my love.” Then she stopped, and hesitated. “ But I fear for the children. They’re too young, and I don’t know how they would react to both of our departures.”

He thought about it for a second. “Then stay here—”

“No,” his wife blazed, full of determination. “Twice already I’ve seen you ride into danger, unknowing if you would ever return to me, unable to help you in your trials. I refuse to do so a third time. Let me play my part, I beg of you, my lord.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Ned said, a loving smile making its way into his face. He took his wife’s hands into his own, and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “Stay here for a couple of moons. The twins are almost men grown. They will rule the North in my stead while I keep Robert alive. They’re brilliant lads, but unready and untested still. Help them and guide them. Only leave for the Eyrie when you judge them to be ready.” Catelyn nodded. Ned turned towards the maester. “Maester Luwin…”

“I will aid the Lady Catelyn, and the young lords, to the full extent of my abilities, my lord,” Maester Luwin bowed his head, his voice resolute and unwavering. “I do so swear on my life.”

“I know you will, Maester. You have my eternal gratitude, as well as my utmost trust.” Otherwise, he wouldn’t have him in this conversation. “Give my sons your voice in all matters, big or small. As for the rest of the children…” he trailed off, thinking.

“Sansa would thrive in the South,” Catelyn mused.

“But her place is in the North, and so here she will remain,” Ned replied. Lord Bolton was eager to get the wedding under way as soon as possible, so if he were to take her South instead he might grow impatient. And if there was one thing Ned truly dreaded was an impatient Lord Bolton in his absence. “I will take Arya and Bran with me to the capital; Rickon is too young to be parted from you, and so he will follow wherever you go.” Not to mention that few people would suspect a lady travelling with her youngest son in tow to be scheming something nefarious.

Catelyn did not like it, but her objection was not what he expected. “I don’t want our children anywhere near the Lannisters. Arya I understand, but why must you take Bran, too?”

“He is a sweet boy, easy to love. He will purvey the charm Arya lacks,” and Gods knew she lacked a lot , “and bridge the gaps between our House and the other children at court. We will be all the safer for it. And the boy dreams of being a kingsguard knight, as you know all too well. Could you imagine his glee, if I manage to get Ser Barristan the Bold himself to take him for a squire?”

“He would never shut up about it,” Cat smiled, but her smile was sad. She would not be there to hear him. Ned took her into his arms, and Catelyn embraced him, holding onto him tightly. The Maester respectfully stepped aside, leaving them their space.

It was not an easy thing, what they were doing. Catelyn was loath to part from her children, Ned knew, to be part from him. She was holding back tears, he knew. He was doing the same.

Winterfell was his home. It was where he belonged. He wished not in the very least to leave it behind, to leave his family behind.

But it was what they had to do. Against their will, they had been dragged into the deadly games he had done his best to circumvent for so long. All they could do now was adapt to their new circumstances. 

Winter was coming, and the winds were colder than he had ever feared they would be.

Chapter Text

Sansa surreptitiously surveyed the (mostly) quiet room as she pulled the last stitch of the noble direwolf she was embroidering. Her lady mother had left her in charge of the young ladies while she and Aunt Dacey entertained the Queen, and Sansa found no boastfulness in the claim that there was no one better suited to the task.

She’d been born for this.

Jeyne Poole and Beth Cassel flanked her dutifully, sitting by her right and her left respectively. Her faithful ladies-in-waiting were always by her side, eternally ready to serve her at her beck and call, but Sansa was loath to ever call upon their services; though their birth was much less illustrious than hers, they were not servants but companions and, first and foremost, her loyal and cherished friends. 

To be sure, perhaps her status demanded more handmaidens at her service than just two, and of higher birth than the daughters of a chamberlain and a master-at-arms, nobleborn though they may be. But Father had always said that a select few faithful friends were worth more than a plethora of fair weather friends, and when Sansa had Jeyne and Beth with her, she saw the truth in his words. With them by her side, she wanted for nothing.

Which made it all the more surprising that Princess Myrcella had no handmaidens of her own. Or, at the very least, none that she had brought North with her; though she talked about her beloved cousins Rosamund and Joy, they had not joined the King’s sojourn in Winterfell, leaving her alone and friendless in a new land. Thus, it was her duty to keep the Princess Royal accompanied.

Sansa shot the poor princess a glance, seated safely between her Jeyne and ever-trembling, shrinking cousin Lya, and as far as possible from Arya and her warband of savages. The Princess seemed utterly focused on the task before her, her tongue poking ever so slightly through an uneven set of teeth. She would have thought a princess to excel at everything, but Myrcella was, frankly, struggling with her stitches. Despite her best efforts, they were crooked. They match her teeth, Sansa flinched, a pang of pity inside of her.

Keeping the Princess safely at bay from the accursed trio of savages were the rest of her father’s female wards: Talia Forrester, a kind and calm girl with a beautiful voice that was most often by her twin Ethan’s side, and Lya’s closest friend; cheerful and bold Elisa Dustin, who more often than not tagged along Sansa’s group yet stood apart from it, and Alys Karstark, the aloof reader. And finally, closing the circle, were the Terrible Trio themselves: Arya, cousin Maisie, and her good-aunt Lyanna Mormont, who despite being Aunt Dacey’s sister was younger than Bran.

All things considered, Sansa was, dare she say it, pleasantly surprised by their behaviour so far. They were not working on their needlework, but neither were they wreaking havoc around the room as they always did. They were just… bored. Chatting amongst themselves in hushed tones, like as not they were planning their escape, but this time Sansa wasn’t going to let them; Mother had made it clear that Arya, Maisie and Lyanna were not allowed to run off as they were wont to do without Septa Mordane’s explicit leave. And perhaps more importantly, for once, Aunt Dacey had agreed with Mother. They were, after all, hosting a royal princess.

If anything, Sansa was half-certain that was the only reason Alys Karstark had come in the first place; the older girl didn’t have much patience for needlepoint, courtesies, or, indeed, anyone younger than her. The girl was barely older than Sansa herself, but by the gods if Alys Karstark didn’t act as if the two years that kept them apart weren’t twenty instead, looking down on her and her friends as if they were wanton children.

Sansa tried not to take it personally, as she was well aware that Alys Karstark only liked her books, and disliked them inasmuch as they were a distraction from reading, but it was hard not to feel animosity against her for it. Still, Sansa liked to believe she hid it rather impeccably. Unlike, say, Arya, who kept sending suspicious glares the older girl’s way.

It was all rather curious; if someone had told Sansa a few days past that Arya didn’t even know who Alys Karstark was, she wouldn’t have been surprised. She would have rolled her eyes in annoyance, yes, but she wouldn’t have been surprised. As a matter of fact, Sansa couldn’t recall a single instance of both girls ever interacting with each other. Yet, here was Arya, glaring daggers into the older girl’s side; daggers that Alys seemed utterly immune to. Unaware, even.

Perhaps Arya should send them in writing, Sansa thought. She immediately regretted it; it was a most insolent and improper thought, fit more for the uncouth savages, knaves, reprobates and miscreants that her elder brothers surrounded themselves with than a well-educated noble lady like herself.

Sansa checked her work over one last time before working it free from the embroidery hoop. It may have just been a blanket made of old scraps, something for the younger girls to practise their craft on more than anything else before donating it to Wintersborough’s local orphanage. Still, Sansa thought it was a good idea for even the youngest and most meagre and unfortunate of their people to remember who it was that cared for them.

She had overheard Father tell her brothers that it was never too early to foster loyalty and love in the mind of the people, nor was it ever a waste of effort. His words might not have been meant for her, but still she would do her part.

As Sansa refolded the blanket so she could work on another corner she noticed Elisa turn to Jeyne with a sly grin on her face. A smile like that, answering no previous incitement, could only spell trouble, and so Sansa stopped on her tracks, instantly on alert.

“So, my sweet little Jenny…” Elisa drawled out deviously.

Jeyne looked at Elisa with the utmost suspicion and mistrust, brown eyes narrowed. Her grip on her embroidery hoop had tensed in anticipation.“What?”

“Weren’t you planning on telling me?” Dustin asked with an all-too-sweet smile on her face.

To Sansa’s surprise, Jeyne jumped in her seat as if she had seen a ghost at the innocuous question. Suddenly, the steward’s daughter was wary no more, but utterly nervous. Terrified, even.

“Idon’tknowwhatyou’retalkingabout!” Jeyne squeaked, turning a bright red, clearly knowing what Elisa was talking about. “Tell you what?”

“Tell her what , Jeyne?” Sansa demanded sharply, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Princess Myrcella froze mid-stitch, raising her green eyes. Beth craned her head around worriedly, and Jeyne looked down onto the floor tiles, like she wanted the ground to open and swallow her whole.

The other girls seemed content to ignore the whole conversation, but Sansa wasn’t about to let this go.

Jeyne should have known better than to keep a secret from her. Sansa certainly never kept any from her. It was only fair.

“She didn’t tell you, Sansa?” Sansa scowled, and Elisa’s grin widened. “You see, I heard that our sweet little Jenny has a secret lover. And that secret lover’s name begins with ‘S’, and ends with ‘teffon Dustin’.”

“That’s–! No! Not yet!”” Jeyne stammered pitifully, “Bu– I mean– that is to say– that maybe, possibly—!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Just spit it out, we haven’t got all day!” Arya snapped from the other side of the room.

Sansa shot her sister a look. Her sister and her best friend may dislike each other like a cat and a dog, but they had an agreement. Sansa wouldn’t allow Jeyne to be rude to Arya, and in turn Arya would extend the same courtesy to Jeyne. And while she was aware that Arya’s personality was mean and ungentle at best, this was well past the line.

Arya rolled her eyes again, but she didn’t fight Sansa on it, simply huffing in exasperation and turning back to her own pitiful attempt at a direwolf.

“... Maybe,” poor Jeyne eventually croaked, and said nothing else.

“ Maybe? That’s not what I heard you tell Beth,” Elisa replied tartly, abandoning even the pretence of needlework in favour of leaning forward in her seat to press on with her interrogation, a feline glint to her dark eyes.

Sansa shot Beth a betrayed look. So they were both keeping a secret from her.

To her credit, Beth appeared genuinely apologetical. “She made me promise not to tell you,” Ser Rodrik’s young daughter said sadly. “Jeyne didn’t want you to know until she was certain.”

That made sense, Sansa supposed, and so she let Beth off the hook. Not so Jeyne.

“So. Let’s get the facts straight,” Sansa began, folding her hands across her lap, much like her mother did. “You like Steffon.” Jeyne’s brown eyes were still fixed firmly on the floor, her jaw mulishly set in place. She needn’t answer. Sansa knew her friend’s heart had been taken by the young heir to Barrowton the very first day he crossed the Kingsroad Gate. “And you think he might like you?” That was news to her.

“Really?” Alys Karstark piped in casually, speaking for what Sansa believed was the first time since they had exchanged courtesies at the very beginning of the day. “What makes you say that?” There was something queer about the way she asked that question. Does she know something I don’t? Sansa wondered, irked. She hated being stuck out of the loop.

“He’s always been so kind…” Jeyne breathed, voice meek like a frightened child.

“Really?” Maisie, the nicest of the Terrible Trio, asked. There was no hint of malice in her voice.

“When?” Talia interjected, sensing a story and eager to hear it.

“Well,” Jeyne answered, twisting her fingers, “there was that time on the training grounds…”

“You mean that time his arrow went so wide he almost hit you?” Lyanna asked flatly.

“It wasn’t his fault, Anton kept distracting him, and he apologised!” Jeyne snapped defensively. “And I was talking about the thing with the water.”

“What thing with the water?” Princess Myrcella blurted out, her curiosity finally outweighing her timidity.

“I often bring waterskins to the boys after they train,” Jeyne explained. “I know that’s a servant’s job, but I like it. It lets me talk to them.” 

The daughter of a scion of a minor house, Jeyne’s birth and name was too low for her to ever be considered a suitable bride for a lord’s son like Steffon. If it were up to Sansa, she would move heaven and earth to ensure her faithful friend married a high lord, but it wasn’t up to her. Thus, if Jeyne wanted to marry advantageously, she needed to take all the opportunities she could get to charm a lord’s son, but without coming across as an untoward, unchaste schemer. Bringing them water in front of everyone was one such way to endear herself.

“... And?”

“He always smiles at me when I give him a canteen. Not a polite smile, but a genuine one, a warm one,” she said softly. “He’s the only one who smiles like that to me.”

That was… less than conclusive evidence. Sansa was thinking of a gentle way to break it to Jeyne, but a less kind soul spoke first.

“Oh, wow, he smiled at you,” little Lyanna Mormont said, voice dripping with contemptuous acid. “You do know he also smiles at the cook when she lets him have the slightly burnt pastries, right?”

“And Old Nan,” Maisie piped up, “when she gave him back his cloak, the one Harry used for that one prank.”

“Which prank?” Elisa leaned past Alys to ask. It was a valid question, though not for the reasons most would think. Cousin Harry was a rotten prankster; he engaged in so much mischief it was easy to lose track of his record.

“No clue,” Maisie shrugged disinterestedly, “I caught him sneaking off with it, but I was more interested in the horses. Roseluck had just foaled for the first time, and Hullen and I were so worried for her because she took it very poorly and she still isn’t doing very well, the poor thing—”

“I’m truly sorry to hear that, Maisie,” Sansa broke in politely before Maisie could truly get started, “I know you’re very fond of her.” She was in no mood to be subjected to yet another endless lecture on the health and wellbeing of the horses. Or of any other animal, for that matter; Maisie was anything but picky.

That being said, her lecture on venomous and non-venomous spiders had actually been most enlightening and useful. Still, Sansa didn’t quite feel like learning today. Her brain was tired.

“ So …” Arya began, in that smug tone of voice that had Sansa whipping her head around immediately. Her stomach sank in dread when she saw that Arya had a devious, evil grin on her face, the one that meant she knew she was about to set a wild cat free amongst the pigeons, and that she was going to relish in the ensuing chaos. “Does that mean that Steffon wants to fuck Old Nan?”

Jeyne gasped, indignation and embarrassment clear. But it was Elisa whose offence was most obvious. And explosive.

She leapt to her feet, throwing her embroidery hoop at Arya’s face and snarled, vicious enough to match a wildling, “My brother is no crone’s lover, Arya Stark! You take that back!”

Sansa’s sister had no trouble dodging the projectile, but the sound of it clattering against the wall startled Septa Mordane, who was sitting by the window, quietly pretending not to be asleep.

“Well, I never!” the old septa gasped, shaking her head, as if she hadn’t seen and ignored worse almost every other day. Once upon a time, when Sansa was Bran’s age, she would have thrown a fit, chastening Arya for her deplorable behaviour with a stern ferocity that even Sansa herself found excessive. But now, it would seem as if the Terrible Trio had broken her spirit; she could hardly bring herself to care anymore, merely doling out praise in Sansa’s way and indifferently rebuking the little savages when they misbehaved a little too much.

“Oh! Have my words slighted you, my lady? Besmirched your house’s honour?” Arya taunted Elisa, grey eyes twinkling. 

“Take. It. Back!”

Arya cast her “work” aside eagerly, and pulled a knitting needle out of the basket, brandishing it as though it were a sword. “Make me.”

Elisa’s eyes flashed as she snatched up her own knitting needle and snarled, “Have at thee, knave!”, then jumped onto Sansa’s little sister with full intent on stitching her into the afterlife.

Princess Myrcella squeaked and Lya clutched at Talia’s sleeve. The three of them turned towards Sansa, tacitly recognising that she was the truly responsible one.

Sansa just breathed out a long-suffering sigh, making sure to keep a calm and unbothered facade covering her inner ire at Arya’s penchant for chaos; if the younger girls believed her to be in control of the situation, then they would not worry unduly. So, Sansa pitched her voice so it would be heard over the absurdly loud clanking of needles.

“Would the two of you cease this childish squabble?” she said, trying to imitate her mother’s sharpest tones, the ones that never failed to chill her bones and thank the Gods she had never heard directed at her. “We have a honoured guest with us here, a princess royal. This sort of misbehaviour is utterly shameful!”

“She’s right, you’re being ridiculous!” Lyanna Mormont stated bluntly, and Sansa was foolish enough to allow herself to hope for a second. Then the little she-bear continued, matter-of-factly, “if you’re going to duel, you have to do it properly. Maisie, fetch us swords,” and Sansa knew the battle was lost.

Maisie only nodded enthusiastically and ran out the room.

Septa Mordane sighed heavily, but said nothing.

Sansa stood up, outraged. “Arya Stark, I do not care what she brings back, you will not swing live steel in here!”

Her sister just rolled her eyes, “Maisie’s not an idiot, Sansa. She’ll bring the practice swords.”

“Explain to me how that’s any different,” she retorted, barely keeping her boiling temper in check.

“Well, for starters,” Arya began, enunciating slowly and clearly, as if she was half-witted, “they don’t have an edge.”

“I know very damn well they don’t have an edge! They’re still swords, and you will not swing them indoors! I forbid it!”

“What are you going to do about it, huh?” Arya defied her, and Sansa saw red at her impertinence. How dare she?!  

“I’ll take that godsforsaken sword from your hands and bash your thick skull with it so hard not even the Gods will recognise you after I’m done!” she screamed to high heavens with murderous intent.

Alys Karstark snorted a genuine laugh. The Septa’s sigh was even heavier.

Arya was unimpressed. “Now who’s the one misbehaving in front of the Princess, huh?” she smiled, raising a smug eyebrow.

Sansa’s blood froze, her mind either unwilling or unable to comprehend what she had just done, yet the pit in her stomach forced her to face the facts.

She had just screamed bloody murder at her sister.

She had just behaved exactly like Arya.

In front of the Princess Royal.

She whirled around, desperate to do whatever was needed to fix the situation. Her heart dropped when she saw Myrcella’s frightened eyes dart towards the door.

No! This can’t be happening! She despaired internally. What had she done?! Mother had entrusted her with fostering good relationships between House Stark and the Crown, and she had just ruined everything! What if Princess Myrcella ran to the Queen? What would the King do, then?

Sansa slapped herself internally. Get a hold of yourself, Sansa! This is no time to despair! I have to fix this. I must fix this! First, she would beg the Princess for her forgiveness, and then she would prove that she was nothing like Arya, nothing like that accursed little savage, she was a Northern lady, and Northern ladies were not backwards or savage wildlings, they could be just as poised and composed and graceful and charming and civilised as any Southron princess, she could be like that, she could, she could, she must —

“My princess! I’m so, so sorry for my outburst,” she squeaked, embarrassed and humiliated, her face burning redder than her hair, a second away from throwing herself to the floor and begging the Princess’s forgiveness on her knees. “It was most unladylike of me, and—!”

“No, no, no, please, don’t apologise,” Myrcella interrupted her. “This is so much more exciting than King’s Landing,” she said, smiling widely. 

Despite her smile, her green eyes were still jittery, but as the Princess kept shooting fearful glances towards the door, it suddenly dawned on Sansa that she wasn’t afraid of the people inside the room.

She was afraid of who could come in.

Her impression was only confirmed by how Myrcella paled and flinched as the door opened once again. The mild-mannered princess’ reaction upon seeing the newcomer was not, however, what Sansa expected.

“IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?!” the Princess shrieked with utter, ear-bursting glee. 

“Direwolves? Yep!” Maisie replied, deeply satisfied. She held two blunted tourney swords in her embrace, all of them barely a head shorter than her. “They looked bored so I brought them with me!”

Nymeria barked happily, bounding towards the sewing circle. Septa Mordane stiffened, but said nothing. She only sighed for a third time, albeit more shakily than the last.

Sansa shot Lady a bemused look. If her wolf could have shrugged, she would have. Then, Lady turned to look at Myrcella with a curious, inquisitive and gentle look. Sansa understood what her wolf wanted to ask. “My Princess, do you—?”

“YES !” Myrcella roared , jumping to her feet. Lady recoiled in surprise, but before she could react, the blonde princess was over her, petting her ferociously. “Oh, I had heard the rumours while on the road, but I dared not believe them! Who’s the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world?” Lady barked, confused but appreciative. “Yes you are, yes you are!” Myrcella cooed, downright vibrating with elation.

To the other side, Arya and Elisa had swapped their needles for the swords and continued fighting while Lyanna and Maisie shouted encouragement and insulted their form in turn. Lya and Talia, too, had dropped their needlepoint and began playing with Nymeria, who was all too happy to indulge them. Even Jeyne and Beth joined them in doing so. Alys merely sat back and watched the chaos with crossed arms and an amused smile.

So much for civilised, Sansa thought, dismayed. But Myrcella’s delight (even if it’s mere existence defied understanding) assuaged her fears. Perhaps everything would be all right after all.

Sansa looked at the discarded embroidery and back again at the lively scene before her. Even for her, there was only so much of a morning that could be spent embroidering before her fingers ached and her mind numbed. And today was about making friends with the Princess, so I wouldn’t be remiss of my duties if I just went with it, she supposed, kneeling down beside Myrcella so she could also pet Lady.

“My Princess, you might be pleased to know that Lady here is the cleverest and most well behaved of the direwolves,” she boasted to the Princess. Lady nodded her head elegantly, clearly satisfied and proud with her master’s praise.

“Truly?” Myrcella looked at her with wide eyes, rapt by Sansa’s words and Lady’s magnificence.

“Of course,” Sansa said. As she should be. “Here, let me show you.”

Happily ignoring the chaos around her she ran Lady through a gamut of tests, every command she had ever taught her girl, to Myrcella’s delight and applause. First, Lady shook hands. Then, she sat, laid, rolled, stood, skipped, jumped, fetched, and so much more.

Satisfaction and pride burned in her chest, as bright and brilliant and warm as a hearthfire, as her lovely Lady proved herself every bit as clever as Sansa had claimed, and even more so at the fact that the Princess was seeing and acknowledging it, utterly enthralled.

“Kiss,” she commanded, bending at the waist so that they could delicately touch noses. The other direwolves might be uncouth enough as to lick, and Shaggydog was liable to bite your nose off, but Sansa’s Lady was exactly that: a lady.

Myrcella’s eyes gleamed so bright that they could have been mistaken for stars, utter adoration dripping off of them. So, Sansa decided to perform their last trick.

She was exceedingly proud of it, for it showed the truth in her direwolf’s name, just as it was the single command she had taught Lady to follow without saying the word beforehand.

Sansa stood up, and after sharing a brief look with her wolf, performed a curtsy. As she dipped down, Lady knelt on one of her forepaws, curtsying in perfect synchronisation with Sansa. Myrcella had to clasp her hands to her mouth to muffle her shriek of excitement.

It was still so loud that Sansa flinched, stumbling backwards, ungainly and awkward. Barely a second later, a practice sword spun right past her, spinning through the air before hitting the wall a mere inch away from Septa Mordane’s nose and clattering onto the ground.

That proved to be the last straw for their poor old Septa, who shot to her feet, crying hysterically. Shouting and screaming, she darted towards the chamber’s door at a speed that seemed almost unthinkable for her age. Sansa could only pick up the words “how”, “girls”, and “savages” as Septa Mordane slammed the door shut in her wake.

Sansa shared a look of horror with Princess Myrcella, but before they could do something about it they were distracted by Elisa, who said in a voice that positively dripped with satisfaction, “You’re not the only one who has an older brother to teach her tricks, my Queen.”

The words escaped Sansa before she could think better of it, “For Gods sake, Arya, you pick a fight and you can’t even win?!” For a split second, Sansa was mortified to have voiced such a crass thought, but the Princess’s delighted laughter soothed her embarrassment.

It was no laughing matter for Arya, though, who now looked genuinely murderous. Her previous fight was for her amusement, but now, the youngest of Lord Eddard’s daughters bayed for blood. Fortunately for Sansa, her sister wasn’t looking at her. 

“DON’T YOU FUCKING CALL ME THAT!” Arya shrieked out in a raging battle cry and leapt at the other girl, ready to pummel her bloody with her bare hands, much to Lyanna and Maisie’s delight. Nymeria growled, but did not join in, merely looking on, clearly upset. Elisa, a rotten smile on her face, seemed more than happy to oblige her, dropping the practice sword as Arya tackled her, and answering blow with blow, kick with kick, and hair pull with hair pull.

Sansa shot a quick glance to her side. Myrcella was staring at them agape, but wasn’t scandalised. No, she was curious. Curious to see what they would do next, how far they can go, Sansa thought grimly. She’s heard stories of the savage North and she wants to see just how true they are. Princess Myrcella, Sansa knew right then, wouldn’t intervene. She wanted to see how things were handled here.

That was fine by her. The Princess would learn that Sansa handled them just fine.

Sansa drew herself up to her full height as the daughters of two most noble, ancient and reputable houses rolled around on the ground, biting, kicking, scratching and pulling at each other like feral cats in the yard. A proper duel was one (extremely questionable, pushing the bounds of all good taste) thing, but Septa Mordane had been right. This was outright unacceptable.

She stepped forward, ready to put an end to this nonsense, pull them apart by force if necessary. But before she could intervene, Lyanna Mormont put a hand on her wrist. 

“Leave them to it,” the little she-bear said bluntly. “They’ll tire each other out eventually.”

She turned to her good-aunt in disbelief. “Eventually?! They must be stopped now! This behaviour is most unbecoming of them! They’re ladies of noble birth, not peasant boys fighting over a coin!” she hissed.

“And?” Lyanna didn’t seem phased by her words. For all that her good-aunt was much younger and smaller than her, she was either confident as a grown woman, or arrogant beyond measure. She pinned Sansa with a piercing look. “Open your eyes, Sansa. We women are just as violent as men, we’re just more subtle about it.”

She sounded like she was quoting someone. Probably her mother; old Maege Mormont was (in)famous for saying the sort of nonsense that, with a sage nod and repeated oft enough, managed to pass itself as ‘wisdom’.

“Leave them to it,” she said one more time, softly and, for once, kindly, as though Sansa was on the verge of making a mistake, as though she needed to be appeased into making the right decision.

Sansa’s temper flared dangerously, and she wrenched her arm out of her good-aunt’s grip. She would not, could not be dissuaded, not now, not in front of the Princess. She had to take control of the situation. She couldn’t appear weak. Not when Mother had put her in charge, not ever. If Arya and Elisa wanted to fight it out like wildlings, they’d have to do it later, elsewhere, out of her sight.

Creak.

She whirled around to see Jon’s head poking through the door.

“WHAT?! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” she roared like a bloodthirsty beast.

“Uhm.” Jon blinked blankly, taking in the chaotic scene inside the chamber. “Pardon my language, but what in the absolute fuck is going on in here.”

“Do you really want to know?” Alys replied with a smile, casually playing with her braid.

“... Actually, you know what?” her elder brother decided, “I’m fine.”

Sansa’s query hadn’t been answered, and it enraged her further. “What. Do. You. Want.” she snarled. Lady growled, of a mind with her master.

Jon shook his head. “Oh. Right. Uhm. I saw the Septa run straight to Mother, wailing to high heavens about savages and filthy little heathens.”

“AND?!” Sansa snapped. Alys scowled, but said nothing.

“Mother.” Jon repeated. “Who was with Aunt Dacey. And, y’know. The Queen. They’re on their way now. Thought you should know.”

“Thank you, Jon, now go,” she said through gritted teeth, the blood pounding too fiercely for her to give his words a second thought. Sparing one last glance for Alys, Jon scurried off, and she turned back around to deal with her sister. 

Then understanding sunk in and Sansa’s fiery rage transmuted into white hot panic.

The door slammed open, and Septa Mordane ran into the room, followed by Queen Cersei and the ladies Stark.

The ladies of Winterfell and the Princess Royal sat in harmony, calmly working on their embroidering, amiable conversation held in polite and pleasant tones.

“W– Wha—” Septa Mordane blubbered, her eyes wide and disbelieving. Taking it as her cue, Sansa turned her gaze towards the door.

“My Queen,” she intoned respectfully, rose to her feet, and performed a curtsy. The rest of the girls followed suit, showing the Queen consort nothing but the utmost respect and dignity.

“Please, girls, sit down,” Queen Cersei replied gracefully as she stepped past the stupefied Septa. Silence held the room in its grip, as the Queen’s emerald eyes surveyed the room. When they landed on her daughter, she spoke again. “My daughter dearest, is everything in order?”

Princess Myrcella nodded. “Yes, mother, of course.”

“SHE’S LYING!” The Septa shrieked, eyes wild and frenzied. “THEY’RE ALL LYING! THEY WERE FIGHTING WITH SWORDS! BEHAVING LIKE SAVAGES!”

She would have wailed more, but the Queen’s sharp voice cut her off.

“My daughter has said that everything is in order. Are you calling my daughter, your Princess Royal, a liar, Septa?” Her tone was nothing short of contemptuous.

“I– But– No– My Qu– My Queen! I– I meant no disrespect towards the Princess, but–!”

“Yet, you have given it.” Venomous, even. “Surely you know the punishment due to the crime of besmirching the dignity and honour of a Princess Royal.” The poor Septa blanched, but Queen Cersei continued, implacable as the lion of her father’s arms. “But I know the sisters of your order for good, hard working women. Too hard working, as a matter of fact. Perhaps you should rest,” the Queen dismissed the Septa, her imperious tone brokering no argument.

Septa Mordane blubbered one last time, then deflated, defeated.

“Yes, my Queen,” she mumbled, then left without saying another word.

“My Queen, if I may,” Sansa interjected, voice calm and measured. “Please, don’t hold such disrespect against our poor Septa. She means it not.”

Queen Cersei tilted her head at her, her emerald eyes curious and appraising, but she said nothing. At least, not to her. Instead, she turned and laid her gaze squarely on Arya.

“May I see your work, dear?” she asked, politely yet firmly.

Sansa felt a knot form in her throat. Arya’s needlepoint was atrocious, yet the Queen had requested a glance at it. A request her sister could not, should not, must not refuse. But if Sansa knew her sister at all, it wouldn’t be so easy, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t, it wou—

Her younger sister stood up confidently, and walked towards the Queen with a grace that Sansa would have thought impossible. Once she was close enough, Arya bowed her head, and handed the Queen her embroidery hoop.

The Queen looked at it for a brief second, then smiled with satisfaction.

“Impressive handiwork,” the Queen praised her sister. “Marvellously done, my girl.”

“Thank you, my Queen,” Arya replied, dipping into a perfect curtsy. If Sansa hadn’t been a witness, she would have never believed it. Indeed, even Mother appeared positively flabbergasted at the poise and grace displayed by her youngest daughter. She blinked in quick repetition, as if to clear her eyes. Sansa shared her befuddlement. Since when was her sister able to do a curtsy, nevermind a perfect one? Was she just pretending she couldn’t out of sheer spite?!

“We are deeply sorry for the interruption. We will take our leave,” the Queen announced. “Please, enjoy yourselves.” Sansa once again led the other ladies into a farewell curtsy, and Queen Cersei left the chamber.

Mother eyed them warily, but seeing nothing out of place, bowed her head and followed suit.

Aunt Dacey lingered behind. After a couple of seconds, she spoke.

“Just so you know,” she said, voice mirthful, “I can see the pommels sticking out from underneath the wolves.” And without any further ado, she left as well.

Sansa breathed a sigh of relief as Aunt Dacey left to catch up with the others, collapsing back into her chair. To say they had cut it close would be the understatement of the century, right next to ‘King Aerys was an odd fellow’.

As soon as Jon’s words sunk in, Sansa had bellowed to high heavens “HIDE THE SWORDS!”, as she dove for the embroidery hoops. 

The other ladies (except Alys, who continued to look on with amusement) had jumped to action like cats in a panicked frenzy, each shooting in different directions at lightning speed. While Beth, Jeyne, Maisie and Lyanna pulled the squabbling Arya and Elise apart from each other and gave them a quick do-over to fix their dishevelled, scruffy appearances, Myrcella had picked up the sword that had almost hit Septa Mordane and given it to Sansa, who in turn gave her the embroidery hoops to distribute.

Finding herself with the cold steel on her hands, Sansa had blanked, unsure of what to do with it. For a brief moment, she thought of throwing it out of the window, but swords falling from the sky would surely attract more attention. At a loss, she turned to Lady for comfort, but when her blue eyes met the direwolf’s golden orbs, an idea had sprung to her mind. Quickly, she slid the sword between Lady’s legs and urgently ordered, “Down!”. Lady had given her a quizzical look, but did so immediately, covering the sword under her large body and fluffy hair.

Lya and Talia had followed suit, doing the same with the other sword and Nymeria, who had been less gracious than her sister in her compliance, enjoying the dread in the Forrester girl when she barked at her.

Unfortunately, it seemed, the direwolves were yet too small to completely hide the arming swords beneath their mass and fluff. Fortunately, neither the Queen nor Mother had taken notice of it.

And Aunt Dacey wouldn’t tell anyone. Probably.

What didn’t make any sense was how the Queen could have found Arya’s needlepoint “impressive” and “marvellously done”. 

Arya’s.

Still unsure what to make of it, Sansa looked down at the hoop in her hands, the one Princess Myrcella had given her. 

It was a direwolf. 

Possibly.

Maybe.

If you squint your eyes really, really hard.

It was, however, most certainly not her work. No, Sansa knew these mangled cross stitches all too well.

Suddenly, everything made sense. The Queen hadn’t seen Arya’s true work, for it laid in her lap. Which meant…

Sansa looked up at Arya, who still fumed and glared daggers in Elisa’s direction, and then back at the hoop. If the Queen demanded to see Arya’s embroidery once at King’s Landing, only to be presented with whatever in the seven hells was in her lap, she would be grievously disappointed. 

Inspiration dawned.

Perhaps, as the caring, kind and considerate big sister as she was, could she help Arya keep her charade, purveying her with new pieces every now and again, growing ever more ambitious in her motifs?

It was, after all, the least she could do for her future Queen.

Chapter Text

The King had been a bitter disappointment to Jon.

Father spoke of him often: the peerless Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident, the warrior king who claimed his throne in the battlefield, a giant among men, a born leader and the best friend a man could ever ask for.

Jon saw nothing but a pathetic wretch who was more fat than man, red-faced under his coarse and unkempt beard, sweating through his silks. He walked like a man half in his cups, and bellowed like one three times over them. And if that wasn’t enough, he broke his oaths to his queen with carefree abandon by burying his head in the breasts of a buxom maidservant, right in front of her.

How can Father be friends with such a poor excuse of a man?

For his part, the Crown Prince, despite having his mother’s fair looks, was certainly his father’s son, for he was just as much of a disappointment as him, both in the revelry as in the sparring ground. Now Jon saw why Prince Joffrey misliked sparring.

All it had taken had been three lazy parries and one riposte of his blade and the Prince was out of the game. Making matters worse, the only reason why Jon had taken so long had been because he wanted to see if Joffrey would even try to fight if not taken out of the fight in a single parry-and-riposte combo, as Robb had done, too eager to get started. But it was not to be. Evidently, Joffrey had put no effort whatsoever in either of his duels against the twin Starks, and neither did he have any interest in doing so.

In stark contrast stood Prince Tommen, who sparred fiercely against Bran… for a given value of ‘fiercely’, that is. Both children were so heavily padded that they could barely move, huffing and puffing as they tried to whack each other with padded wooden swords. They quite resembled how Jon used to make his toy knights fight each other when he was Rickon’s age, clumsily bumping them against each other until he got bored. Which he had gotten, at least five minutes ago.

Unfortunately, both boys seemed to be having the time of their lives, fighting valiantly under the shouts of encouragement bellowed by the twice a dozen spectators crowded around the courtyard, Robb’s voice the loudest of them all.

“COME ON BRAN, BEAT HIS PRINCELY ARSE TO DORNE AND BACK!” His twin had quite the lungs on him. Ear-shattering though they were, it pleased Jon to know that their efforts had bore fruit; when they were younger, Robb and Jon both used to shout at each other from towers on different ends of Winterfell in an attempt to train their voices for the battlefield. Their mother, irked by their shrill screaming, had put a swift end to it, though, but they still practised whenever they went on hunts or rides, far away from her keen ear and uncanny ability to materialise from thin air whenever they needed a scolding.

Jon glanced up to the covered walkway above, and chuckled.

Just so. Catelyn Stark was glaring at her eldest son, a vexed expression on her face. A second later, his mother’s blue eyes met his own dark grey ones, and they shared a wry smile at their kin’s shenanigans. Without saying anything (though if she did, Jon doubted he would have heard her), Mother shook her head with fond amusement, and left.

Torrhen bumped his shoulder with his own, calling his attention. “A silver stag says Bran beats Prince Tommen within the next five minutes,” he wagered lightly.

“No deal,” Jon replied without missing a beat. “You don’t even own a silver stag.”

“Ah, you got me there, Stark,” Torr laughed.

Jon shook his head. “You’ve got a gambling problem, Karstark.”

“That I do,” Lord Rickard’s third son admitted with a nonchalant shrug. “But I am also having a good time, so it evens out, methinks.”

That doesn’t even make any sense, Jon frowned, but knew better than to get bogged down in a pointless argument with his friend. If there was a man in this world who loved arguing over nothing, it was Torrhen. It must be a Karstark thing, Jon thought, for Alys was close behind him in that regard. It was equal parts endearing and infuriating.

“Any day now…” Daryn Hornwood yawned, sitting against a nearby ironwood pillar and resting his head on his right hand.

The Gods smiled on them then, as Bran took a step back, avoiding Tommen’s swing. Overextended, the prince was caught ill-footed when Bran wound back and drove his sword like an executioner’s axe straight into his back with all his might. Prince Tommen fell into a heap, rolling in the dust. Undeterred, Bran whacked Tommen over and over again on the back, battering the poor prince relentlessly as he struggled to stand up.

The men began to laugh, and even Joffrey had to stifle a contemptuous smile at the sight. Bran’s nameless wolf wagged his tail and jumped on the spot, excited for his master’s victory; Ghost and Grey Wind merely watched, comfortably laying on the ground. And though striking a fallen foe as they laid on the ground was a dishonourable act, one for which Jon would make sure to chide Bran about later, he laughed so hard at the sight that he feared he would burst his belly.

“Enough!” Ser Rodrik called out, intervening. Bran immediately stepped back, flushed and shamed as his blood cooled and he came back to himself. The master-at-arms gave the battered prince a hand and yanked him back to his feet. “Well fought, both of you. Lew, Donnis, help them out of their armour,” he ordered two grooms, who duly obeyed.

“That was fun!” Prince Tommen’s lip was split and bleeding profusely, but the boy looked happier than ever. After a dubious and ashamed look, Bran smiled back at him and shook his outstretched hand. And so was a friendship forged.

“Prince Joffrey, Robb,” Ser Rodrik called to attention, “will you go another round?”

Robb moved forward eagerly, excited by the idea of kicking Joffrey’s ass again. “Gladly.”

Joffrey, on the other hand, was not as enthused. They boy strode forward with a lazy gait. “This is a game for children, Ser Rodrik.”

Theon barked a laugh. “You are children,” he said contemptuously.

“Robb may be a child. I am a prince,” Joffrey said, despite being three years younger than them and speaking with an unbroken, high pitched voice. “And I grow tired of swatting at Starks with a play sword.”

“What swats?” Robb laughed, his amusement echoed by the other wards. “You barely moved your sword around. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you are afraid of a real fight.”

Joffrey rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. Terrified. You’re so much older and stronger than I. Not to mention taller.” Some of the Lannister men laughed; younger though he was, Joffrey stood taller than both Stark twins, to their eternal dismay. “If you offer me a true duel, I shall engage. But this child’s play you force me to suffer is beneath me.”

Ser Rodrik tugged absently at his white whiskers. “What are you suggesting, my prince?”

Joffrey was fast as a whip. “Live steel.”

Jon stifled a snort of laughter. Prince Joffrey could barely swing a wooden sword to save his life, and he thought he could best Robb with live steel? Did the prince have a death wish? If their previous fight repeated identically, Robb would skewer him without breaking a sweat.

And wouldn’t that just be sad?

Robb was keenly aware of that. His twin frowned. “Are you sure?”

Joffrey smiled an ugly smile. “Why the sudden hesitance? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you are afraid, Stark.” The Baratheon and Lannister men jeered.

“As if,” Robb bristled, ears reddening. “I will do as my prince wishes,” he dipped his head cynically, “but I refuse to be held responsible for any harm in which he may incur in his folly.”

Ser Rodrik stepped forcefully. “No. Live steel is too dangerous for a sparring session. I will permit you tourney swords, with blunted edges.”

Sandor Clegane pushed forward in front of the prince. “This is your prince. Who are you to tell him he may not have an edge on his sword?” Tall and muscled like a bull, Sandor Clegane was an ugly bastard, with greasy black hair and hideous burn scars on the right side of his face that stretched from the top of his head down to his neck.

Jon would never admit to it, but Clegane’s grotesque visage, fearsome figure and frightful snarling helm made his hair stand on end. Still, he counted his blessings. At least it isn’t the Mountain.

Ser Rodrik wasn’t intimidated by the infamous Hound. “Master-at-arms of Winterfell, Clegane,” the old knight replied derisively, “and you would do well not to forget it.”

“Are you training women here?” Clegane demanded to know.

“I am training knights, Clegane,” Ser Rodrik said pointedly, a hint of disdain in his tone. “A knight knows that live steel is a weapon of war, not a toy to brandish about with the carefree abandon some of you are so fond of doing.”

The burned man looked at Robb. “How old are you, boy?”

“Fourteen,” Robb replied, chest puffed up. He refused to be cowed.

“I killed a man at twelve. You can be sure it was not with a blunt sword.”

“I can see why you are so proud of such a feat!” Torrhen, always irreverent Torrhen, quipped cheerfully. “You must be the first man to kill another with sheer disappointment alone!”

That lad’s lip would one day be the death of him.

The Hound snarled, his hand shooting down to the pommel of his live-steel sword, where it remained. Though he was a fearsome warrior, even he knew better than to draw it, for he was a guest at Winterfell… and thoroughly outnumbered by a small warband of castle trained lordlings and household guards, all of them as ready as he was to draw their blades. Blunt steel might not cut, but it could pierce a man’s flesh just as well if you wielded it with intent and knew where to aim it.

The twins knew. Father had made sure of it.

The courtyard’s atmosphere was tense. Lannister and Baratheon men hovered their hands over their swords, unsure. Ghost, Grey Wind and Bran’s nameless wolf all prowled nearby, bristling and baring their teeth. A coltish boy around Sansa’s age wearing the lion of Lannister tripled upon his breast took a step back, spooked by the direwolves. Ser Rodrik’s whiskers shivered in rage, but it wasn’t he who spoke first.

“Stay your blade, dog,” Prince Joffrey sneered, pulling on Clegane’s leash. “This is a waste of our time. Let’s leave the children to their games. Come, Tommen,” he ordered his little brother, who deflated at being forced to part with his newfound friend.

If that was how Prince Joffrey saved face, he sorely needed to further hone his craft.

“What a fucking cunt,” Robb stated the instant the Prince was out of range. It was quite telling that even Bran nodded his agreement, ginger and reluctant though it was. “And he’s supposed to marry Arya?” he scoffed, filled with scorn. “Arya is going to eat him alive for breakfast.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Dom remarked casually. 

“That would be a sight to see,” Alys mused.

“I guess,” he muttered, downcast. Many hours had passed, yet Jon’s hands still shivered in ill-contained rage. To think such a loathsome little shit was to be Arya’s husband … “Who does he think he is?”

“The Crown Prince.”

His temper flared. “You know what I mean,” he snapped, voice oozing loathing, but immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright,” Alys reassured him quietly. “I understand.”

I don’t think you do, he brooded, resting his forehead atop his crossed arms, sprawled over the table that separated him from Karstark. It’s not your sister being married off to that prick.

Curled up by his feet, Ghost shot him a sympathetic look. The direwolf, though barely over three moons of age, was already the size of a full grown hound. Jon dropped a hand off the table to scratch his wolf’s head, and Ghost nuzzled his fingers in reassurance. It didn’t make him feel any better, but it was nice.

“Is everything in order here?” Maester Brus’ pleasant voice inquired. Jon didn’t even deign to look up. “You seem very quiet today.”

“Jon hates Prince Joffrey’s guts,” Alys stated bluntly.

Jon huffed. “Can you blame me?”

“Not really, but you’re being really mopey about it and it’s starting to get annoying,” Alys crossed her own arms, leaning back on her chair. Jon was half-sure she made a point of pouting in dissatisfaction, but he wouldn’t look up. Ghost licked his limp fingers.

Maester Brus sighed sympathetically. “Oh, Jon. Don’t be like that.”

“Like what,” he retorted flatly.

“Jealous.”

Jon frowned. Brus succeeded in getting him to raise his gaze.

“Why would I be jealous?”

“Because the Prince is going to take Arya away from you,” the young maester said affably. “It’s not about the Prince, you see. He merely symbolises the intruding change. Arya will leave Winterfell soon, and one day she will marry him and be his queen. It’s part of life, growing up and leaving the nest,” he said, putting his maimed left hand on top of his shoulder in reassurance. “Of course it’s going to be difficult for you, and it’s only natural that you feel angry and blame the prince for such frightening changes.”

Jon stared flatly, unblinking, at Brus. “... I’m fairly certain that the reason why I hate Joffrey is because he’s a fucking cunt that thinks everyone is beneath him, but sure, whatever you say, I guess.” Alys snorted. Ghost wagged his tail in agreement.

Brus sighed. “There’s no need for such language, Jon,” he shook his head.

“Yes, Jon , mind your language,” Alys said mockingly. “Or did your lady mother neglect to teach you proper manners?”

Jon shot her a withering glare. “Whose side are you on, anyways?”

“Whichever causes you the most grief, obviously.”

“... thanks.”

“You’re welcome!” Alys smiled toothily, and Jon couldn’t help but smile himself. He still smacked his forehead against the table, though. Another second passed before Karstark spoke again. “Say, Maester, while you’re here, could you help settle a small argument between us?”

“Certainly,” he bowed his head. “What is it?”

“Well, these past couple of days we’ve been reading Maester Robberd’s Alexius Rex —”

Maester Brus interrupted her with a nostalgic sigh. “Ah, my beloved.”

“So you’ve read it?”

“Once, twice, a thousand times I’ve read it! It’s the grandest of the whole canon, and it’s not even close.”

Jon disagreed, if only because Sons of the Eagle was the more intricate drama, the tale of a dynasty crumbling under the weight of its own success and undermined by its inner rot. That being said, Alexius Rex was a close contender, if only because its depiction of military tactics was the most impressively accurate and innovative he had ever seen. True, it was a bit on the speculative side, but that only made Jon like it even more; it was different.

Alys didn’t like that. She thought it too ‘outlandish’.

“Well, we were arguing as to whether the, shall we say, advancements in Alexius Rex are actually feasible, or if they’re just unfounded flights of fancy.” Maester Brus did not reply, and thus Alys explained herself. “Because it is all too strange that a canon so characterised by its adherence to reality would indulge itself so… fantastically.”

With the condescending snideness that oozed from her voice, Alys presented Jon with a bait, and he couldn’t help but take it.

“What is so fantastic about firearms?”

“It’s just painfully unrealistic! Not to mention overpowered as all hells, too. Alexiel just tramples all over his enemies all the time. It’s not fun.”

“Aegon and his sisters conquered Westeros with only three dragons,” Jon retorted, voice dry as the Dornish deserts. “Are you telling me that fire-breathing overgrown lizards that fly are more believable and less overpowered than an exploding powder pushing a lead pellet out of a tube?” 

“Dragons are real,” Alys countered. “Or they were, in any case. Gunpowder is not.”

“Oh, but it is,” Maester Brus could hardly contain his giddy smile.

“What?” Jon was surprised.

“What? ” Alys was flabbergasted.

Ghost tilted his head to the side, askance.

“A mixture of sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre, in fact.”

“Wait,” Alys shook her head, as if willing herself to believe her ears, “so it’s real?”

“Oh yes,” Brus toyed around with one of the links in his chain, made of lead. “I forged this link with the knowledge I accrued researching the feasibility of such a wonderful concept. Archmaester Theobald wasn’t all that enthused on my chosen research, but he deemed it satisfactory enough for me to earn my link in alchemy.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Alys tilted her head. “Aren’t Maesters supposed to push the boundaries of knowledge?”

“Few are the Maesters that have a good appraisal of the Histories, and certainly none an Archmaester,” Brus waved the question off. “Baseless flights of fancy best left to the bards, they call them. And sadly, there is some truth to it; real gunpowder doesn’t work half as well as its literary counterpart, but I think that has more to do with imperfections in Maester Hoggar’s formula than a lack of rigour in Maester Robberd’s work. I adjusted Hoggar’s formula and corned the gunpowder for drying, and it’s not that far off, all things considered. Just… make sure you’re a good distance away from it when it goes off,” he added sheepishly, rubbing his maimed left hand. “I was lucky to only lose two fingers and not the entire hand.”

Jon paused. “So you’re saying… that we can create firearms?”

Brus shook his head. “Not the sort you’re thinking of, no. That would require a level of large-scale craftsmanship that is far beyond our capabilities… and even if we did, I doubt it would be a good idea.”

“How could it not be a good idea?” Jon wondered, enthusiastic. There was a rattle of chairs nearby, but he was too caught up in his childish excitement to care. “Just imagine! If we took the initiative, we would become the most powerful House in the realm! We could even conquer the Free Cities!”

The Maester directed him a cold look. “If you think so to be the case, then perhaps you’ve been reading the wrong book,” he rebuked him firmly, making him go cold all over with a chill. It wasn’t often that Maester Brus dropped his chipper smile, and it alarmed him. “Maester Robberd makes it abundantly clear how terrible this ‘evolution’ of warfare is. How it makes war even more of a butchery than it already is. How deeply destabilising it is for the realm and the world as a whole, when a simple peasant can shoot down a high lord with the press of a lever.”

“But they already can,” Jon protested, “with the use of a crossbow. Hells, they don’t even need one to do so; King Maekar’s head was crushed by a rock thrown by a peasant off a rampart. War is a butcher’s work, and the best killer wins. I know this, Maester. Besides, if King Maekar had had cannons, perhaps he wouldn’t have been near the battlements in the first place. Hells, not even if he was patient and held the siege instead,” he grumbled, crossing his arms.

“You make a good point, I will not deny you that,” Brus allowed, “but think of the trail of destruction Alexiel left in his wake.” He did. It was his least favourite part of the book, revolting his innards with its gruesomely graphic descriptions. It made the Field of Fire look like a mercy. “That was the carnage wroke by one army fighting outdated foes. Could you imagine what would happen if every lord had cannons at their disposal? If every war was fought like that? The smallest border scuffle would turn into a conflict ten times more destructive than the Dance. What if the peasants of the Great Revolt had firearms at their disposal? It would have been a massacre, with all of Lord Lannister’s knights left for the crows to feast. Is that what you want?”

“That’s not—!” Jon attempted to refute him, indignant, but the young maester had grown agitated and spoke over him. 

“Don’t you see? In the end, there is no place for bravery, honour or chivalry; the winner would merely be the army with the shiniest, most lethal contraption. And there’s always a new one to be made. And thus, we only fall further and further into a neverending spiral of destruction, as kings and lords try to outdo the other to ensure victory with ever more destructive weapons, as technique and knowledge is valued only insofar as it contributes to this suicidal race to oblivion. Is it ever enough? Does it ever end? And for what, Jon? What do you even want to attain with these new weapons? Power? Glory? Gold?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it, Maester!” Jon shouted, ears burning red in outrage and embarrassment.

But you did, sneered a contemptuous voice in his mind. Didn’t you say that if we took the initiative, we would become the most powerful House in the realm? Didn’t you say that we could even conquer the Free Cities? 

He did, Jon realised as cold dread washed upon him. Gods, what was he even arguing for? So enamoured he was with the idea of bringing change to this world, he had forgotten to think about the consequences. So enamoured he was with the thought of Alexiel’s glories on the battlefield that he had forgotten about the monstrous toll they exacted. How could he be so childish? He was better than that. He should be better than that.

But he wasn’t, and he hated himself for it.

Brus sighed, mouth twisted in distaste. “My deepest apologies, my lord. I should not have spoken to you in such a way. I’ve forgotten myself and my manners.”

Jon waved his apologies off. He cared not for them. “It’s fine, Maester. It’s your duty to speak sense to us when we forget ourselves to idiocy.”

“Jon…” Alys began, lips pursed and slender fingers fiddling with her braid.

He stood up. “My apologies. I’m not feeling like myself today. With your leave,” he said, and without waiting for an answer, left the library with a swift stride, Ghost fast behind. He didn’t even question what Anton and Steffon were up to as he pushed past them, causing their tower of books to fall on the ground and Anton to curse explosively after him.

His thoughts only grew darker in the solitude of Winterfell after dusk. Part of him longed for the damp calm of the Godswood where he could brood in peace, but he was tired and so without his bidding his feet took him down the road to the Great Keep, up the stairs and through the halls, Prince Joffrey’s loathsome smug smirk haunting his mind’s eye, laughing at him, at his pitiful attempts to do anything, anything at all…

Unable to contain his frustration anymore, Jon kicked a small wicker basket left to the side, sending it sailing down the hall. Ghost let out a silent whine.

“What are you kicking that basket for?” Arya asked with a frown. 

Jon was so used to her popping out of nowhere he wasn’t even startled. “Reasons,” he replied laconically, unwilling to say anything else.

“Great, I didn’t care anyways,” she shook her head, before putting her hands on her hips. She looked as upset as he felt, and so did Nymeria by her side. “Where in the seven hells have you been? I’ve been looking for you all day!”

“I was in the library.” With Alys, he didn’t say, but his sister heard it all the same, if her scowl was any indication. 

Without saying a word, Arya huffed and grabbed him by the arm, pulling at him with all her might. Truth be told, if Jon wanted to resist her, he would have remained still, as the full width of Arya’s might was hardly impressive. But he was past the point of caring, and so he let himself be carried off by his agitated little sister down the hall, up the stairs, and into her bedchamber. Arya locked the door behind them.

“If you’re going to murder me, do it quick,” Jon snarked, sprawling himself in his sister’s bed while she paced. Nymeria jumped onto the bed and started licking his face with a sloppy, slobbery tongue. Filled with apathy, Jon allowed her, idly sharing a glance with an equally apathetic Ghost, who merely curled himself by the door.

“I’m not going to murder you, stupid,” Arya snapped at him.

Jon raised his eyebrows. “I’m not entirely comfortable with the way you emphasised the ‘you’, little sister.”

“Well, maybe that’s because I do want to kill someone!”

“Yeah, me too,” Jon grouched, then took a long hard look at his pacing sister. Stomping her feet, running her hands through her hair, chewing her lip… And for some reason, I suspect we’re both thinking of the same person. “Let me guess, your future husband?”

Arya kicked him in the shins. It hurt. “Don’t call him that!” Nymeria stopped licking his face, snapping her fangs at him in irritation.

“That’s what he is,” Jon said, rubbing his aching shin.

“A stupid prick, that’s what he is! A nasty, arrogant, rotten bully that thinks he’s better than anyone else and I hate him!” His sister’s direwolf growled in agreement. “I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!”

You and me both, he agreed internally. But whatever Prince Joffrey might be, he was still the Crown Prince of the Realm. Barring any miraculous intervention by the Gods, one day he would become king. And Arya… 

Arya would be his queen.

Arya would be the queen.

Much as he’d rather she didn’t, that she stayed in Winterfell with them forever, running underfoot, brightening his days with her tangled hair and toothy smiles, the opportunity of tying themselves to royalty was too good to pass. And Jon was savvy enough to know that, if the betrothal were to fall apart, it would be House Stark’s loss. The Baratheons would have no difficulty whatsoever in arranging an equally suitable match for the crown prince, and certainly wouldn’t see their prestige or authority compromised.

The Starks, meanwhile, would have squandered their only shot at becoming the second strongest house in the realm for a generation, and they would be hard pressed to find a better suitor for Arya. Hells, the rest of the realm could even take their refusal to marry their second daughter to the would-be king as a slight, a sign of arrogance and haughtiness, perhaps even defiance! And if King Joffrey the First was as petty as Prince Joffrey was, the consequences for the North’s trade and standing with the rest of the realm would be dire.

That was the bitterest cup to swallow. His sister, his beloved little sister, had to marry that despicable little shit, because if she didn’t, bad things could happen to the North and to them.

It tore at Jon’s heart, and for a brief moment, he wished Father was here with them. Offering them a smile, his kind words would soothe his and Arya’s distress, and his embrace would make everything alright. He would explain, softly and gently, why this match was necessary; he would even make it sound like a good idea.

But Father wasn’t here, and Arya looked almost on the verge of tears, her face twisted in anger and distress.

And so Jon had to do what he knew in his heart he could not: he had to step up. 

He had to convince Arya to give Joffrey another chance.

For her own sake.

For all of their sakes.

“You don’t hate him,” he said, barely managing to push the words out of his mouth. He had to defend Joffrey. The mere thought made him nauseous. “You barely even know him, little sister.”

A girl and two direwolves turned to look at him as if he had gone insane. Internally, Jon agreed with them.

“Are you serious?” Arya asked, utterly incredulous. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”

Fuck no. “Yes, I’m being serious,” he lied through his teeth. “Have you even talked to him?”

“What is there to talk about? You saw him at the welcoming feast!”

“Maybe he’s just shy,” Jon shrugged, barely holding back a hysterical, mirthless laugh.

“SHY?!”

“Or maybe he felt a bit self-conscious?” he tried again.

“Well, he sure as hell didn’t seem shy or self-conscious earlier today!”

Bugger. That made things more difficult. “You saw that, huh?”

“He insulted Robb!”

“And?” he asked disingenuously, hating himself for being the devil’s advocate of such a loathsome worm. “I always insult Robb. He deserves it.”

“That’s different!” his sister protested. “You’re family!”

“And so will he, one day.” Arya retched. “You really need to stop doing that, sister,” Jon warned her, thankful of the serendipitous distraction to his own revolting disgust at the idea of Joffrey being his family. “You were lucky you threw up on Sansa and not on, say, the Queen.”

Arya kept quiet for a second. “Actually, now that you mention it, I’ve got the sudden urge to throw up on the Queen.”

“Don’t.”

“Her face would be priceless, though!”

Jon smiled. “Yes, it would. But she’d have you flogged raw.”

“So I’ll do it after I’m queen myself; she can’t have me flogged then. If anything,” Arya perked up, a glimmer to her grey eyes. "I could have her flogged!”

Idly, Jon wondered if perhaps he should admonish his sister for saying such things, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “See? It’s not all bad.”

“I mean, I’d have to marry Joffrey first,” Arya said, and her eyes dulled in gloom.

He could not stand to see his little sister this sad. Yet, neither could he stand to persist in his defence of the Crown Prick. Jon looked out of the window for a second, made his decision, and turned to her. “Give me a second,” he said, and hurriedly left her bedchamber. Ghost didn’t follow.

When he came back, Arya was lying on her back on the floor, legs up and hooked around the edge of her bed, arms crossed and a deeply bored pout on her face. Nymeria laid by her side, whereas Ghost held guard by the door. Arya’s eyes lit up when she saw the bundle in his hands.

“I was saving it as a parting gift, for when you left for the south,” Jon said, his throat tightening uncomfortably, “but might as well give it to you now.”

“Is that what I think it is?” Arya said, scrambling to her feet.

“No, it’s not a horse,” he japed.

“I wasn’t thinking of a horse, stupid,” Arya laughed, whacking him in the arm.

“Well, good, because if you were I was going to ask you if you even knew what a horse looked like.”

“Please, I’m not stupid,” his sister rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows they have eight legs, three horns and shells.”

Jon stared at her for a second, fighting the urge to smile. “... I don’t think that’s right.”

“Just shut up and give me that,” Arya said with a grin, eager to tear away the rags which wrapped the gift. Her eyes went wide.

“See? It’s no horse,” Jon nudged her. “But it’s no toy, either. This, little sister, is a sword.”

“I know what a sword is,” Arya snapped, but her heart wasn’t on it. Her eyes were glued to the slim rapier in her hands, wide and glimmering with awe. The design of the sword was simple and sober, with an unembellished cup hilt and a blade a couple inches shorter than that of a longsword, sheathed within a scabbard of grey leather.

“Really, now?” He raised an amused eyebrow. “And you know how to use it?”

Arya chewed on her lip. “... No?”

“Well, then, first things first,” Jon said gravely, crouching to be at eye level with Arya. His little sister looked at him expectantly, attentive to the elder wisdom he was about to impart to her. “Stick ‘em with the pointy end.”

Arya whacked his arm with the sword. “I know which end to use.” It hurt a good deal more than her smacks, but Jon found himself grinning like an idiot nonetheless.

Good thing the sword was still sheathed; that would have been a problem. He made sure to tell her so.

Arya paled, mortified at her mistake. “I’m sorry! I forgot!”

Jon shook his head, chuckling. “See, that’s what I mean when I say it’s no toy. You can’t forget. It’s a real sword, a weapon.” To emphasise the point, he put his hands over Arya’s and drew part of the blade from its scabbard. The polished steel gleamed with a silver sheen. “See? It’s live steel. The edges are sharp.”

“It’s so skinny, though,” Arya noted. “I’d never seen a sword like this one.”

“I had Mikken make this special. The Braavosi use swords like this. It won’t hack a man’s head off, but it can poke him full of holes if you’re fast enough.”

“I can be fast,” Arya said.

“And if you’re in trouble,” he added, “it can slice and cut like any other longsword, too, though I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“What, trying to use it like a longsword?” Arya tilted her head.

“Getting in trouble,” Jon smiled, but his insides shuffled uncomfortably at the thought.

“Come on, Jon, when have I ever gotten myself in trouble?” his little sister smiled widely at him.

“You really want an answer?” Arya’s smile only grew wider. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he chuckled, stepping back and gesturing to her to finish unsheathing the sword. “How does it feel? Do you like the balance?“

“I guess. It’s…” Arya chewed her lip. “It’s too long. And heavy.”

Unbidden, Theon’s voice rang through Jon’s mind. That’s what she said! it snickered, earning a grimace from the Starkling.

“Eh, don’t worry about that, you’ll grow,” he said instead. “Taller and stronger. The first will happen on its own. For the second one, though, you’ll have to train every day.” 

Arya’s eyes brightened as she remembered something. “Oh! Father promised to find me a sword-fighting master when we are at King’s Landing! He promised me!”

Jon smiled. “See? That makes it easier. Just do whatever he tells you to do, and you’ll be fine. But in the meantime, watch and learn from the fighters in the courtyard, and run and ride and make yourself strong. That way the sword won’t feel so heavy when you start your lessons!”

A doubtful look crossed her face. “Septa Mordane will take it away from me.” Horror replaced doubt. “And the Queen! She’ll have me flogged if she finds out!”

“No, she won’t,” Jon reassured her, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Because she will never find out. I promise.”

“How are you so sure?” she asked glumly, sheathing the sword again and leaving it on top of the bed.

“Because I trust you,” he replied simply.

One second, Arya was looking up to him with a blank look on her face. The next, she was choking the life out of him, clinging to his neck in a tight embrace. Jon lost his footing and stumbled back, and both siblings fell to the floor in a heap of limbs. 

And the second after that, they were being assaulted by their direwolves as they, too, jumped in to partake in their hug.

Jon knew not whether it was Ghost, Nymeria or Arya the one who was slobbering all over his face, but neither did he care, laughing freely.

Later, when he turned back at the door, direwolf in tow and spirits high like they hadn’t been in a while, Arya was holding the sword again, trying to find a balance. “I almost forgot,” he told her. “All the best swords have names.”

“Like Ice,” she nodded. “Does this have a name?”

“Take a wild guess,” he teased her.

Arya looked at the blade in her hand. After a brief instant, a sardonic smile appeared on her face. She was a quick one.

“I’d like to see Elisa parry this Needle.”

Chapter Text

Dressed in his full regalia, Lord Eddard Stark sat on the cold stone throne of his ancestors past and held his court, looking every inch the King of Winter but for the missing crown atop his brow. By his right side stood Maester Luwin, his wise counsel at the ready. Behind the throne, clustered by the ambulatory, sat spindly Maester Brus, Luwin’s deputy, leading the scribes of his chancery and aided by those of the royal party in their duties, writing down every word uttered, every decision made, every sentence passed.

By the aisles stood assorted lords and ladies of the Realm, both native Northerners and foreigners that had accompanied the King in his sojourn to Winterfell. Closest to the throne, at the place of honour, was the Royal Family, as well as Lord Stark’s immediate kin, wife, sons and daughters, each and every one of them dressed splendidly, a multicoloured sea of fabrics and gilded accessories.

Despite following every convention, this court was anything but for a very simple reason: Robert Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, stood amongst the assembled attending lords, instead of presiding over the court himself. It was hard to overstate the significance of such a gesture, even if wholly unintended.

“Come on, Neddard,” the King had laughed. “Show your King how you rule your people.” He seemed not to realise, or not to care, that by being nothing but a mere witness to a lord’s court, and thus refusing to enforce his royal rights of precedence, he was degrading his own royal dignity and authority in the eyes of the realm.

And Ned, much as he loved the person of the King, was not of a mind to allow his own hereditary rights be usurped by the Crown, so he complied with no argument.

Petitioners came and went, as Lord Stark ruled with the even and compassionate hand that had become synonymous with his name, the final arbiter of law in the lands north of the Neck. 

It was quite telling that none of the petitioners came asking for redress in the face of an injustice, to complain about his reeves or bailiffs, or to appeal for him to revert another lord’s ruling, and Ned allowed himself to savour a small degree of satisfaction. 

Must mean I’m doing something right, he supposed. That, or his constable had put on a show, and kept the actual petitioners with real problems at bay. If that was the case, there would be hell to pay. Convenient thought it may be to present the better face of the North to the King and his court, it would have been done without his leave, and Lord Stark would not tolerate it.

The only downside, though, was how mind-numbingly boring the petitions turned out to be. He was thankful that it was coming to an end, with only one more petition to come.

At the herald’s beckoning, two persons stepped forth. A mother, a plump, pox-scarred woman perhaps around Ned’s own age, and a son, a lanky teenager at most a year or two older than Robb and Jon. When they were upon him, they dropped to their knees, and bowed their heads in submission.

“Stand,” Lord Stark motioned, “and tell me your names and concerns.”

“Sissel, my lord,” the woman said in a reedy voice. “And this is my son, Rickard.” The teen bowed his head again. Named after my father, he noticed. “We come from nearby Branswood, my lord. Winter is coming, and my son needs to start to earn his keep. He’s almost of age, and should learn a craft, he should.” Not only was she fluent in the Common Tongue, but her diction was almost impeccable. From Branswood she might be, but she was born a city-dweller. And a remarkably well-educated one.

“I understand this, my fair lady,” he said evenly. The Queen let out a subtle scoff, dripping with contempt, at his polite words, but it didn’t escape his notice. Very little did, when Lord Stark sat on his throne. “But why bring this to my attention? Why not talk to the guildmasters of Wintersborough?”

The woman looked deeply ashamed. “My father was a guildmaster, my lord.” As he supposed. “He… He threw me out. When I…” she trailed off, her meaning clear. “I cannot come to him. Nor to any other guildmaster. He made sure of it.”

Ned nodded in understanding, heart swelling with compassion and righteous wrath.

“And the boy’s father?”

“He has no father, my lord,” the woman said pitifully. Her gaze was downcast, shameful.

A bastard, then. Ned gave an appraising look at the lad.

Tall. Handsome. Brown hair. Grey eyes. Chiselled face.

Had he not been holding court, he would have laughed.

Guess I do have one of yours to look after, don’t I, Bran?

In my defence, his brother’s spectre protested, back then, she was really, really, really fuckable. If that was the case, the years had been anything but kind to poor Sissel.

That’s a terrible defence, you idiot, Lyanna shook her head.

Oh, I’m sooooooorry, Bran retorted, voice full of sass. What was yours? ‘He sang a sad song and now I’m sooooooooooo in love that I will elope without telling anyone so my father and brother get killed and start an all-out war’? Lyanna gave him a ghostly kick to his baby maker, and both shades dispelled from Ned’s conscience.

Ned supposed it made sense, then, that the bastard had his own father as a namesake. The woman surely must have wished to curry favour with Lord Rickard to try and claw some redress. At best, have him recognised as a Snow; at worst, some financial compensation to keep her mouth shut.

Aerys had had Lord Rickard slaughtered before she could ever petition him.

Briefly, Ned wondered what his father would have done, before dismissing such a train of thought. It mattered not. Lord Rickard was dead, and Lord Eddard ruled.

“I may have a place for him in my household,” he smiled. He looked at Rickard. “What do you think, lad? What do you want?”

“I want to be a knight, m’lord,” he squeaked nervously, eliciting a round of laughter from the assembled lords, none louder than the King’s. Ned knew Robert’s laughter to be good-natured, borne of his approval of young Rickard’s ambition and spirit. The other lords were not as gracious, their voices filled with scorn, contempt and arrogance. The Queen and Prince Joffrey bore identical sneers.

Ned took no small pleasure from how abruptly they were silenced by his next words. “And so you shall. Ser Rodrik, take him into our guard. Turn him into a hearthkerr to make Winterfell proud.” His faithful master-at-arms bowed his head, his iron livery collar shaking at the gesture as much as his whiskers.

“Oh! Thank you, my lord, thank you, thank you!” the mother gushed, and hugged her son in pride and love. 

“You are to present yourself at Winterfell’s barracks tomorrow before midday,” Ser Rodrik told Rickard. “Do not be late.”

“I won’t, ser,” the lad nodded eagerly. “I’ll be there at daybreak, I’ll be!” Rickard’s grey eyes gleamed like gems, as if a long-treasured childhood dream had come true. There was no guile in them. Only childish innocence.

For a split-second, Ned toyed with the idea of acknowledging him, right there and then, as his bastard nephew and giving the boy a family to call his own. He banished the thought just as fast as it had come to mind. Even if such a thing as a good time to embrace a bastard even existed in the first place, this was most certainly not it. Soon Ned would ride south, and wouldn’t be there to ensure Rickard’s integration into the family proceeded smoothly, nevermind the fact that in his absence, Robb would have to contend not only with the often-overwhelming lordly affairs, but with establishing his own authority. Adding a bastard cousin to that mix, one borne of an elder brother, was like adding wildfire to a torch. 

“Is there anything else?” he asked, his eyes boring deep into the mother’s own. When they met, Sissel’s eyes widened. She knew that he knew the true parentage of her son. The real question is, are you going to do anything about it?

“N– No, my lord,” she replied. “Nothing else.”

“Good,” he nodded, satisfied. “Then I bid you farewell.” He waved his leave, and after a profound, grateful bow, mother and son left the Great Hall, the latter barely containing his excitement.

“Those were the last of the petitioners, sire,” the herald stated. A few unrestrained yet muted sighs and exclamations came from the gathered crowd. He knew there were no more petitioners, but the herald stuck to his script.

Ned didn’t.

“Then I call upon Robert, son of Eddard of the Great House of Stark, and Jon, son of Eddard of the Great House of Stark, to step forth.”

For a second, the twins shared a quick, horrified glance, the same one they shared when caught in their mischief when they were children. They quickly got over it. Robb shook his head, Jon took a deep breath, and both made their way towards the throne, dropping to a knee. Their movements were graceful and practised, but had a perfunctory quality that showed their rattled nerves.

“My lord,” they said at the same time, gaze bowed. “I am at your service.”

“Robert. Jon,” he began, unable to keep his fatherly pride from his voice. “You are barely a couple moons shy from your fifth and tenth nameday. Adulthood will soon be upon you. Yet children you remain, when I need men to face the coming winter. You are virtuous and skilled, something that is clear to all who meet you. But first and foremost, you’re ready. Therefore, I see no reason to delay it any further.”

He stood up, and with a booming, solemn and commanding voice, he sentenced: “I, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Lord Paramount of the Winterlands, Warden of the North and Hand of the King, name you grown men of adult age, enabling you to render all the duties and services you owe and enjoy all the privileges and benefits that you are due, with full liberty, unrestricted by reason of insufficient age.”

The entire assembly erupted into loud cheers and applause. It was almost amusing to note how different the reactions were between the natives and the foreigners: the Northerners, be they family, wards, lords, attendants or servants, cheered enthusiastically for the two young men whose growth they had witnessed and now saw crowned. The Southerners, on the other hand, did so with little to no fervour, for they had no stakes in such a resolution, and barely knew them for that matter. Still, they were courteous enough to put a token effort to appear genuine, even if it was blatantly clear to Ned that they did so out of the duty of being good guests.

Indeed, Robert was the only Southerner whose raucous applause was true, and it was not for the sake of Robb and Jon, but for the love he held for their father. On the other end of the spectrum, Prince Joffrey did not applaud but fumed, bemused. The two cats of Lannister applauded, identical wry smirks in their dissimilar faces.

Robb and Jon stood up with shaky movements. They seemed almost overwhelmed both by their father’s grant and by the assembly’s response, but they were also proud. They looked at each other with a sense of pride and accomplishment, proud at their achievements, proud at their father’s recognition, and proud of themselves and the men they were turning into.

It never ceased to amaze him just how similar his twins were, when they weren’t even twins in the first place, but cousins. Thick as thieves, their personalities and skills complemented each other with a thoroughness that was utterly befuddling. The lie had taken deeper roots than he ever dared to dream possible.

Of course, as far as he was concerned, it was no lie. Jon was his son, and Robb’s twin brother, and if Rhaegar Targaryen had anything to say to that, he was more than welcome to come back to life; Ned would gladly finish the job Robert Baratheon began.

Lord Eddard Stark allowed the applause to carry on for a few moments, before raising his right arm, palm wide open towards the audience, to call for their attention. He wasn’t done yet. Oh, not even close.

Servants stepped forth, six in all, three matching pairs of gifts held in their hands. Jon was the first to notice them, and Ned would forever treasure how his expression slackened in sheer and utter awe, dark eyes wide and disbelieving, mouth agape. Notified of his twin’s shock by their eldritch telepathy, Robb turned towards Jon, brow furrowed in concern, then followed his gaze towards the pot of dirt, sword and ring the servants brought with them. His eldest wasn’t as transparent in his reaction, but he was most certainly taken aback.

His sons’ reactions made nothing but perfect sense.

Robb was always meant to be a lord.

Jon had never expected it.

“To mark this momentous occasion,” he added, in the same commanding tone as before, “I bestow upon you the following honours.” The first couple of servants advanced towards the twins, bent their knees, and handed them a simple pot of dirt and soil. They received it gingerly, Robb with solemn-if-nervous dignity, Jon with awe and amazement. “Robert of House Stark, I name you Lord of Wolverhampton, and by Aemon’s Charter, entitle you to the lands, incomes, rights and bannermen you are therefore due. Jon of House Stark, I name you Lord of Palewood, and by Aemon’s Charter, entitle you to the lands, incomes, rights and bannermen you are therefore due. These lands are yours in allodium, to be held by you and your heirs in perpetuity, and never be taken away, in exchange for nothing but the good faith and loyalty you have proved time after time.” The words pronounced, the servants took the pots of soil from the twins’ hands, and marched towards the aisles.

“These blades,” he said, and the servants bearing the ceremonial swords stepped forth, bent their knees, and gave the blades to each of the twins. Their hilt was made of shining silver, decorated with gleaming rubies, and sheathed in the finest silk and satin this side of the Narrow Sea, “stand for your rights of arms and leadership, of deliberation and resolution, of pits and gallows. With them, you shall protect the weak and punish the wicked. May you never unsheathe them for an unjust cause, but only to defend your rights and those of your people.” The words pronounced, the servants took the blades from the twins’ hands, and proceeded to gird them upon their belts.

“And these rings,” he said, and the servants bearing the rings stepped forth, bent their knees, and put the rings on each twin’s right index finger, “stand for my compromise, as your liege lord, to always have a place for you by my hearth, and meat and mead at my table; to never infringe upon your rights, and to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonour. I, Eddard, son of Rickard of the Great House of Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Lord Paramount of the Winterlands, Warden of the North and Hand of the King, do so swear it by the Old Gods and the New.”

If his sons had been shaken before, they were positively flummoxed now. Stricken, paralysed, dumbstruck and frozen on the spot. Robb was breathing heavily. Jon blinked over and over, as if trying to shake his brain back into a functioning state.

Ned spared a look at the rest of his family. Bran, Arya, Harry, Maisie, Theon, Domeric Bolton and Torrhen Karstark were applauding and hooting rabidly, as were the other wards of Winterfell. So did Sansa, on the verge of tears. Catelyn was long gone past the threshold, and was openly weeping in pride, much to Dacey’s kind amusement. Anton was clearly unimpressed, but still applauded, though considerably less enthusiastically than Steffon Dustin did by his side.

If Prince Joffrey had been bemused at their adulthood, now he was positively boiling with envy. The “children” he had dismissed so contemptuously just a couple of days before now stood in front of him not only as grown men, but lords in their own right. Meanwhile, Prince Joffrey, heir to the Iron Throne, had nothing to his name but a promise. Whatever authority and power he held, it extended only as far as his father allowed him; which is to say, absolutely nowhere.

The Southern lords were earnest in their acclaim now, proud as they were to be witnesses to the investiture of their two newest peers. To be Lord of Wolverhampton was a badge of honour, the title reserved to the acknowledged heir apparent to Winterfell and the North, as the Principality of Dragonstone had been to the Iron Throne. The Lord of Palewood, while not a truly distinguished lordship in its own right, was an appanage traditionally reserved for second sons, with vast ownings to the northeast of Winterfell. 

Both titles had been long dormant. The last person to hold the Lordship of Palewood from beginning to end was Bennard Stark, regent for his nephew Lord Cregan. Bennard’s abuse of power and brazen defiance to his nephew meant his downfall and disinheritance. Due to the sad fates the Gods reserved for the wolves of Winterfell in the following century, all future Lords of Palewood always ended up succeeding a childless elder brother as Lord of Winterfell. It was Ned’s most ardent hope that Jon would buck the trend, and establish his own cadet branch in his new lordship.

The last Lord of Wolverhampton, meanwhile, had been Donnor Stark, Ned’s great-granduncle, who died childless and was succeeded by his younger brother, Lord Willam of Palewood, who, in turn, was slain by the wildling king Raymun Redbeard when his son Edwyle was only a child. Edwyle himself too had died long before his only son, Rickard, became a grown man and was invested as such. Brandon was supposed to become Lord of Wolverhampton upon his marriage. Neither ever came to be.

Jon was the first to regain his composure, and what he said pleased Ned greatly.

“You have asked no vow of us, my lord,” he said, voice nervous yet purposeful, “but regardless, allow us to take one.” Robb nodded, and so they both dropped to a knee, put their hands together as if in prayer, and began, in unison.

“I, Robert, son of Eddard of the Great House of Stark, Lord of Wolverhampton—”

“I, Jon, son of Eddard of the Great House of Stark, Lord of Palewood—”

“— vow allegiance to your name and house. I vow to keep faith with you and your heirs until the end of time, to never cause you harm and to serve you with no malice nor deceit. My keep is yours. My servants are yours. My domains and my armies are at your service. My glories and my shames, my victories and my defeats, my life and that of my family, they all belong to you, for I am your man, in life and limb, to be commanded as you please. I do so swear it by the Old Gods and the New.”

The applause grew only in intensity and fervour. Sansa’s composure broke, and began to cry, just as loudly and undignified as her mother. Queen Cersei looked conflicted at their display, disdain and understanding both warring in her green eyes.

The vow made was the one they had learned to recite by heart as part of their lessons. They had not strayed from the script, and while the pride he felt to count his sons as his men was immeasurable, Ned couldn’t deny his great amusement at the fact that Robb swore allegiance to Ned’s heirs. 

What heirs? He laughed internally. You are my heir! And if by some twist of fate, Robb was not to be Ned’s heir, then keeping faith with them would most certainly not be his problem anymore, dead and buried as he would be. It was a morbid thought, but amusing enough to stave off the terrible dread it never failed to elicit in his insides.

Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell stepped forth, and put his hands on top of his newest bannerman’s own, signalling his acceptance. 

“Rise, Lord Robert Stark of Wolverhampton. Serve me well.”

“I will, my lord,” Robb nodded, proud and resolute.

He did the same with Jon.

“Rise, Lord Jon Stark of Palewood. Serve me well.”

“I will, my lord,” Jon said, a subtle sniff being the only tell of his overwhelmed awe beginning to threaten his stoic composure.

His part done, Ned saw no need to batter him any further.

“Now, if you forgive me, my Lord Palewood, I would have one more thing to speak of with Lord Wolverhampton,” he said, using the short-form traditionally favoured for cadet branches yet unnamed. It was also substantially less ridiculous than saying ‘Lord Stark’ every other sentence. “You are dismissed.”

“My Lord Stark,” Jon bowed, and left to join the rest of the family by the aisles. Unsurprisingly, he was immediately mobbed by his siblings.

“I am at your service, my lord,” Robb said. His voice did not waver, certain as he was in what was to come. Ned wasn’t surprised; not only was his eldest a quick one, but the silver bejewelled livery collar the approaching servant carried was hardly subtle. Cat sobbed even harder.

“As you know, by the end of the sennight, I will march south to join the King’s court and be his Hand. As I cannot rule Winterfell and the North from King’s Landing, I need a man to hold it for me, to preside over court and pass judgement, and protect it from all enemies, both within and without. Are you this man, my Lord Wolverhampton?”

“By the Old Gods and the New,” Robb swore, conviction hard as steel, “I am your man, my lord.”

Lord Eddard Stark nodded, and took the livery collar in his own hands. “Then I name you Lord Regent of the North and Castellan of Winterfell,” he said, and put it atop Lord Robert Stark’s shoulders. “May you wear your new badge of office with pride and honour, and may its weight be a reminder of the gravity of your new duties.”

And with thundering applause, a new Lord came to rule over the North.

Chapter Text

Lord Robert Stark of Wolverhampton and Lord Jon Stark of Palewood.

The words seemed surreal and strange in her mind and mouth, unnatural and unfathomable, far removed from any reality she had ever known or thought possible. Yet when Catelyn saw her two boys be ordained as lords, something inside of her snapped in the most wonderful of ways.

Her two boys, made adults by grace when only yesterday she had woken up to find out that she had given birth to not one but two healthy and beautiful sons.

Her two babes, who one day played with wooden swords, now held the blade and ring of lordship, celebrated by the lords of the North and the court.

Lord Robert Stark of Wolverhampton and Lord Jon Stark of Palewood.

How could she not wail like a babe herself, her body overflowing with love, joy, pride, fear, bursting at the seams?

So what if Queen Cersei sneered in her direction, dripping with venom and disdain? Catelyn would like to see the murderous, two-faced bitch keep a straight face when her ‘Sweet Little Joffy’ was crowned King.

And by his side, her Arya, queen.

What was life anymore? Catelyn could not tell. In so swift a fortnight, everything she took for granted, every certainty in her life was turned upside down in both the most wonderful and terrifying of ways.

Robb and Jon, her mischievous boys, grown men and ordained lords. Her infuriatingly untameable Arya, betrothed to the Crown Prince. Her Bran, riding south to become a knight. Her Ned, leaving to rule the realm as the King’s right hand.

Her boys, thrust into the responsibilities and perils of a man’s life long before they were ready, when they still needed a father and a mother. Her Arya and Bran, both so young and taken from her. Her Ned, dauntlessly walking into the deadly nest of vipers and adders that was the royal court.

Jon Arryn, murdered by the Queen. Lysa, driven into hiding.

One minute, she felt nothing but pure bliss, all of her dreams come true. The next, the most dreadful fear she had ever experienced, the crows wheeling above her family, awaiting a feast. And so it was that her moods succeeded each other as frequently as Lord Walder Frey changed wives.

She only knew one thing for certain: the Gods had seen fit to choose her family for their unknowable designs. She could only pray fervently for their mercy and benevolence.

But as her father had always taught her, the Gods bestow their aid upon those that aid themselves. She would do her part. She always did.

Catelyn would leave for the Eyrie, yes, but first, Robb would need her help seeing through any and all challenges that might endanger his regency.

Like the Snow in their midst.

When she first saw Rickard, Catelyn felt an irrational panic chill her to her bones, the Snow she had long feared finally stepping through the gates of Winterfell and presenting himself in front of the throne of the Kings of Winter to lay his claim.

The fear quickly dissipated into relief. Rickard was not the bastard Catelyn had been warned of. He was most certainly Brandon Stark’s son, but there was no trace of Ashara Dayne’s haunting beauty in him. He shared the same ears, brow and mouth as the common woman who claimed him as her son.

Then, the familiar anger, scorn and resentment that made her blood boil made itself known. He was not the bastard she had been warned of, just another bastard. Yet again, she saw herself dishonoured and scorned by the late Brandon Stark, and this time with a plump and pox-stricken peasant woman. Ashara Dayne, she could understand, with her otherworldly beauty and Dornish ways. But this? Were there no depths low enough for that sad excuse of a man to sink to? 

And then, a feeling she didn’t expect, one that took her by surprise when she felt it take hold of her heart.

Endearment.

Upon reflection, Cat realised it had been the way Rickard’s eyes gleamed like stars as he was granted a place under Ser Rodrik’s guard, a life-long dream finally attained. A dream he was perfectly entitled to have: an opportunity to be a knight, an opportunity to earn a name for himself, and, given the way he had glanced at his mother with nothing but love and devotion, an opportunity to grant his mother the comfortable living her father had denied her, for the salary of a household knight was nothing to sneer at.

He was happy.

Like Robb when he solved a conundrum, like Jon when he was learning new things, like Sansa when Domeric sang to her, like Arya when she got up to new mischiefs, like Bran when he bested a foe in the sparring ground, like Rickon when he played with his cousins.

There was nothing in his eyes but childish glee and pride.

Rickard was a bastard, born of lust and dishonour. But first and foremost, he was a child, like the cousins he didn’t know he had. She could hate a Snow, but she could never hate a child.

Perhaps he would yet grow to become a threat. But there was no use in getting ahead of herself; for now, he was to be Ser Rodrik’s concern, and the old master-at-arms had a good eye for people. If Rickard was unworthy in limb or thought, he would be culled from the guard. Catelyn had other, far more pressing ones to attend to.

Like stopping Arya from dry-heaving every time she heard about her betrothal.

In all honesty, it was high time that she spoke to both her daughters about their upcoming marriages. Her husband had ensured that her twins became men; it fell to her to usher Sansa and Arya through to womanhood. And if not now, when?

Girlhood was as sweet as the spring, but passed just as quickly. Just as she could not deny her sons their spurs and shield them from the iron and blood that made and unmade men in the killing grounds, neither could she deny her daughters the marriage and childrearing for which they were born. Such was their duty, and for all their differences in gods, customs and even language, both Tullys and Starks held nothing but the utmost devotion towards the duties that were expected of them.

Her daughters were true to their houses. They would not dishonour them by shirking their duties. Catelyn had to make sure of it.

“Fetch the ladies Sansa and Arya and bring them to my quarters, for I have important matters to speak with them, and them alone; their direwolves cannot come along,” she ordered a nearby maid. The maid promptly curtsied and left. With nothing else to do in the meantime, Catelyn sat down in her usual chair, closest to the hearthfire.

There was no ceremony to mark a girl’s transition into womanhood. Flowering itself was a lousy and frankly terrifying experience, with none of the applause, recognition or support her sons had received, but a shameful affair, left behind closed doors and whispers. Rarely would fathers host feasts to celebrate a daughter in the same way they did sons. Catelyn held no bitterness about such neglect; the Gods had willed for womanhood to be a mysterious and opaque subject forever overshadowed by manhood, and that was that.

Yet, that was no reason to let her daughters stumble their way through it. Within her quiet solar, Catelyn would spare their daughters no details. She would tell them all: what their duties truly entailed, what their lives would look like, and what they would need to do to be able to thrive, even in the face of adversity.

Not that Sansa and Arya were uneducated on the matter; Septa Mordane had taught them much. But a Septa married no man but the Gods, and one and the other had little in common. They spoke not from experience, for they had none. At the very least, Catelyn knew full well what she was talking about. It was more than what Septa Mordane could do for them, and more than what her mother had been able to do for Catelyn, taken into the Gods’ embrace before she had flowered.

She glanced out of the window, watching the summer snows fall softly.

If she envied men one thing, it was the certainty and stability their lives held. Her brother Edmure was born the heir to Riverrun, and would die the Lord of Riverrun, surrounded by the same people he had known his entire life, his body being brought to rest upon the same river on which he learnt to swim as a child.

She had no such privilege. No woman did: nothing stayed the same for them, and rarely would they keep in old age what they once had in childhood. Not even their name.

But those truths, harsh though they undoubtedly were, needn’t be a bad thing, if men and Gods both willed it so.

Her father had arranged the most splendid matches for his daughters. The Gods had seen fit to bless hers, turning her duties into her bliss and happiness. They hadn’t extended their grace to poor Lysa.

Hearing a knock on the door, Catelyn snapped out of her daze and turned. “Come in,” she said firmly.

The maid held the door open as her daughters filed in. 

Arya looked positively hunted, her posture slouched as she trailed behind Sansa, shoulders hunched up around her ears, eyes darting around Catelyn’s quarters like a trapped beast. It was unfortunate that her youngest daughter seemed to think the only reason Catelyn would call for her was to reprimand her, but hardly unexpected when, in fact, that was usually the case.

Catelyn, however, was taken aback by the fact that Sansa herself seemed more tense than usual. Her tells were different from Arya, more subtle, but she knew her daughter well: instead of hiding glumly in the shadows like a fearful urchin, Sansa stood bolt upright, chin tilted up and shoulders squared back. 

Sansa never did that; she was dismayed by her tall and lanky build, always slumping slightly to seem shorter and more delicate. Thus, she never threw her shoulders back like that unless she was preparing herself for what she thought was a confrontation.

What reason Sansa had to expect a row, Catelyn couldn’t even fathom. Was Arya’s apprehension merely customary, or was it connected to her elder sister’s? Are they hiding something? she wondered, but given that nothing was on fire, it was hardly important, and so, a subject for another day. 

“Sansa, Arya,” she smiled, gesturing towards the space beside her, “please sit.”

“Mother,” Sansa smiled back, perfectly pleasant, nothing in her voice belying her anxiousness.

Arya mumbled her greetings, evidently wanting to be anywhere but here. Still, she sat. As always, Arya’s attitude left much to be desired, but in her actions she proved dutiful. That might have been good enough for an unmarried daughter of Winterfell, but wouldn’t do for a lady of Royal Court, much less the queen herself. At the very least, Arya needed to leave her solar understanding why she needed to mind her manners. If Catelyn achieved that, she would consider it a success.

Catelyn sighed theatrically, but her melancholy was true. “It wasn’t so long ago that the two of you used to crawl along the floor of this room. But now the time when you shall leave Winterfell for good draws ever nearer. Wherever did the time go?” Catelyn said wistfully.

“Fucking kill me now,” Arya muttered, slumping on her chair.

That would do even less.

“Arya! Mind your language!” Catelyn scolded her.

“Right, right, sorry,” Arya said, before trying again. “Fucking kill me now, please.”

Catelyn sighed. She knew her youngest daughter took misbehaving and rudeness to an art form, yet somehow Arya always managed to surprise her. Perhaps it was her own fault for expecting better.

Sansa shook her head, shuddering. “How ever did you learn such frightful words?”

Arya stared at Sansa blankly. 

“… We have two elder brothers, a whole bunch of wards from all across the North, and Theon. How haven’t you learnt those words? Are you deaf, dim, or just a liar?”

Sansa made to retort, but Catelyn loudly clapped her hands together, shutting them down instantly before the conversation could degrade into one of their usual sisterly screaming matches. “That will be enough of that, girls, thank you very much.” Catelyn ignored the nasty faces they made at each other as she continued. “This is a serious discussion that we must have. I’ll not be pleased if you continue to behave like children.”

“I am a child,” Arya muttered under her breath. Catelyn almost rolled her eyes. Arya Stark was only ever a child when it suited her.

“No, you are not,” Catelyn said sternly, but not without love. “Not anymore.” She meant those words wholeheartedly, but a part of her was still saddened to say them out loud. “And that means there are things we need to talk about. I had thought to do this separately, but you are sisters, and I will tell you now. There are some things in this world that only a sister can understand. The two of you have a bond of blood that cannot be broken, be it by distance or time. Leave your childish quarrels behind. You must support and shelter each other, through thick and thin, because a day may come when no one else might.”

Sansa remained silent.

Arya snorted. “Jon would,” she said, as if that settled it.

“Would he?” Catelyn asked pointedly. “He has his own lordship now, and one too far away from the Royal Court.” Even still, Catelyn knew her second son would move heaven and earth to protect his youngest sister if need be. She only feared he would be too late, just as a previous second son of Stark had been.

“Yeah, and the Dreadfort is even further away,” Arya pointed out. “What’s your point?”

Catelyn sighed. Why must Arya insist on fighting her at every step of the way? “The Royal Court is a dangerous place. Beautiful, yes,” she said before Sansa could do so, “but dangerous. And no one there is more endangered than the queen herself.”

Sansa frowned. “Why would the queen ever be endangered? She’s married to the king. She’s untouchable.”

To her surprise, Arya replied before she could. “Is she?” she said bitterly. “Not like there’s a shortage of stupid girls wanting to take her place…”

Crudely put, as always, but Arya had hit the nail on the head. “And if the queen is rude and wilful, why would the king remain with her?” Catelyn asked pointedly. Arya took a sharp breath, irritated, but said nothing. Her voice softened. “Arya, I know. Trust me, I know how unhappy this match makes you—”

Arya straightened eagerly. “Does that mean—”

“No,” Catelyn said emphatically before her daughter could say something that could get her into trouble. Catelyn would not let her even entertain the thought of breaking this betrothal, not when the King had put her Ned in such a difficult position. “For better or for worse, Joffrey will be your husband.”

Arya could contain herself no longer, she sprang from the seat. “IT’S NOT FAIR!” she shouted to all heavens to hear.

Her heart ached for her wild little daughter, it truly did. Why else would Catelyn have spent so much time trying to help her? To guide her, to mould her into someone that wouldn’t fail, crash and burn when her fate finally came to meet her? It went without saying that she had failed utterly, but truthfully, failure had been the only option when Ned and Dacey had opted to side with Arya instead of with her. 

But she would not yield.

Instead she allowed her sympathy to curl into righteous rage as she stood, towering over her daughter in turn. “And do you think I found it fair,” she hissed, “when I stood in my father’s solar, just as you are now, being told that I must leave the Riverlands, my home, forever? To wed a man I had never met, from a house whom no one I had known since girlhood could tell me anything about? From a house who no one knew more of than their sigil and their words? Was it fair when that man was murdered and I was told I would marry his younger brother instead? Do you think anyone ever asked me what I thought about it? Was that fair, Arya?”

Arya had nothing to say in response, eyes wide and horrified as if struck. But Catelyn had not yet made her point.

“You will go, and you will do it. Because you are a daughter of both Houses Stark and Tully. You are the daughter of Eddard Stark, you are my daughter, and we will not have a daughter who thinks so low of her family, her honour and her duty as to throw it all out the window because ‘she didn’t want to’. This is your duty, Arya Stark, and by the Old Gods and the New, you will do it.”

Her youngest daughter seemed profoundly shaken, sad and scared, close to tears. It was a heart wrenching expression, and Catelyn hated being the culprit for it, she truly did, but she would rather cause her daughter some pain now, than have her face serious harm in the future, at the hands of people who only wished her harm.

She was not deaf to the whispers. She knew why Robert Baratheon was so intractable as to demand Arya for his son. But her Arya would not be another Lyanna Stark. She would not.

So she took a breath, and collected herself, tucking the flyaway hairs that tended to spring out of her braid whenever she grew agitated back behind her ears. Ned found those untameable wisps of bronze endearing. Ridiculous man.

“So. Sit back down, and let us discuss your situations like grown women.”

For once, Arya did as she was told without argument. The fight had gone out of her. Catelyn took a deep breath and sat back down herself.

It was then that her eldest spoke, carefully and tentatively, but bravely too. Catelyn remembered clearly how at that age it was no easy thing to put yourself between an angry parent and a younger sibling; to turn their attention, and possibly their wrath, away onto yourself instead.

“Prince Joffrey cannot be that bad. He’s gallant and handsome, at least, as a prince should be.”

She sighed. Oh, if only it was that simple. Catelyn was more concerned about the fact that Joffrey had shown signs that he wasn’t just gallant and handsome. She had heard of how he had spoken down to Robb, how disdainful he was to anyone he deemed beneath his princely status. Prince Joffrey, truly, seemed to be his mother’s son, and not only in his fair looks and manners.

And this was the other side of the coin. How had she managed to give birth to two daughters who were so completely antithetical to each other? She turned her attention to Sansa, who immediately braced. Arya kept staring at the floor, deflated.

Catelyn hesitated. She didn’t want to crush Sansa’s dreams, for marriage could, indeed, be a most wonderful thing. It had been a blessing for her and she had no doubt Domeric would give Sansa the same happiness Ned had given her.

Neither Robb nor Jon would abide by anything else. Nor Theon, for that matter; Sansa had no shortage of protectors. Even Anton, for all that they could barely stand each other’s presence nowadays, always kept a watchful eye from a distance.

But there were also certain realities that Catelyn knew her daughter was blind to, if not outright deluded.

“Sansa,” she asked with trepidation; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know just how naïve her eldest daughter truly was. “What do you think your life will be like, when you marry Domeric?”

Her daughter’s eyes glittered. “Oh, it shall be perfect . Dom is the perfect gentleman, truly chivalrous. He’ll play me the high harp every day, and we shall have parties and feasts and tourneys and children. I think six is a good number, four boys and three girls. I’ve already picked out their names!”

“That’s seven,” Arya corrected instinctively, utterly disgusted at the sugary sweet flavour of her sister’s fantasies. At the very least, her bemusement had distracted her from her own crushing put-down.

Sansa blushed at her mistake and after a moment’s silence admitted, “I would like seven, for it’s a perfect number, but Dom thinks that might be too many for me to bear. He wanted four. We settled on six.”

Well, it is a good thing that she’s planning these things, I suppose , Catelyn conceded. Domeric might be right, though; seven is too ambitious a number. I may have been blessed with good fortune, the twins notwithstanding, but my mother was hardly so lucky and neither has been my sister.

That Sansa took for granted that she would somehow be capable of carrying even six children to term and give birth to them safely was another thing Catelyn would have to discuss with her daughter, but that was another conversation entirely. And children came later than marriage. Perhaps her first child might be enough to open her eyes.

So she turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

“And how often will your future husband be able to provide you with feasts and tourneys?” Catelyn asked leadingly, trying to usher her daughter to a more realistic point of view.

Sansa rolled her eyes, as if that was no concern. “Yes, mother, I’m well aware that Lord Bolton won’t let us do much now. But when Domeric rules and I am the Lady of the Dreadfort, things shall be different.”

Catelyn still hesitated. It had been one of the things she missed the most, coming up to live in the North. Not so much the lack of tourneys, for she never saw the appeal in rich lordlings beating the everliving snot out of each other, but rather the festivals; the music, the dancing, the good food and the good cheer. The North was not lacking in those, certainly, but they were not the same, and so she missed them.

“Will it?” she asked carefully. “Change is a difficult thing, and the Boltons are a proud Northern house, cold and severe.” Their keep was called The Dreadfort, for crying out loud. “Domeric might have different sensitivities, and love music and art as much as you do, but I doubt those in the Dreadfort will be so eager to spend their hard-earned coin and precious food and drink with such ease. Don’t forget their winters are even harsher than ours.”

Sansa’s retort was quick as a whip. “Dom wishes to change the way House Bolton are viewed in the North and abroad. What better way to put his house’s unsavoury past to rest than to encourage festivals and tourneys, arts and music?” It was a fair point, Catelyn had to admit.

It would be a daunting task, to be sure, but there was no better candidate for it than a daughter of the direwolf. If Sansa could see it to fruition, she would have done far more than simply bind House Bolton to Winterfell for two generations, but spur a profound and lasting change in the fabric that made up House Bolton, wear away at their prideful insistence of clinging to their dark and brutal histories. 

If Sansa could do that… 

Who could ask anything of her, then? She would become the pivot on which the future of not only House Bolton but the entire North would hinge.

Her daughter, her Sansa, no longer just beautiful and sweet but driven and tenacious enough to withstand the stubborn pride of others, and cunning and wise enough to bring even the oldest and most dangerous monsters in the North to heel. She could almost see it, even now, the powerful iron lady her sweet girl could become.

But her girl was still so young, so inexperienced and naïve, many ways away from becoming that woman. Surely some honest advice would not go amiss.

She took Sansa’s hand into her own. “I understand. But what you wish to do is a bold undertaking.” She held her other hand up as Sansa opened her mouth, to forestall her daughter’s protests. “Make no mistake, it is extremely ambitious to change a house’s culture, and in a single generation no less. If you truly wish to do this, then I support you wholeheartedly, but you must do it right . You must be critical in how you spend every single copper, spend them wisely and consciously. And you must be mindful of how it all might come across not only to your friends, but to your detractors and the common people too. How would your people feel, when they are starving in the depths of winter, if you and Domeric are spending all your food on feasts and parties to which they are not included?”

“How ever could they be party to it?” Sansa asked, genuinely confused. “They’re just commonfolk.” 

“The same way your father has done; every feast in the keep is a festival in the streets. Just as you revel and enjoy yourself, so should they. And just as you prosper, so should they,” Catelyn said. “You just cannot simply bring in an excess of merchants and singers from abroad to meet your needs, but rather, use them as a supplement to grow the expertise within those already there. Elsewise, you risk a backlash that your husband will not be able to shield you from. You must prove to your people that this new way will be better, for them, for their children and their grandchildren. Not just for you.

“Much of it, it is true, is a lord’s duty. You say Domeric will support you, and I believe you. But if his heir does not, then all will be for naught. If you truly want these changes to lay root, you must teach your children to be mindful that there’s more to this world than just the North. Just as your father and I have taught you.”

She turned to Arya, who immediately grimaced.

“The same could be said to you.”

“But I don’t want to change anything. I just want people to leave me alone,” she said sullenly, crossing her arms morosely.

“I know. But they won’t, Arya. And they most certainly won’t if you’re anything but the perfect queen. They will hound you, they will conspire against you, and they will do their utmost to hurt you. Do you understand why I want, why I need you to behave like a proper lady?”

“Yeah.” Arya muttered.

Catelyn didn’t budge. She needed to hear Arya say the words. “Tell me why.”

“Because otherwise I’m fucked,” she spat, clearly wanting to get a rise out of her mother.

“Yes. Because otherwise you’re fucked.” Both her daughters turned to look at her almost scandalised (rather hypocritically, in Arya’s case) at her choice of words. Catelyn forced herself to smile. “Yes. I just swore. It’s just that important, Arya.”

“This sucks,” she breathed out moodily.

“Yes, my sweet girl, it does,” she admitted, a change of strategy dawning in her mind. Her daughter hated what was expected of her. Nothing could change that simple fact, and gods knew she had tried. But if she couldn’t do it for her own benefit, perhaps could she do it out of sheer spite? “You’re being set up to fail. Will you let them defeat you? Shame you, displace you, harm you? Beat you, Arya Stark of Winterfell?”

Arya looked up, her grey eyes blazing with defiance once again.

“They can rot in all Seven Hells for all I care. They won’t beat me. I’ll be the best Queen to ever queen, just you see,” she stated, full of bluster and not all of it empty.

Catelyn smiled. “That’s my girl. But if you want to win, you’ll need to beat them at their own game. That’s why you have to play along.”

“Because otherwise I’m fucked,” Arya nodded.

“Swearing won’t get you anywhere, Arya,” Sansa chided her.

“Shut up, you’re not my mum,” she retorted, but there was no bite to her bark.

“I am. Swearing won’t get you anywhere, Arya,” Catelyn said, allowing herself to enjoy a small reprieve of good humour. “Children, however, will be your best shield. For both of you. A childless wife is easy to displace. But one who has succeeded in birthing heirs? Now that’s an entirely different matter.”

And speaking of children.

Catelyn hesitated for a brief instant, but she wouldn’t lie to her children. Not now, not when their lives were on the line, even if Sansa’s delicate heart might break. “And if I can give you just one last piece of advice… Don’t have many children. Once the succession is ensured, begin taking moon tea.”

“Gladly!” Arya replied immediately. No need to tell her twice.

Sansa, however, appeared blindsided. “What? Why?”

“Carrying children leaves a toll on the body. And birthing them…” she trailed off. “There’s a reason why childbirth is called a Woman’s Battlefield.”

“Yes, because it’s our duty!” Sansa pointed out, deeply agitated. Clearly, she was devoted to the idea of mothering a large brood, to the point that the mere thought of the moon tea was sinful to her. The downsides of being raised by a Septa, Catelyn supposed. They knew all about the Gods, and nothing about motherhood.

“Because we can die, Sansa. We can bleed out. We might contract birth seizures. We might pass out and never wake up.” Lost forever to a haze of darkness and a raven’s shrill caw, as she almost did. Dark wings, dark words. If she misliked ravens before, she did so even more after her first delivery was plagued by them in her feverish nightmares.

Sansa remained stubborn. “Yes, but that won’t happen to me! I’ll be fine, mother, I promise!”

“My own mother died in childbirth. I myself almost died giving birth to your brothers,” Catelyn rebuked her. “How can you promise such a thing? It’s left to the Gods to decide our fates, and sometimes, the Gods can be cruel.”

“How can you tell us such dreadful things?” Sansa asked, her voice wavering and brittle, close to tears.

“Is it so different from asking my sons to not wage war mindlessly and stay out of needless danger?” Catelyn asked. “Any grandchild I would treasure dearly, but the life of my daughters isn’t a price worth paying for them. And I know you must have children. But every term is fraught with peril, Sansa. I’ve been the luckiest and most blessed of women, with six wonderful children, but even I have struggled and almost lost more than once.” Perhaps they had seen fit to remove the memory from their minds, but Rickon’s birth left her bedridden for almost an entire moon. It was at that moment that Ned and her had decided that enough was enough, and promptly included the moon tea into her diet. 

“But– But—!” Sansa tried to protest, but her composure was quickly starting to break. Arya looked utterly befuddled at her sister’s behaviour.

Catelyn softened her tone. “Think of your project, Sansa. Can it survive without you? Would Domeric continue it, if you aren’t there to share it with him? And what about the children you leave behind, forever motherless?”

Sansa broke down into tears. Arya not-so-subtly inched away from her.

Catelyn, however, stood up and walked towards the sofa upon which they sat, and took them both into her embrace.

None made to lean into it, for Sansa’s composure was beyond salvation, and Arya couldn’t be any more uncomfortable next to her blubbering sibling.

“Oh my little girls,” Catelyn whispered into their hair, “life will not be easy. Not for either of you. I know. And I am so, so sorry.”

“Mind if I join you?” Ned asked.

His son jumped in surprise, eyes snapping wide open. He stumbled upon a root, but kept his footing.

“Gah!” he gasped. “Father! I– I didn’t see you there!”

“Hard to see when your eyes are closed,” he said lightly.

“... Right,” Robb shook his head. Under the light of the moon, his ears looked as pale as the rest of his face, but a father knew his child’s tells; they were burning red with embarrassment. “I… I didn’t hear you arrive, either,” he added lamely.

Ned smiled. “They do call me ‘the Quiet Wolf’ for a reason, you know.” At least, Brandon did, and Howland took up the nickname. Gods knew if anyone else ever called him that. “And you were quite focused there.”

Robb frowned. “Were you watching me?”

“Only for a while,” he admitted.

What he saw gave him pause. His son rested upon bent knees before the heart tree, a longsword before him, the point thrust in the earth, his bare hands clasped around the hilt. And in his right index finger, the ring of Wolverhampton.

And his eyes were shut with force, no peaceable thoughts crossing behind them. They were troubled and conflicted.

“Am I interrupting your prayers?” Ned asked kindly. “Perhaps I should leave.”

“No,” Robb said. “There’s no need for that. I had already finished them a while ago. I was just… thinking, I guess.”

“The Godswood soothes the mind, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” Robb asked, looking into the sentinel trees. His voice was tired and weary.

“If your mind seeks peace, at least. If you’d rather dwell, brood and flagellate yourself with your regrets and fears until the White Walkers come, there is no balm available in this world or the next.” Just ask your uncle Benjen. Oh, wait, you can’t.

“... Right.” Robb said again, as he sheathed his longsword in its scabbard. “I’m… I’m okay. Truly. I’m fine, father.”

“Is that so?” Ned tilted his head. His son was most definitely not fine, but he wouldn’t push. Not with a frontal attack, at least. He had other things in mind. “Then you won’t mind me if I get down to business.”

“Business, father?” Robb asked. “What business? Is it about Wolverhampton? Should we leave for your solar?”

“No, there’s no need.” Ned shook his head. “The Godswood will do. Wolverhampton’s affairs will still be there in the morrow, but this moment of privacy won’t. Tell me, Robb. What is right next to my right foot?”

Robb shot him an utterly confused look, then directed his gaze down. His breath hitched.

“No,” he muttered. “No. No way. I cannot have it. I cannot.”

“Why not?” Ned asked good-naturedly. “It’s not like it’s going to be of much use in King’s Landing.”

Robb shook his head. “No. No no no no no no. I’m not…” he trailed off, his blue eyes wide and almost panicked.

“You’re not what? Worthy? It’s your birthright. Ready? Lest you forget, you’re a man grown, Lord Wolverhampton.”

“It’s yours!” Robb exclaimed. “Until the day you die!”

“Yes, it is,” Ned conceded, crouching and picking it up from the damp soil with both hands. “Just like Winterfell. And just like Winterfell, you are merely holding it for me, for I cannot hold it when I go away to the south. And one day it shall be yours, so perhaps you should be getting used to it.” Ned stepped closer to his son, and, as if he was giving up a child, handed Ice to him. “I won’t take a no for an answer.”

Robb’s blue eyes traced the length of their ancestral greatsword, sheathed as it was within layers upon layers of the finest wolf pelts. A colossal blade in all senses of the word, as wide across as a man’s hand and much taller than its newest wielder, barely edging out above Ned himself by an inch or two. Most families sought to embellish the hilts of their ancestral blades with jewellery, precious stones and engravings. Not so Ice: a simple, austere dark iron cruciform crossguard with golden rings at the tip of the quillons, a polished ironwood grip, and an elongated, disk-like golden pommel. Such had been the heirloom of the Starks of Winterfell for over four hundred years, only the most recent of several millenia’s worth of greatswords named Ice.

“Don’t misplace it,” Ned quipped lightly, as he let go of Ice, leaving it entirely upon his son’s embrace.

Robb tightened his hold. “Never.” he vowed. “Never. I will repay your faith tenfold. I won’t let you down, Father. I swear it, upon the Old Gods and the New.”

As Robb turned and laid Ice against the Heart Three’s ash-white trunk, Eddard Stark took a moment to appraise his son.

Dutiful. Clever. Unorthodox. Loyal. Moral. Brave. Cunning.

All of that, Ned had seen over the years, over lessons and hearthfire tales. But only now, as they stood in the honest solitude of the godswood, did Ned finally see Robb for what he truly was underneath it all.

A child.

His boy’s face was still a size too small for his features, round and smooth and with a reddish fuzz on a pale jaw. His hair, an uncombed mop of messy auburn curls. He had a coltish figure, his growing body uneven in proportions; a neck too short, shoulders too wide, a stocky torso and thin legs, yet missing a growing spurt or two until he reached his final height.

It was easy to forget that all of Robb was a potential he had yet to grow into. For so long, Robb had been his heir, his partner, his advisor and his apprentice. Now, he was Castellan of Winterfell, Lord of Wolverhampton and Lord Regent of the North, each title more prestigious than the last.

When was the last time that Ned saw him as his son, as his child, as he saw him now as they stood by the heart tree? He found that he didn’t know, and it filled his heart with anguish.

Lord Robert Stark was ready for the duties he was entrusted with, Ned knew without a doubt. But what about Robb, his Robb? Was he truly ready, or he merely acted as if he was, putting a strong and brave face for his sake? And if that was the case, how long would it take for the weight of being Lord Robert to break his boy?

“You’re scared,” Ned stated, with no hint of doubt in his voice.

Robb’s flinch confirmed it long before his mouth did, silence filling the Godswood, unbroken but for the crows’ shrill cries in the distance and the whistle of the night breeze, the leaves waving to its rhythm.

“How could I not?” he eventually muttered, deflating. “Lord of Wolverhampton, Castellan of Winterfell, Lord Regent of the North, Ice… It’s too much, father. It’s too much. I’m not ready.”

“You are,” Ned replied, but it felt hollow to his ears. 

“I’m not!” he snapped with sudden vehemence, turning around, blue eyes wide and terrified. “I wish that I was, but I’m not. I’m just a kid.”

Ned shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“I’m just a kid,” Robb repeated forcefully, “regardless of what you say on the matter. Gods!” he exclaimed, once again on the brink of panic, running his hand through his hair. “What am I going to do? I don’t know how to rule. I’ll make a mess out of everything, I just know it.”

“That’s enough,” Eddard Stark said firmly, bringing his son’s incoming freak-out into a halt. He stepped forth, and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You are ready. You’ve been trained for this moment your entire life. All those lessons were to prepare you for this moment. You were born for this, Robb.”

Robb looked down to his feet. “I don’t feel ready.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“Easy for you to say,” his son said scornfully.

“Indeed. It’s easy for me to say it when I have lived through it. I’ve been where you are, Robb, terrified out of my mind in the solitude of a Godswood, faced with ruling a lordship I never asked for. Difference is, I was never groomed for it. I genuinely didn’t know what I was doing. You do. You’ve done it already, even if under my guidance. You are ready, Robb, even if you don’t feel like it. There is no one better suited for it than you.”

“... I know,” Robb said, looking down towards the ground. “I know, okay? The lads have been telling me the same thing over and over again. I know it. But I just can’t bring myself to believe it. What if I mess it up? What if I fail and get us all killed? What if—?”

“We all fail. We all make mistakes. We’re only human, after all. But we learn from our mistakes, provided we live long enough to do so, and are humble enough to see where we went wrong. I won’t lie to you, Robb. You will make mistakes, just as I did. You’re still young. There’s so much you have to know yet. But you won’t be alone. Your mother will be with you to help you, and so will Maester Luwin. They have ruled the North just as much as I have. Lean on them, as a child does a crutch when first learning to walk.”

His son kept quiet, staring into the distance, into the whistling leaves of the Godswood.

“You are ready,” Ned said one last time.

“I’m not…” Robb began, then kept quiet. His gaze was anguished as he stared into the distance, into the shivering leaves of the Godswood. “... I’m not ready to be without you,” he eventually confessed, his voice small and weak.

“No one ever is,” Ned smiled sadly. “Not a day passes by in which I don’t miss my parents. Yet, such is the way of life. Parents must step aside to let their sons become their own men. Let’s be thankful ours is merely momentary. You won’t be a boy the next time we meet. Mayhaps you might even have a son of your own. Gods know it’s about time a Stark met his grandchild.”

“Or you might die,” Robb muttered. “You might die and I’ll never see you again.”

“I could have died in each and every single day of your life so far, some more than others.” The assault on Pyke came to mind. “Why does it bother you now that I won’t be here?”

“Because I won’t be able to say goodbye,” he said morosely. “I won’t even know until weeks after the fact.”

“If it makes any difference to you, I always thought goodbyes were overrated. There’s always more you wish you could have said or done. They give you no closure whatsoever.” Of all his family, he only ever got to say goodbye to Lyanna. Even to this day, it was her death the one that haunted him the most. If only he had been there earlier, if only he had had a maester by his side, if only, if only, if only … “And if I die, I do so knowing that, in my absence, the North will be in the best hands possible. Your hands.”

Robb sniffled.

“Thank you, father,” he whispered.

“And I’m so, so proud of you, Robert, don’t you ever doubt it. But…”

“But?”

Ned sighed. “But if you ever find your hand forced into evil, cruel deeds… Make sure you do them right.”

Robb blinked, taken off-guard. “... What?”

“You heard me. Be thorough. Be cautious. Be ruthless. Leave no stone unturned… And make sure they can’t trace it back to you. Do you understand?”

“Wait, but, father…” his son began.

Ned tightened his grip on Robb’s shoulder, maintaining full eye contact to emphasise the importance of his words. “Do. You. Understand?” he asked again.

Robb nodded, but his eyes were wide and unsure, confused and innocent. “Ye– yes, father. I… I understand.” He took a deep breath to compose himself. “I don’t like it, but I understand.” His blue gaze was now sad and regretful, but knowing. He didn’t have to say a word for Ned to know his son was thinking about Ludd Whitehill.

“You don’t have to like it, Robb. You just have to do it properly. Even if your hands have to be drenched in blood and your honour forever stained.”

“Even if it means murdering your own bannermen?” Robb asked, bravely refusing to look away.

Eddard Stark didn’t so much as blink. “Yes,” he stated bluntly, giving his son the answer he knew he had dreaded for years. “So long as it keeps you alive and safe. So long as it keeps our family alive and safe. That’s all that matters. That’s the only thing that matters.”

The hunt left at dawn.

For his parting feast, the King desired only the finest game the Wolfswood had to offer, and he wanted to be the one to hunt it himself. How he intended to do so when he was so fat he needed a stool to mount his horse, Bran did not know, but what he did know was that the hunt would be magnificent. 

Alongside the King rode Father, and with them, Lord Wolverhampton and Lord Palewood, their newly created banners being unfurled for the first time, high and proud in the morning chill. The Prince, Theon, Domeric, Torrhen, the northern lordlings, and what seemed to be half the southern retinue had all rode with them into the Wolfswood, in what was sure to be the grandest hunt the North had ever seen.

Bran hadn’t been allowed to join.

“Fine by me,” he told cousin Harry, “I didn’t even want to hunt in the first place.”

Harry smiled. “Of course you didn’t, Bran,” he patted his back condescendingly.

“It’s true,” Bran insisted. “I can’t climb if I’m on a hunt.”

“Crazy fool,” Harry shook his head. “Why are you always climbing? One of these days you’re gonna fall and land on something as stubborn as you are! And I don’t do bits and pieces. Why don’t you give it a rest for once?”

“And do what, help you prank the queen?” Bran asked dryly.

“It’s going to be hilarious, come on!” his cousin whined.

Hilarious or not, Bran would not do it. One day, he was going to be a member of the Kingsguard, the first Stark of Winterfell to don the white cloak, and it would not bode well for his future vows to partake in Harry’s stupid antics.

Father had always said that a man’s true virtue was measured by the oaths they kept, and Bran was almost a man grown; he had yet to say his vows (or even know what vows he was to take in the first place), but the Gods would surely smile on him if he lived by them regardless. And he was pretty damn sure that ‘pranking the Queen’ was in breach of them.

“The answer is no, Harry,” Bran rolled his eyes. “You want to prank the Queen, you’ll have to do it on your own.”

“I don’t even know where she is,” Harry grumbled. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Well, that’s too bad. Guess you’ll just have to do something else, then.”

Harry stuck his tongue out at him. “You’re boring. I’ll go play with Ron,” he said, referring to his hound. “If you want to come, come, but you can’t bring your wolf.”

“I don’t want to go with you,” Bran said matter-of-factly, “I want to go climbing.”

“Suit yourself,” his cousin shrugged. “Later.”

“Bye,” Bran waved him off. By his side, his wolf barked his own goodbye. Harry stiffened, but said nothing as he left.

The wolf, despite being a couple of days younger than his cousin’s hound, was already thrice its size, and was larger than even some of the adult ones at his father’s kennels. And he was smart; with the way he reacted to his surroundings, Bran could have sworn the wolf understood every single word that was said around him, perhaps even better than he himself did. It was uncanny.

He was still trying to decide on a name. It was getting quite frustrating, too; his wolf had been lacking a name over three months now, to the point he had taken to calling him Nameless in the meantime. Nameless didn’t seem to mind his temporary name, but Bran didn’t like it, just as he hadn’t liked countless others. Besides, what kind of name was ‘nameless’? The closest contender so far had been Silver, after his wolf’s silver fur, but it was too close to Robb’s Grey Wind, and even so he was unconvinced. The only thing Bran knew was that he was partial to a name starting with an S, but that hardly narrowed it down enough to be of any help.

But now wasn’t the time to name Nameless; now was the time to climb. He hadn’t been up to the broken tower for weeks, ever since the King and his court had arrived on Winterfell, and this might be his last chance before…

He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it. He refused to think about it.

Now, if he wanted to climb the broken tower, the best way was to start from the Godswood, and so he started walking towards it.

He was immediately interrupted.

“Hey, Bran!” Elisa Dustin called his name. “Are you free?”

“Err,” Bran blanked utterly. “I guess?”

“You guess? What do you mean, you guess? You mean you don’t know for sure?” the fast-talking barrowgirl put her hands on her hips, head tilted inquisitively.

“Well, no, maybe, I mean—” Bran paused, and held up his hand. It was all so sudden his brain was hurting itself in its confusion. “Hold on, give me a second here.” 

“A second, two seconds. Hells, I’ll even give you three, because I like you so much,” Elisa smiled cockily.

“... Thanks,” he said dryly. He liked Elisa too, even if she was as annoying as only a girl could be. “Let’s start over so I can make sense out of this. Hello, Elisa, how are you?”

“I’m wonderful, thank you very much, my good Lord of Stark,” Elisa curtsied mockingly. “How are you? Do you have any plans for this delightful morning?”

“Not really…?” Wait, no. That was a lie. He did have plans. “I mean, I was meaning to climb the broken tower one last time before I… Well. You know.” Elisa once again tilted her head, her expression appraising.

“And does that have to be now?” she asked.

“Well, no, not really—”

“So that means you’re free.”

“... I guess?”

“You guess? What do you mean, you guess? You mean you don’t know for sure?”  Elisa repeated, a cheeky smile on her pretty face.

“Can we not do this again, please?” Bran groaned, earning a giggle from Dustin.

“Only because you asked nicely. What can I say? It’s fun running circles around you, Stark.”

Nameless barked in agreement, promptly running around him in circles.

“See? He agrees.”

“He also eats his own vomit, so I wouldn’t put much weight on his opinion,” Bran deadpanned. Nameless immediately stopped, looking profoundly offended.

“Tell him you’re sorry,” Elisa ordered gravely. “Now.”

Nameless growled menacingly.

Bran rolled his eyes. “Fine. Sorry, I guess.”

Nameless raised his snout, miffed, but accepted his apologies and sat down.

Elisa was impressed. “That’s one smart wolf.”

“Shut up. What do you want, Elisa?”

“Why do you ask so rudely?” she retorted. “Is it a crime to just want to spend time with my friend before he leaves for gods know how long?”

“You’re certainly making me wish it was,” he muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” he yelped.

“Hm. That’s what I thought. Come on, let’s go,” she said, grabbing his left wrist and pulling.

Bran put up no resistance. “What are you doing?”

“Kidnapping you, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Bran rolled his eyes. “Why?”

“So you don’t leave. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” he repeated. “This is going to suck.”

It did not, in fact, suck. Elisa and some of the other kids had prepared a small goodbye feast for him, with the help of a handful of complicit cooks. By the time their feast was done, Bran was stuffed full, Ethan’s lute had broken a string while attempting a particularly fast song, cousin Maisie tried and failed to steal Nameless over five times, and meek cousin Lya only cried once. All in all, an entirely successful morning.

By now, the sun was high in the sky, and grooms and servants across Winterfell were being called for supper. Bran smiled; there was no better time for climbing, for no one would bother him, busy as they were eating. And so he set off towards the Godswood.

He was immediately interrupted.

“Bran! There you are!” his mother said, seemingly appearing out of thin air, as was her wont. “It’s time for supper.”

Bran whined. There went any and all chances of climbing. “But mother!” he began, but wisely stopped. The children’s feast had been a clandestine thing, as they were expressly forbidden from bothering the cooks. He couldn’t just say he had already eaten without throwing all of his friends over board.

“‘But mother’…?” Mother asked sharply, an eyebrow raised.

Bran sighed, conceding defeat. “Nothing.”

By the time he managed to escape from the great hall, he had lost at least two hours of daylight, for the Queen had the same voracious appetite for pomp and grandeur as her husband, and mother forced him to sit through far more courses than Bran had ever seen, because he couldn’t leave before the Queen was done with her food lest she took offence.

Nevermind the fact that she barely ate at all, and what she did, she didn’t seem to enjoy, her expression curdling into a sneer every single time.

But now, Bran was free, and so he made to go towards the Godswood once and for all.

He was immediately interrupted.

“OH, COME ON!” Bran despaired to the skies.

“Sucks to be you,” Lyanna Mormont smirked, keenly aware of her unwelcome presence and relishing on it.

“You have no idea ,” he said glumly. “What do you want?”

“To kick your ass.”

“... Why.”

“Why not?”

“Right, of course,” Bran rolled his eyes. “Silly me.”

“Silly you, indeed,” his… good-aunt? said. “Let’s go.”

“Yay,” he cheered with all the enthusiasm of a man being led to the gallows. Which is to say, not much at all.

Some would say that he was exaggerating, but the truth was that sparring with Lyanna Mormont was not unlike a long, painful and drawn out execution. What the minuscule young she-bear lacked in size, she made up with sheer grit and ferociousness. It didn’t help in the slightest that Aunt Dacey was training her personally, and Aunt Dacey was, frankly, utterly terrifying with a mace or with her Valyrian steel bastard sword.

Still, Bran thought as he padded himself in his sparring armour, he was going to give it a try. How could he become a Kingsguard, if he couldn’t even beat a girl?

But it’s not any girl, his mind advised caution. He disregarded it. A Kingsguard should beat everyone, regardless of who they were.

“Ready?” Lyanna asked, clad in an oversized shirt of mail over a padded emerald gambeson. She wasn’t even wearing a helmet.

“You should be wearing a helmet,” Bran pointed out. Even sparring could be dangerous; he might very well whack her over the head by accident and her brains would spill out through her nose, like what happened to the unfortunate Prince Baelor Breakspear.

Mormont laughed. “Worry about yourself, Stark. Now, are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he muttered, lifting his sword and holding his shield on guard.

In a flash, Lyanna was on the offensive, wailing on him with her wooden mace. Expecting this, Bran lifted his shield to catch her strikes and kept his footing light, stepping around to absorb her momentum, waiting for an opening for a riposte.

Lyanna refused to give him one. Tirelessly she struck again and again, and Bran’s shield arm began to hurt from the repeated impacts. He didn’t know how long he could keep tanking her strikes, and so he pushed his shield forward in an attempt to parry her.

As if she had read his mind, Mormont did not strike but rather stepped back, leaving Bran overextended. He only barely managed to catch her next strike, directed at his side, with his wooden sword, for his shield arm had grown sluggish with the battering and proved too slow. Bran jumped backwards to try and create space between him and his foe.

Lyanna did not let him, taking a step forward for every step back. She was unrelenting, and despite his best efforts, Bran felt himself losing all control of the fight.

I could kick her, a fleeting thought. Her legs are thin and weak, I could take her down . He refused to heed it. It would be dishonourable and unchivalrous of him, and if he had to resort to dirty tricks to win, he’d rather lose. Neither would he kick a lady, though to be fair, the lady was trying to bash his head in.

He had another idea, but he doubted it would work. Yet, what other option did he have?

Oh well, Bran shrugged internally, fortune favours the bold.

Against all sense, he surged forward, shield held high, slamming himself against Lyanna. Bran wasn’t the tallest or brawniest of kids, but he was still much larger than his rival, and, taken off guard, Lyanna’s footing failed her, taking the wind off her sails and causing her to stumble backwards and fall to the ground.

Quickly, Bran aimed his sword at Lyanna’s neck.

“Yield,” he panted.

Lyanna only stared at him incredulously, her brown eyes wide.

“Yield,” Bran repeated, catching his breath. “I win. Yield.”

Lyanna said nothing. Her eyes darted down to his legs.

“Oh no you don’t!” Bran shouted, but she was quicker than him. 

Pivoting on her waist, Lyanna kicked his legs with all of her might. Tired and off-footed, Bran collapsed in a heap with a pained yelp, dropping his sword.

Before he could even blink, Lyanna was on top of him, straddling his chest, her right leg holding his shield arm in place, her left arm on his sword arm, and her wooden mace high, ready to strike him into submission.

“You were saying?” she smiled breathlessly, her eyes twinkling, her cheeks flushed.

Bran’s blood boiled, but he was too tired to resist. He gave up. “Whatever. Get off me.”

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“I said get off me!”

“That I bash your head in?” Lyanna tilted her head, as if she was hard of hearing. “That’s a strange request, but all righty then~” she sang merrily, raising her mace even higher.

“Fine, fine, fine!” Bran screamed. “You win! I yield! Happy?”

“Very,” Lyanna nodded. Still she didn’t move from her position.

Bran was supremely unamused. “You’re still on top of me.”

“Yep.”

“... Do you plan on getting off anytime soon or…?”

“Nah,” Lyanna smiled, a feline hint to her smirk. “I like it here.”

What did I do to deserve this? Bran despaired.

By the time Lyanna had finally gotten bored of torturing him, the sun shone orange in the sky. At best he had a single hour left before nightfall, and Bran knew better than to climb in the dark of the night, where he could run the risk of misjudging the distances.

He shook off his padded armour with haste, leaving it where it fell. Ser Rodrik would be angry with him, but if Bran was lucky he’d be already on the road by the time their old master-at-arms noticed his disorder.

From the corner of his eye he saw Talia Forrester walking in his direction. By the look of her face, it was extremely important.

Without even allowing her to open her mouth, Bran snapped, “Gods, Talia, I don’t care, go away!” and ran past her, his sight set squarely on the road to the Godswood. Nameless darted around him, wisely creating a barrier that kept any interlopers at bay.

Before he knew it, Bran was on the roof of the armoury, the chilly breeze all around him. Poor Nameless had been left behind, for he had no thumbs with which to climb the Godswood’s sentinel trees, but the wolf dutifully followed him at street level, barking encouragingly. He ran and leapt towards the guards hall.

It was only when he landed with a loud clatter of roof tiles that Bran noticed that, in his haste, he had forgotten to take his shoes off. He winced, but refused to stop. He had lost enough time as it was. The guards would just have to deal with the noise overhead. 

And would probably tell his mother, he realised with a grimace.

Oh well. Not like she can ground me for much more time, he supposed. One last punishment, for old times’ sake.

Soon enough he reached the southern side of the First Keep. Once inhabited only by rats and spiders, Father had spent the better part of Bran’s life repairing it and now housed the many wards of Winterfell and their retainers within its walls. Much of that time had been wasted ensuring the old stones were safe to build in, something Bran could have told him in a single afternoon; the stones were the best laid ones in the whole of Winterfell. Perhaps that’s why the First Keep, abandoned and dilapidated for centuries, still stood.

Bran leapt, hand over hand, from gargoyle to gargoyle, moving around to the north side of the keep, and then stretched as far as he could go to reach the broken tower where it leaned close. His grip firmly set, he twisted his body around and switched buildings. Then, it was just a scramble up the blackened stones to the eyrie, no more than ten feet, which he covered with the ease of long practice. Honestly, if you asked him, that was the easiest part of the whole thing.

The crows quickly came to him, shouting their shrill cries.

“Corn! Corn! Corn!” they cawed.

Bran blanched. “I’m sorry, I forgot,” he admitted sheepishly. Not that the crows cared, cawing and cawing for a while before they got bored and left. Left alone, Bran sat down and looked upon Winterfell.

Winterfell was spread out beneath him, only birds wheeling over his head while all the life of the castle went on below. The men drilling late into the evening with wood and steel in the yard, the cooks tending their vegetables in the glass garden, picking tonight’s dinner, the maidservants gossiping beside the washing well, the guards making their rounds through the whole castle, Wintersborough’s bustling markets and plazas. It made him feel like he was the lord of Winterfell, in a way Robb would never know, in a way even Father did not. 

Bran turned his gaze towards the Wolfswood. He could see where the hunting party was, the smoke of their camp rising from the treetops into the evening sky. Try as he might, he could not discern any flashes of colourful banners or pavilions, even if he knew what to look out for. He wondered how Robb and Jon felt, riding under their very own banners, having their own tents and dealing with their own households for the first time ever.

Idly, Bran tried to imagine himself in their situation, granted another of father’s minor lordships or estates in the North for him to rule, but quickly disregarded the thought. He would never be a lord, he knew, for he was going to be a knight of the Kingsguard. He knew all the stories, and their names were like music to him. Serwin of the Mirror Shield, Ser Ryam Redwyne, Ser Harrold Westerling, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, twins Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk Cargyll, Red Robert Flowers, the Pale Griffin, the Demon of Darry, the White Bull, Barristan the Bold… Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, whom Father himself had slain in single combat during the Mad King’s war. 

Three of the Kingsguard had come north with King Robert. Bran had watched them with fascination, never quite daring to speak to them. Ser Boros was a bald man with a round, jowly face and stern gaze, and Ser Meryn had droopy eyes and a pointed beard the colour of rust. Neither of them looked like the knights in the stories, admittedly, but appearances could be deceiving. Ser Jaime Lannister did, with his golden locks, strong build and dashing smile, but Bran had more reason to stay away from him, because he had killed the old mad king he was sworn to protect. Based on what Maester Luwin had taught him about the Mad King and what he had done, Bran couldn’t really blame him, but it still made him uncomfortable, and so he kept his distance.

The greatest knight alive was Ser Barristan Selmy the Bold, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Father had promised that they would meet Ser Barristan when they reached King’s Landing, and Bran had been restless with anticipation, marking the days on his wall, eager to depart, to see a world he had only dreamed of and begin a life he could scarcely imagine. 

He was going to ride the kingsroad on a horse of his own; not a pony, but a real horse for grown ups. Father would be the Hand of the King, and they were going to live in the red castle at King’s Landing, the castle the Dragonkings had built. Old Nan said there were ghosts there, and dungeons where the most heinous things had been done, and dragon heads on the walls. It all seemed almost too good to be true.

Yet, as the day loomed closer and closer, Bran’s excitement had thawed into a deep apprehension. He had managed to keep it at bay, out of his mind, but now, as he saw the sun sink in the horizon, the apprehension turned into distress. In only three days they would leave for King’s Landing. Sitting on his new horse, Bran would turn around and see Winterfell fade in the distance.

His home, the only home he had ever known.

A home he had relinquished, and for what? To follow his dreams, aye, but dreams could be foolish, too.

How could King’s Landing ever be a home to him, when behind him he left Mother, Robb, Jon, Sansa and Rickon, Aunt Dacey, Harry and Lya and Maisie and Osric and even Anton? Dom and Theon, who had been by his side since he was born? Elisa, Lyanna, and the other kids and wards? Old Nan and Hodor, Gage the chief cook, Mikken and Hod and Alvor in the smithy, Septon Chayle and Maesters Luwin and Brus, Farlen in the kennels, Barth the brewer, Osberd the gardener who gave him a blackberry whenever he came to visit, elderly Wylis who spoke not a word of the Common Tongue and his grandson Wyl who did, the countless labourers who Bran knew not by name but by sight… All of them, each and every one was his home, his heart.

How many of them would he see again? Would Old Nan live long enough to see him knighted, to be the first Stark of Winterfell to don the white cloak? When the raven arrived, bringing the news, would they be read by Maester Luwin or by Maester Brus?

King’s Landing was so far away, too, and the journey to Winterfell was no mean thing. He would have to ask the king’s leave, Bran realised, and he could be denied. When Sansa married Dom, would he even be able to attend? When he saw Robb and Jon again, would they have children of their own? Would Rickon? Osric?

Would he one day wake to the news that his loved ones had perished in his absence, unable to share his grief with anyone but his shadow?

How could he know that this wasn’t his last goodbye?

Sitting at the top of the broken tower, Bran took one last look at his home and wept.

It was time to leave, and in all of her nine years of age, Arya had never seen Winterfell so thoroughly engulfed in a ruckus, a veritable storm of bodies, horses and baggages, trunks and paraphernalia. It was chaos, plain and simple, and more than once Arya thought of just sneaking into the crowds, and away from the convoy that would take her from her home and from her family, into that damnable Royal Court that promised nothing but misery and pain.

She didn’t, though. 

It wasn’t like she needed Mother’s ‘honest conversation’ for her to realise what was being asked of her, and moreover, why it was so important. She knew; Father had told her so already, and she wasn’t stupid, unlike, say, Sansa, whose stupidity truly knew no bounds.

Arya was a bright one; Jon, Robb, Aunt Dacey, Uncle Benjen, Father, Maester Luwin, everyone but Septa Mordane had ever said as much, even Sansa and Hodor, for gods’ sake, but Mother seemed deaf to their words. What did it matter if her daughter was ‘the brightest kid of her siblings’, as Maester Brus had once said? If she wasn’t a lady, then she was worthless.

Arya would never be a lady, but she certainly could pose as one. She had a smith’s hands when it came to embroidery, a deaf beggar’s ear for music, and a drunken wildling’s blistered throat for singing, that much she couldn’t deny. But it was also true that Arya had always been quick and graceful on her feet, both literal and metaphorical, had a knack for numbers and what Maester Luwin called ‘logical thinking’, and was even a very good mummer.

“People tend to look away when they’re lying,” Jon had told her once, years ago when a small prank of theirs had gone disastrously wrong. Aunt Dacey was livid , and they were too terrified of her wrath to tell the truth. “Keep your eyes straight on theirs, don’t blink, don’t flinch, and whatever you do, don’t look away.” And he was right; no one ever found out it had been them. Poor Harry ended up grounded for over a whole moon. Perhaps he was innocent of that particular prank, but he sure as hells had pulled many that had gone unpunished, Arya had reasoned then, and so her guilt dissipated into nothing. 

She could perform curtsies, ever since she was first taught by Septa Mordane. Not like the old crone ever bothered to notice, always falling head over heels to compliment even the smell of Sansa’s farts, and so Arya had stopped trying. If the Septa didn’t care, why should she?

And why should she care what Mother thought, when she always took a bitter old Septa’s words over hers?

Because otherwise you’re fucked, Mother’s sad smile appeared on her mind’s eye, but Arya shook it away fiercely.

I know, okay?! I know! She cursed. It just isn’t fair.

And do you think I found it fair when I stood in my father’s solar, just as you are now, being told that I must leave the Riverlands, my home, forever? Her mother snarled back, terrifying in her wrath. Was it fair when that man was murdered and I was told I would marry his younger brother instead? Do you think anyone ever asked me what I thought about it? Was that fair, Arya?

Of course not! she had wanted to yell. It was unfair then, and it is now! But why must I suffer too? If it was that bad, why aren’t you doing anything to spare your own daughter from suffering the same?! But she found her words dying in her throat, too afraid to come out.

Don’t you care? she sometimes wanted to ask. She never did, because she knew the answer.

Someone knocked on her head. “Hey, someone in there?” Jon asked, a light smile on his face.

Arya turned to look at him with a vacant gaze.

“I can always come back later,” her brother said.

No, she knew, you can’t, and the thought almost brought her to tears right then and there.

To her side, Nymeria whined sadly at Ghost. Jon took notice of it, and his face softened.

“I’ll miss you too, little sister,” he said, ruffling her hair.

When would it be the next time he would ruffle her hair? Would he ever again?

In an instant, she mobbed her older brother, trying her utmost to not break down crying. She failed.

“Gah!” proud Lord Palewood yelped, almost but not quite losing his balance when tackled by all the might of a tiny, skinny nine year old girl. “It’s going to be alright, little sister. We’ll see each other again soon.”

“Will we?” Arya mumbled into his doublet. It was brand new, black as night, with dancing white direwolves and red leaves embroidered on it.  He didn’t wear Father’s colours anymore, but his own, and a real sword at his hip, like a true lord. Her heart clenched.

“Of course we will!” Jon exclaimed, confused. “Why wouldn’t we?” Arya said nothing, only burrowing deeper into his chest. “Arya?” he tried again. She shook her head.

With a sigh, Jon grabbed her by her shoulders and pushed her away, then crouched to be at eye level. His grey eyes were wide and concerned. Hers were puffy and reddened.

“Arya, listen to me,” he began, voice clear and measured. “Everything is going to be fine, alright? Just use that thing between those huge ears of yours every now in a while, and everything is going to be just fine.”

“You have big ears,” Arya retorted, though it came more like a sob.

Jon shrugged. “Eh, blame Father, it’s his fault we have them, anyways.” He looked around to make sure no one was listening to them, and then leaned in conspiratorially. “Did you pack Needle?” He didn’t have to bother whispering; the courtyard’s bedlam had only intensified now that the Royal Family came out. The Queen ushered her children into the smaller wheelhouse, whereas the rotund King struggled to mount his warhorse, even with the help of a couple grooms.

Arya nodded, wiping out her tears. “At the bottom of my trunk. Wrapped in some old dresses so it doesn’t clatter when it moves.”

“Smart,” Lord Palewood smiled. “Remember what I taught you?”

“Hard not to,” Arya rolled her stinging eyes. “You barely taught me anything.” 

And that hurt, too. She wanted her brother to teach her how to wield a blade, how to parry and riposte and thrust and swing and everything. To look at her with pride, as she improved day by day. To eventually spar her, and look shocked when she finally defeated him.

He wouldn’t.

“I taught you the most important part,” Jon ruffled her hair, breaking her heart a little more. “Just don’t stab your future husband, much as he may deserve it.”

“Please don’t let me marry him,” she begged suddenly. “Please.”

Jon sighed. “Little sister,” he began.

She didn’t let him continue. “Please! Please, I’m begging you! I don’t want to marry him! I don’t want to marry no one!” Nymeria began to bark, too, of a single mind with her master.

Her brother looked lost for words. “I…”

“Is everything in order?” Father’s strong voice asked, as he approached them from the multitude, drawn by Nymeria’s whining.

“Yes, Lord Stark,” Jon bowed his head respectfully. “Just saying my goodbyes.”

Father laughed softly. “You don’t have to call me Lord Stark. To you, I’m just ‘father’, now and always.”

“Yes, Lord… Yes, father,” Jon said, earning a smile from their father. Arya said nothing, but her eyes burnt and stung. 

“Be good with your brother,” Father said. “Ruling over the North is hard enough. Don’t make it harder on him.”

Jon sighed melodramatically. “And here I was, plotting to overthrow him.”

“If you do, you’re grounded forever,” Father warned.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lord Palewood said. “I’ll miss you,” he added, voice sad but unwavering.

“I’ll miss you too, kid,” Father replied, and embraced his second son tightly. Arya found herself hoping their hug would last forever, so she wouldn’t have to say goodbye, but her hopes were dashed. “Be good,” Lord Stark said, breaking off the embrace.

“Don’t sink the realm,” Lord Palewood replied.

“Were it so easy,” Father muttered under his breath, then said out loud, “I’ll do what I can.” He turned to Arya. “Come on. The King is already ahorse. We must go.”

This was it. Their final words to each other in only the Gods knew how long. What could she say? How could she even put what she felt, how she felt into words? Jon had always been there for her, since the moment she was born. Teaching her to walk, teaching her to talk, showing her Winterfell and all of its secrets. Hugging her when she was scared, comforting her when she was sad, laughing with her when she was happy. He was family. He was home. He was a part of her.

How could she say goodbye?

“My Queen,” Jon bowed his head, a single gesture, imbued with nothing but love and support.

“Promise me, Jon,” was all she said. No further words were needed; Jon’s eyes widened in understanding. Promise me you won’t let me marry Joffrey. “Promise me.”