Robb stood at the main gate, his chest puffed out so far he thought it might burst. He was the son of the Lord of Winterfell, and his father, a hero, was coming home. The air was alive with the sound of the horns from the eastern watchtower, a long, triumphant blast that echoed off the grey stone of the castle. Banners of the great Northern houses—the Karstark sunburst, the Manderly merman, the Umber giant—flapped from the battlements alongside the grey direwolf of his own house.
He was almost six namedays old, and he felt like a man grown. He had a new wool doublet on, and his red hair had been combed until it shone. He was ready. Ready to show his father how much he had grown, how strong he was, how well he could hold a practice sword. Ready to give him the small, lopsided wooden wolf he had spent a month carving.
He bounced on the balls of his feet, his blue eyes scanning the courtyard, a small, cold knot of unease tightening in his stomach. Everything was perfect, except for one thing. He looked to his left, where there should have been a quiet, grey-eyed shadow. But there was only empty space.
Jon was not there.
They were never apart. Not really. Jon was his other half. He was the quiet to Robb's loud, the dark to his bright. Where was he?
He looked up at his mother. She stood tall and poised, a picture of a proud lady awaiting her lord husband. She was beautiful, her auburn hair a fiery cascade against the grey sky, but it was her smile that made the cold knot in his stomach twist. It was a serene, satisfied smile. It was a smile he had seen only once before, and the memory of it made him feel sick.
The dread that filled him was so powerful it was a physical thing. The cheering of the household guards, the happy shouts of the servants, all of it faded into a dull roar. The present dissolved, and he was back in the suffocating silence of the previous night.
He had been in his bed, too excited to sleep, listening for the sound of the returning army. He had heard his mother's door open and had peeked out into the hall. He saw her speaking to a servant, and then, a few minutes later, he saw Jon being led to her solar. A strange, childish curiosity had taken hold of him. He had crept out of his room, his bare feet silent on the cold stone, and had hidden behind a thick tapestry near her door, just as he had done a hundred times before when he was trying to avoid a lesson.
He had heard his mother's voice, as cold and sharp as an icicle. He heard her talk of gifts. He felt a surge of pride, thinking of his own carved wolf. Then he heard Jon's small, trembling voice. "I have nothing."
And then his mother's words, a soft, chilling whisper that had frozen the very blood in his veins. "You can end his shame."
He had heard Jon's confused, terrified question. And then the final blow, two words that had shattered his entire world.
"By dying."
Robb had been frozen then. He had wanted to shout, to run, to do something, but the horror had stolen his breath and turned his limbs to lead. He had stayed there, hidden behind the tapestry, his heart hammering against his ribs, until long after he had heard the soft click of his mother's door closing. Then he had fled, not to his father's guards, not to the maester, but to the false safety of his own bed, where he had hidden under the furs, trembling, the echo of his mother's words a poison in his mind.
That single, monstrous memory had unlocked a hundred others. He had suddenly understood.
He remembered his mother's sharp voice cutting across the Great Hall because Jon had dropped a spoon, and he remembered feeling a flicker of embarrassment for his clumsy brother. But underneath it, a hot, crawling shame now burned, because he also remembered a small, secret feeling of pride. A feeling of being special, because his mother would never speak to him that way.
He remembered the long, dreary lessons with Septa Maris, how her voice would turn cold and sharp whenever she spoke of the "sin of a bastard's birth." Robb had always found those parts boring, his mind wandering to the training yard and the feel of a wooden sword in his hand, all while Jon sat beside him, silent and still as stone. He had felt special then, too, safe from her cold words because they were never aimed at him. He saw it clearly now: it hadn't been a lesson, it had been an attack, and he had been daydreaming through it.
He remembered always having the warmer cloak, the hotter slice of pie, the seat closer to the fire in the nursery. He had accepted these things as his right, as the privileges of the heir. He had never once thought that his warmth came at the cost of Jon's cold.
He remembered the castle growing quieter, and Jon growing quieter with it. He remembered seeing him in the courtyard, his shoulders hunched, his face pale and thin, and he remembered turning away to play because Jon wasn't fun anymore.
He had seen it all. He had been there for all of it. He had done nothing. Worse than nothing, he had been a part of it, enjoying the benefits of a war he hadn't even known was being fought. The realization was a sickness in his gut.
The great horns blasted again, closer this time, pulling him from the nightmare of his memory. The procession is here. The gates swung open, and his father rode in at the head of a column of weary, triumphant men. Lord Eddard Stark is home. He looks tired, older, but he is a giant in his grey cloak and steel armor.
His little sister, Sansa, squealed with delight and ran forward, her red hair flying. His father dismounted, a rare, true smile breaking across his weary face, and he swept her up into a massive hug. Then he came to his mother, and their greeting was formal, a lord and his lady. And then, it was his turn.
His father knelt, his grey eyes full of a fierce, proud love. "Robb. You've grown."
Robb launched himself into his father's arms, burying his face in the cold, travel-worn cloak. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to feel the simple joy of a son reunited with his father. But all he could feel was the crushing weight of his secret, the poison of his mother's words.
His father held him at arm's length, his smile fading slightly as he looked into Robb's eyes. "What is it, son?" But before Robb could answer, his father's gaze began to scan the assembled crowd, a familiar habit. He was looking for someone.
"Where is Jon?" he asked, his voice casual, but with an underlying thread of steel.
Robb's blood ran cold. He saw his mother step forward, her serene smile unwavering. "He must be off somewhere, my lord," she said, her voice a placid stream. "You know how he likes to wander."
His father's gaze snapped back to Robb. The casual look was gone, replaced by the sharp, assessing stare of the Lord of Winterfell. He saw it then. He saw the terror in his son's eyes, the pale, trembling lip, the tears that were threatening to spill. He knew something was deeply, terribly wrong.
He knelt again, his hands gripping Robb's shoulders, his voice a low, urgent whisper that was for him alone. "Robb. By the old gods, you will tell me. Where is your brother?"
The dam broke. The words tumbled out of him, a torrent of guilt and terror, incoherent with sobs. "I don't know! I don't know! He... he always goes to the Godswood... when he's sad... Mother... last night... she told him... told him to die..."
He never finished the sentence. He saw a look on his father's face he had never seen before. A look of pure, primal terror. The Lord of Winterfell vanished, replaced by a father. By a brother.
He didn't speak. He didn't shout. He ran.
He sprinted across the courtyard, shoving aside stunned lords and guardsmen, a grey wolf in a blind, desperate flight. Robb, his heart seizing with a terror that mirrored his father's, ran after him, his short legs pumping, his sobs catching in his throat.
They burst through the ancient ironwood gate of the Godswood, the sudden silence of the sacred grove a shocking contrast to the noise of the courtyard. They ran down the winding path, their boots skidding on damp earth and fallen leaves, past the silent, watching faces of the weirwoods.
And then they were there. In the clearing. Before the Heart Tree.
Robb's world stopped. He saw the tree first, its leaves like drops of blood against the white bark. Then he saw the shape. A wrong shape. Something small, hanging from a thick branch like a forgotten bundle of laundry. He saw Jon's scuffed boots, dangling limp in the air.
He heard a sound he would never forget, a guttural, wounded howl torn from his father's throat. His father, his giant, the Lord of Winterfell, stumbled forward as in if he'd been stabbed. He didn't fall to his knees in despair. He acted.
"Howland! William! To me! Get him down!" his father roared, his voice a raw command of pure agony. He scrambled at the base of the tree, his fingers clawing at the bark, trying to pull himself up.
Robb couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. His gaze was fixed on Jon. The gentle spring wind, the same wind that rustled the red leaves above, caused the body to turn ever so slightly, a slow, lazy, horrifying pirouette. He saw the rough-spun rope, a brutal brown line against the pale skin of his brother's neck. He saw the dark, wet stain spreading from the center of his tunic, the hilt of a small dagger still sticking out.
And then he saw his face.
On Jon's pale, still face, there was a smile. It was not the sad smile Jon always wore, the one that never reached his eyes. This was a real one. It was a quiet, peaceful, almost happy smile, a look of pure contentment. He looked… free. From the corner of Jon's eyes, like the red sap of the tree, two thin lines of blood had traced a path down his cheeks. Blood tears.
It was the smile of a child who had finally been let out of a cage. And it was the most heart-breaking thing Robb had ever seen. He watched as his father, now being helped by his men, finally cut the rope, cradling Jon's limp body in his arms. He watched his father, the strongest man in the world, let out a choked, broken sound of utter despair.
Robb, his own small heart shattered into a thousand pieces, could only stand there, frozen, his gaze fixed on the quiet, freed smile of his brother, and the terrible, bloody tears that stained his pale face. The world had stopped making sense, and he finally screamed, a raw, child's sound of pure terror that was swallowed by the ancient silence of the Godswood.