WebNovels

Chapter 74 - Chapter 72: The Cost,

Support me on patreon.com/c/Striker2025

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Winterfell – Dusk, One Day After the Raid

The courtyard had returned to its rhythm.

The blood had been washed from the stones, though the scent lingered faintly. The broken cart near the gate was already repaired. Men hauled sacks of salted meat to the stores, and a smith patched shattered hinges. In the distance, a child cried—not from fear, but because his toy had been trampled.

Some things were healing. Others would not.

Arthur crouched beside a bearded man with a splinted leg. Thom stood behind him, murmuring to the healer about tendon placement and blood loss. Garron lifted a broken beam from a nearby roof. Sarra passed bandages to the maester's apprentices with quiet efficiency.

The group didn't speak much.

They didn't need to.

Each had found their place in the slow, necessary aftermath. Not in glory. In labor.

Maelen stood near the gate, eyes half-closed, guiding a pair of crows over the treeline. Lyanna had not seen him do it. She had not seen any of them in this light.

Not until she returned from the inner keep—shoulders stiff, eyes rimmed red, mouth tight with the effort of not breaking.

Rickard Stark had stood tall when she arrived. He didn't ask if she was hurt. He only placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "You were where you needed to be."

She had nodded, grateful for the words—and the silence behind them.

Benjen had hugged her quickly and then stepped back like it embarrassed him.

Ned had been quieter still.

He had only said, "I leave for the Vale soon. Father says the snow won't wait forever."

Lyanna had looked at him, searching for something. He had returned her gaze with the calm of someone trying to carry a burden too early.

"Will you be safe?" she had asked.

"I will be careful," he had answered.

When she stepped into the courtyard now, her eyes moved across the busy space—searching for someone.

Arthur was still by the wounded man, tying a strip of cloth with firm, practiced hands. His face was impassive, but his sleeves were stained with sweat and smoke. He did not wear armor. Only leather, scorched at the collar where a blade had nearly kissed his throat.

He rose without a word and turned to retrieve a fresh basin of water.

Lyanna intercepted him.

He paused, surprised. But he didn't speak first.

She did.

"You stayed."

He nodded.

"You came alone."

"I was the fastest."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You shouldn't have survived that."

"I didn't plan to die," Arthur replied.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. When she finally spoke, her voice was lower.

"My father... said I chose well."

Arthur tilted his head. "Did you?"

Lyanna stared at him. "Ask me after the next battle."

He almost smiled. Almost.

She looked down at the basin of water in his hands, then reached out and took it from him. "You should rest. You've bled."

He shook his head faintly. "It's not my blood."

She froze, eyes flicking up to his. The calm in his voice made it worse—like he hadn't just spoken of death, but of weather.

A beat passed. Then the shock settled in.

"I'll tend to them. You're not the only one who can hold a bandage."

She walked away without waiting for permission.

Arthur stood a moment longer, then turned back toward the field.

From the steps above, Rickard Stark watched silently.

He saw his daughter walk the yard like it belonged to her. He saw Arthur lower his eyes—not in submission, but in thought. He saw a boy tending to wolves.

Rickard's voice was quiet when he spoke, meant only for Ned beside him.

"She's not a girl anymore."

Ned didn't reply. He was watching too.

Rickard placed a hand on his shoulder. "You leave at dawn."

"I know."

"Learn what you must. Return with what we need."

"I will."

Rickard let the silence stretch between them. Then, softly, he said, "Your sister will be here. And so will the boy."

Ned nodded, but his eyes never left the man in the yard.

Arthur had crouched again, murmuring something to a boy with a fractured arm. Not the words of a knight, but a man who knew the break of bone and the weight of healing. There was no glory in his stance, no flourish in his hands—only precision, and silence.

"Is it true?" Ned asked suddenly, his voice low.

Rickard didn't look at him. "Is what true?"

"What they say. A hundred wildlings. Dead before Winterfell even knew they were coming."

Rickard's jaw tightened. "It's true."

Ned frowned. "No help?"

"None."

"No reinforcement?"

"Only him."

Ned exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing. "That isn't natural."

"It isn't," Rickard agreed.

"But you trust him?"

"I trust what he's chosen to be. For now."

Ned was quiet, thinking. "People talk. I hear them when they think I'm not listening. They call him the Snow-Reaper. The Old North's blade. Some of the younger men... they say he's a weapon the gods forgot to bury."

Rickard turned his head, his gaze sharper now.

"And what do you say?"

Ned looked back toward the yard. Arthur had moved again, lifting a collapsed wheelbarrow with one arm while two boys scrambled to catch the spilled kindling.

"I don't know," Ned admitted. "He saved us. He's helped everyone. Even now, he works like a man with something to prove. But I don't think he cares about titles. Or being thanked."

Rickard nodded slowly. "That's what makes him dangerous."

Ned blinked. "Because he doesn't want power?"

"Because he doesn't need it," Rickard said. "A man who seeks power must build a ladder. But a man like Arthur..." He gestured toward the courtyard below. "He walks above the fire. And worse—people want to follow him there."

Ned let the words settle.

Rickard added, quieter now, "You know what happened at Stony Shore?"

Ned shook his head.

"They came with ten longships. Ironborn. Dagmer Black-Tide himself. Wildlings flanking from the trees. They were ready to bleed the coast dry."

Ned's brow furrowed. "And he alone stopped them?"

Rickard shook his head. "No. His group was there too. They tore the formation apart with those… techniques of his. Sank two ships into the sea. The rest fled when Garron crushed their flank. Lyanna and the others scattered the last wave."

"By the Old Gods," Ned murmured.

Rickard nodded slowly. "Aye. But the part they won't tell you," he added, voice lowering, "is what happened after. When it was done—when the enemy lay broken—Arthur just stood there. No cheer. No roar. Just silence. While everyone else was trying to understand what they'd just seen… he stood still."

"And what did happen?"

Rickard shook his head. "That's just it. I don't know. The Ironborn had never seen anything like it. Their captain laughed as he died.

Ned looked down again. Arthur was binding a guard's arm, listening to Garron curse about the knots in linen.

"I don't think he wants anyone to understand him," Ned said quietly.

Rickard sighed. "Then we're already too late."

They stood a moment longer.

Ned's fingers curled around the stone railing.

"And if he rises?"

Rickard's hand tightened briefly on his son's shoulder.

"Then we make sure our house stands tall enough to stand beside his shadow, not beneath it."

Ned looked down at Arthur one last time. At his stillness. His silence. The quiet orbit forming around him without his asking.

And for the first time, he wondered not just what Arthur was—

—but what might happen when the next storm came, and Winterfell wasn't the one under threat.

Below them, the wind curled through the trees. Crows circled once and disappeared into the sky.

More Chapters