----
The horse screamed before it died.
A spear meant for him struck the animal in the eye, and the stallion reared in agony before collapsing mid-gallop. Eddard Stark didn't have time to shout. His body flung through the air and landed hard on the rocky edge of the Trident's bank. His head struck stone with a sharp, final crack.
The sky spun.
He tasted mud and blood and nothing more.
Then—silence.
Not the quiet of sleep. Not the peace of unconsciousness. A silence that was cold and deep, carved from stone and death. Time didn't pass. There was no breath. No heartbeat.
Then… memory.
But not his.
A narrow pass, bitter with wind. Shields locked tight in a wall of bronze. Brothers pressed shoulder to shoulder, unflinching. Death roaring down the slope in waves of arrows and fire. The crushing weight of command. Then one last shout—final, proud—and the break.
And then… pain.
A gasp tore from his chest like he'd been pulled from drowning. His body seized, curled inward. He coughed violently, spitting blood and river water.
He was alive.
And he was not.
The memories came too fast—Ned's life, his childhood, his brother's laughter, his father's stern voice, Catelyn's uncertain smile, the face of a dark-haired girl lying in blood and roses. Names. Faces. Duty. Pain.
They slammed into him like fists. A thousand thoughts in a single heartbeat. He convulsed and groaned.
"Gods be good—he's alive!" someone cried.
Rough hands pulled at him, hauling him up from the muddy bank. He felt enormous, slow, disoriented. His head throbbed where Ned had fallen. The man who breathed now was not the one who'd struck the stone.
"Howland!" a voice bellowed. "He's not dead, look—he's breathing!"
Leonidas opened his eyes.
They stung.
He saw rain. Smoke. Men. Northern voices. The thick scent of blood.
"How long… was I gone?" he rasped.
Howland Reed knelt at his side, mud-caked and pale. "We thought you dead, Ned. The horse went down. Your head—it looked…"
The man called Greatjon Umber loomed behind them, massive and frowning.
"You were cold," he muttered. "Still as stone."
Leonidas blinked again, forcing himself upright. He ignored the trembling in his limbs. His mind reeled, not with fear, but with dislocation. His instincts were honed, sharp—but this place, this flesh, this name—
It was foreign.
And it was his.
"Help me up," he said, steady now. "There is work yet."
Between the two of them, he was lifted to his feet. Men watched from nearby—Stark men, battered and bloodied, confused. Their lord had fallen in the charge. Now he stood as if reborn.
He could feel the eyes on him.
Not grieving. Not celebrating.
Watching.
His boots were slick with blood. The wind off the Trident carried the stench of death and fire.
"They'll look to you now," Howland said softly. "Robert slew the dragon prince. Rhaegar is dead."
Leonidas looked south.
"I know."
---
The tent was small, dark, reeking of sweat and damp cloth. Leonidas sat shirtless on a low stool while Howland wrapped a cloth soaked in vinegar around the back of his head. His skull throbbed. The ache was deep, but not fatal.
It didn't matter. Pain was familiar.
Greatjon paced outside, barking orders to the men, rallying the remnants. The North had paid in blood, but they'd broken the Targaryens on the riverbank.
There was no celebration in his bones.
His body still trembled from the storm of Ned's life surging through him. So much love. So much restraint. So many lies swallowed for peace.
A voice interrupted his thoughts.
"My lord?"
Jon Arryn stood at the tent's edge, soaked through, his pale blue cloak stained with blood at the hem. He looked older than Leonidas expected. Too tired to be dangerous. But there was something about the man's eyes—quiet calculation under the softness.
"Come."
Jon entered, nodding in polite concern. "I heard you'd been thrown."
"I rose."
Jon studied him for a moment too long. "Robert has claimed victory. Rhaegar fell to his hammer. The city remains in Targaryen hands. He rides for King's Landing."
Leonidas said nothing.
"We need the city secured," Jon continued. "The Lannisters have yet to commit. If they turn against us, the capital could become a bloodbath. Robert wants you to march immediately with the Northern host."
"Why not the Vale?"
Jon's brow lifted, just slightly. "Pardon?"
"You have knights. Cavalry. Supplies. Why not lead the march yourself?"
A pause.
Jon's voice softened. "The North's reputation for discipline would calm the city. Your house is ancient. Robert trusts you."
"But not enough to go himself?"
Jon didn't answer.
Leonidas leaned forward slightly. His eyes were cold.
"You wish to burn Northern lives to clear the way. To keep your own soldiers fresh while mine bleed in the streets."
Jon stiffened.
"That is not what I said."
"It's what you meant."
The older man's mouth tightened, but he nodded slowly. "If you see it that way… then I will not try to change your mind. The request stands. The city must be taken."
Leonidas studied him a moment longer, then nodded once.
"Then we will take it."
Jon lingered, as if uncertain whether to say more. Then he bowed, and left.
When he was gone, Howland stepped into the tent.
"He's not used to being questioned."
Leonidas stood and fastened the cloak around his shoulders.
"Good. Let him remember the feeling."
He stepped to the tent flap, then paused.
"I need thirty men. No armor. No banners. Quiet feet and sharp eyes."
Howland tilted his head. "For what?"
"To find Lyanna."
And with that, he stepped into the rain.
---
The tent flap snapped in the wind as he emerged. Men turned. Conversations halted.
They expected a lord. They saw a commander.
Leonidas—wearing Eddard Stark's face—walked across the muddy encampment like a man already halfway to war. His boots sank with every step. His jaw was set, unreadable.
Greatjon Umber waited near the command tent, soaked and steaming like a forge-bellows. Behind him stood Rodrik Cassel, Galbart Glover, and Maege Mormont, the remains of the Northern high command. Battle-worn, blood-caked, and still reeling from their narrow victory at the Trident.
"My lord," Greatjon said with a grunt. "You live."
"For now," Leonidas replied. "Form up the men."
He didn't shout. He didn't raise his voice. But they moved.
"The Southern lords will stall. The Vale and Riverlands will wait on Robert. That buys us time. I want three columns—infantry center, archers in the woods along the ridge, horse split between the flanks."
Glover frowned. "We're marching again already?"
"The capital is soft. We are not. We press while we're feared."
"And if the gates hold?"
Leonidas met his gaze. "Then we tear them down."
There were no cheers. No laughter. Just nods. They understood now—this was no lordling with warm words. This was a soldier returned from death, who had no use for flattery or compromise.
Rodrik shifted. "What of your injuries?"
Leonidas's mouth twitched. "I stood, didn't I?"
---
By nightfall, the Northern host was on the move.
They marched under torchlight, wolves in the dark. No songs. No drunken boasts. Just the crunch of boots, the rattle of arms, and the silent presence of a leader who never looked back.
Rain slicked the roads, turning the path to the city into a mire. Men muttered, slipped, pressed on. Orders were given in short, sharp commands. Anyone who failed to keep pace was reassigned to rear guard, no exceptions.
Leonidas rode at the head of the column, cloak flaring behind him, Howland Reed riding to his left.
"Any word from your scouts?" he asked.
"Not yet," Howland said. "But if she's alive, they'll find her."
Leonidas nodded. "Dead or alive, I want her fate known."
"And what then?"
"Then I bring her home."
---
At dawn, they found the village.
Smoke still smoldered in the thatch. Bodies were stacked in the square—men and women stripped of boots, jewelry, dignity. A child hung from a butcher's hook by the tendons of her wrist, flies buzzing where her eyes had been.
A Lannister standard fluttered above the well.
Leonidas said nothing.
His men did not speak.
Further south, they found a half-burned cart overturned on the road. A Northern soldier stood beside it, face bloodied, sword still drawn. A girl knelt at his feet, shaking, naked but for a ripped shift.
Cassel moved to intervene, but Leonidas was already dismounting.
The man spun, eyes wide. "M'lord, she attacked me—"
Leonidas's gauntlet hit him hard across the face. He dropped like a sack of grain. Blood spattered the mud.
"Strip him," Leonidas said.
Two guards obeyed.
"Geld him."
The man screamed.
Leonidas drew his sword.
"Then hang him from the cart."
The girl was given a cloak, food, a name. The body swung from the wheel as the army passed, every Northern soldier forced to look upon it.
There would be no second chances.
---
The gates of King's Landing yawned open like the broken jaw of a corpse.
No horns greeted them. No banners. No defenders. Only smoke, silence, and the wind dragging ash through the streets like funeral veils. The Northern host moved as one, grey cloaks drawn tight against the stench, eyes hard beneath soot-streaked helms.
Eddard Stark rode ahead of them all.
His cloak hung in tatters, the wolf's head faded from its clasp. Blood had dried beneath his collar, but he made no move to clean it. The sword across his back was heavy, and he carried it like a promise.
They passed beneath the ruined portcullis, the iron teeth warped outward from some forgotten clash. Inside, the city was still—too still. The butcher's square had been gutted. The stalls burned black. A cart had overturned and crushed a child beneath it. No one had moved the body.
Rodrik Cassel made a sign to the old gods. "The lions took this place like a butcher takes a pig. Quick. Loud. No thought to the mess."
"This is no mess," Ned said. "It's a message."
Greatjon Umber spat into the dust. "What message's worth hanging babes from balconies?"
They passed one of them then—small, pale limbs dangling from a merchant's archway, wrapped in what had once been a fine cloak. Below it, two women's bodies lay facedown in blood. Flies clung to their backs. Someone had scrawled Lion's Justice across the wall in shit.
The silence tightened.
A Lannister soldier stumbled out of a winehouse just ahead, half-armored, red cloak askew. He pissed against a broken statue of the Seven, laughing to himself, bottle in one hand, blood still caked on the other.
He didn't see them until Stark steel was drawn.
"What's this?" he said, blinking. "Northmen? Thought you lot were still downriver. Just celebrating, I was. It's done, innit? Dragons dead and buried."
He turned to face them and smiled.
Ned rode forward and dismounted without a word.
"You don't look pleased," the man added. "You'd rather them dragonspawn still breathing?"
Ned drew his sword.
The man's smile faltered. "Come now, no cause for—"
The blade entered below the chin and split him clean. He crumpled.
Ned stepped back and wiped the sword on the man's cloak.
"Hang him from the arch," he said to the men behind him. "With his own belt. Let the city remember there is still law."
They obeyed. None questioned.
Further on, a child sat in the dirt outside a collapsed bakery, cradling a charred piece of bread in arms that barely held muscle. He stared blankly at the passing column.
Rodrik made to approach.
"Leave him," Ned said.
Rodrik turned. "He's barely old enough to speak."
"He's already seen more death than we've dealt. He won't hear us. He won't thank us. And he won't survive if we linger."
They moved on.
The Red Keep loomed above, cloaked in smoke. The banners that had once flown from its towers had been pulled down, the poles snapped, and the bodies of servants tossed over the battlements like garbage.
They entered through the main gate. No one stopped them. The courtyard was slick with blood and the remains of a fire still burning in a pile of broken furniture. Two knights in gold-and-red lay curled around each other in death, their blades long since taken.
A fountain in the middle burbled red.
The throne room doors were open.
Ned stopped just short of them. He turned to Rodrik, to Greatjon, to the twenty men behind him—veterans, loyal, unswerving.
"No banners. No horns. No cheers. We enter in silence."
The nods were grim.
The wind carried the stink of piss, wine, and blood through the broken doors.
And Eddard Stark led them into the lion's den.
The throne room stank of oil, blood, and smoke.
Ash drifted down from the rafters like snow. Light bled through broken panes high above, casting long slashes of gold and grey across the stone floor. The black carpet was scorched and torn, crusted with footprints, and flecked with dark smears of old blood.
Eddard Stark stepped into the hall in silence.
Twenty men followed, all from the North. No colors flew. No horns sounded. They had come not for a coronation, but for reckoning.
At the far end of the hall, the Iron Throne loomed atop its dais—a mountain of twisted steel and shadow. The seat of kings, forged with fire and swords.
And on it sat Jaime Lannister.
His golden armor was dulled and streaked with soot. A smear of blood dried across one cheek. He looked out across the hall with idle detachment, one leg draped over the side of the throne, his white cloak stained and crumpled across his shoulder. The hilt of his sword lay across his knees, one gloved hand tapping a rhythm against the pommel.
He didn't rise.
"Lord Stark," Jaime called, his voice smooth as ever. "Come to claim your seat?"
Ned's boots echoed with each step forward. His face was hard. Unreadable.
Jaime continued. "The fire's out. The screams have quieted. I suppose that makes it yours."
Ned said nothing. He walked until he stood below the steps of the dais, gazing up at the boy who had worn a white cloak, sworn to protect a king.
"It's sharper than it looks," Jaime went on. "You sit long enough, you bleed. Maybe that's the point."
"Get down," Ned said.
Jaime tilted his head. "No honor speech?"
"Now."
Jaime studied him, then gave a long, exaggerated sigh. "Starks and their silences."
He rose, letting the leg fall from the throne's armrest. His sword belt clinked as he unfastened it and let it drop to the steps with a clatter.
Two Stark guards stepped forward at Ned's nod.
Jaime didn't resist. He raised his arms, allowing the leather cords to be fastened around his wrists.
"No thanks for killing your mad king?" Jaime asked as they tightened the knots. His tone was flippant, but his eyes were sharp.
Ned didn't blink. "You don't get thanks."
Jaime's mouth twitched. "Then I'll take silence. It suits you."
The guards led him down the dais. His boots scraped against the scorched carpet. Jaime gave no struggle, only a passing glance back at the throne as he descended.
It stood jagged and empty behind him.
Ned turned away.
He said nothing as Jaime passed.
Rodrik Cassel stepped to Ned's side as the doors behind them creaked slowly closed, the echo fading into the silence.
"The throne's unclaimed," Rodrik murmured.
"And it will remain so," Ned said. "We did not come to wear crowns."
Rodrik nodded once.
In the sudden hush, the Iron Throne seemed to loom larger in the gloom, all sharp edges and shadow.
The North held its breath.
And the silence lingered.
---
The throne room doors opened again, this time with purpose.
Boots clattered on scorched stone. Robert Baratheon entered like a storm breaking through the rafters. His cloak, torn and sodden, dragged behind him through the soot. Sweat ran down his face in thick streaks, and the haft of his great warhammer bounced at his back with every step.
Behind him came Tywin Lannister.
He moved like a man walking through his own keep—impossibly clean, not a speck on his crimson cloak, golden lion gleaming at his chest. His expression was carved from marble. Silent. Measuring.
They did not come alone.
Two Lannister guards hauled something between them—three bundles wrapped in bloodstained linen, bodies bent and limp.
Ned did not move.
Robert stopped just short of the dais and swept his gaze across the room. The Iron Throne behind him loomed empty. The blood had dried where Jaime had sat, a single dark pool beneath the lowest step.
"Well," Robert said, spreading his arms as if presenting a gift. "There they are. The dragonspawn. Elia and her brats. All of them—dead."
The bundles were cast at the base of the throne like broken trophies.
The first was small—barely the size of a newborn. The cloth around the skull was soaked through and collapsed in, as if crushed by a hammer or boot. Blood had dried in a thick, black ring. The outline of the infant's mouth still showed beneath the cloth, half-open in what might have been a cry.
The second was longer, thinner. The linen barely held shape, soaked and torn. Tiny arms twisted at wrong angles beneath the shroud. Stab wounds soaked through the cloth—dozens of them. The child had been torn to pieces.
The third bundle had been only half-covered. Dark hair spilled loose from one end. The woman's body was naked. Her legs forced apart. Her throat slashed open so deep it exposed the bone. Her torso had been hacked through at the ribs. Her arms still clutched inward, useless, broken.
No one spoke.
The throne room held its breath.
"They would've risen," Robert said again, louder now. "You know they would've. That boy—Aegon, Rhaegar's son. He'd have grown into a dragon. Another tyrant. Another war. It had to be done."
Ned's eyes never left the corpses.
"They were children," he said.
"They were dragonspawn," Robert snapped, rounding on him. "It's mercy, what happened here."
Ned stepped closer. One pace. Then another.
"I see a babe with its head caved in," he said softly. "A girl stabbed so many times she lost her shape. A woman… stripped, torn, and butchered."
"He took my betrothed!" Robert said. "He was a moster! Dragonspawn!"
"Then you've become one and she is my sister before she is your betrothed."
Robert's eyes went wide.
"I fought for peace," he growled. "We ended a dynasty of fire and madness!"
"You crushed an infant," Ned said. "You gutted a child. You offered a mother's corpse to a throne you mean to claim through a blood relation to them.."
"They were dragonspawn!" Robert bellowed. "They were born of that same cursed blood!"
"So are you, they died screaming," Ned said. "You can't burn out madness with murder."
Silence.
It rang sharper than steel.
Robert stepped back. His face flushed, his mouth twitching. "This is war."
"No," Ned replied. "The war is over. This is what came after."
Robert turned away.
He looked to the throne as if it might offer him comfort. It gave none.
Tywin Lannister had said nothing.
But he had watched everything.
His eyes, pale and still as molten gold, moved from the corpses to Ned Stark. Then to the Iron Throne. Then back again. His lips were pressed in a thin, calculating line.
Jaime had been taken. The wolf had not bowed. The king had been shamed. And this room—this whole city—was now stained by a silence no gold could clean.
Tywin began to measure what came next.
Ned stepped toward the bodies. The guards did not move.
He knelt beside the smallest of them. Aegon, they had called him.
He did not touch the cloth.
He simply bowed his head.
Then he stood and walked past the girl. Past the woman. Past Robert. Past Tywin. Past the throne.
He said nothing more.
Rodrik Cassel followed. So did the men of the North.
The Iron Throne remained behind them—jagged, empty, watching.
And in their wake, the air grew colder.
Even in the South, winter had arrived.