Eddard II
He sat before his desk, quill resting idle between his fingers, eyes moving over a sheaf of parchment.
The ink had long dried on most of them, but he read them again all the same.
Letters. So many letters.
He had found more ink-stained parchment crossing his table these past moons than in any season before.
At first, he thought them Luwin's doing, reports from his bannermen, tallies from merchants, the usual burdens of stewardship. But these bore Robb's hand, measured and deliberate.
Eddard turned one of them in his fingers, its wax seal broken but carefully reattached, the crest of House Manderly stamped deep into the red.
The words inside were cordial and warm, full of respect and quiet gratitude. Lord Wyman wrote of renewed trade between White Harbor and Winterfell, grain and salt fish flowing north, fine lumber and wolfwood timber flowing south. A simple thing, and yet it had filled the Winterfell coffers more in a moon than some seasons had seen.
The idea had been Robb's.
It was he who had noticed the surplus of cut timber stacked idle by the carpenters' sheds.
He who had suggested sending word to White Harbor to see if the Manderlys might buy the excess for shipbuilding and sell the others across the Narrow sea.
Lord Glover had been one to support the idea immediately, his house and his keep having the most cover over the Wolfswood grounds.
"Idle hands and idle stores serve no one," Robb had said. "The North must look after its own, and trade keeps loyalty alive."
Eddard had thought it clever at the time, a small, harmless act of lordship in the making. But the boy had not stopped there.
His quill had reached every corner of the North, from the Umbers of the Last Hearth to the Flints of Widow's Watch, even as far as the Skagosi across their frozen isle, though their replies came late and cold as the sea wind.
Some letters had gone beyond the Neck, he had heard from the maester, reaching minor houses sworn at Vale, and one, he knew, had been sent to a merchant family in Braavos.
Coins had begun to trickle in from unexpected places. Not in torrents, but steady.
Traders from Essos who bought northern furs and dyes from White Harbor's ports and ships spoke the name 'Stark' with newfound familiarity.
Winterfell's accounts, usually thin from long winters, were beginning to grow again.
He should have been proud. And he was but beneath the pride sat an unease, the quiet, persistent weight of uncertainty.
Robb had changed.
He had not been the same since that day he woke up from his trance.
When the boy had awoken, he had thanked every god he knew. But the Robb that rose from that bed was not quite the boy who had fallen.
His laughter had returned, yes, and his kindness too.
Luwin had said he was healthy in all prospects, mind and body and Cat had made sure he was indeed.
He still played with Bran, still carried Arya on his shoulders through the yard. But there was thought in his eyes now, deeper and older than his years should bear. He asked questions about grain and trade, about old laws, oaths and loyalty, about wars and its lessons.
Ned had not expected to see so much of himself in his son so soon and for some reason it hurt him.
The door creaked open.
"Father?"
He looked up. Robb stood in the doorway, dressed in a thick wool tunic, his growing hair was now tied back, a faint dusting of snow on his shoulders. He closed the door quietly behind him.
"You wished to see me?" Ned asked, gesturing to the firelit chair across from him.
His heir sat, his expression calm, though his fingers toyed absently with a scrap of parchment.
"I did not mean to disturb you, Father. I only wanted to speak of something I've been considering."
Ned studied him, the poise in his shoulders, the measured tone in his voice. So young still, yet speaking like a man half-grown. "Go on."
Robb took a steady breath. "It's about Arya."
That gave him pause. "What of her?"
"She's… restless," He said, his tone careful, thoughtful. "She doesn't take to her lessons, and she has little patience for the needlework the septa gives her. You know how she is that she-wolf, wild and untamed as the North wind. But she needs a place to shape that fire. I've been thinking…" He hesitated. "Perhaps she could be sent to Bear Island, as a ward to Lady Mormont."
Ned leaned back in his chair, brows furrowing. "Bear Island?"
"She would be among women who value strength," He said earnestly. "Maege's daughters are warriors or I heard. Arya might not understand at first, but in time she would. And it would strengthen the bonds between our houses."
The Lord listened quietly, the firelight glinting in his eyes. For a moment, he said nothing.
He remembered Arya's laughter echoing down the hallways, her feet forever scuffing across the stone floors, her hair wild and tangled. He remembered her stubborn chin and fierce, curious eyes, the same eyes Lyanna had.
And the thought of sending her away, even to loyal friends like the Mormonts, felt like tearing away a part of their home.
"It is a fair thought, Robb but she is just six," Ned said softly. "Too young to be parted from her kin."
Robb's shoulders fell slightly, though his expression remained composed. "Maester Luwin thought you would say as much."
"You speak with wisdom for your years," Ned continued, his tone gentler now. "But Arya's place is here, with her mother, her brothers, her sister. Her time shall come as all things do. There will be a day for such talk… but not yet."
The boy nodded slowly, eyes lowered to the floor. "As you say, Father."
He rose from his chair and placed a hand on his son's shoulder. The boy's frame was growing solid, the beginnings of a man's strength beneath the wool.
"You've done well these past moons," He said quietly. "The North has taken notice. The men see you learning, leading. That is enough for now."
He looked up, a faint smile touching his lips. "Thank you, Father."
Ned gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. "But remember, a lord's lesson is patience and knowing when not to act."
"I understand."
As Robb turned to leave, his gaze lingered on the boy, the son who had nearly been lost to the cold and now returned with a mind sharper than steel.
When the door shut behind him, the Lord of Winterfell looked again at the letters spread across his desk, the marks of ink, the wax of seals, the proof of a mind already reaching farther than Winterfell's walls.
For the first time, the thought stirred in him, not of pride or worry, but something deeper, more uncertain.
The North would one day belong to Robb. And the North, he feared, might never be quite the same.
—---
Leira I
The night was colder than most.
The fires in the great hall had long since died, and only the moon kept its lonely vigil over the keep.
Its pale light spilled through narrow windows and lay like silver dust upon the stone floors.
The castle slept, as it always did, quiet and solemn, though the old stones seemed to breathe with the cold.
Down in the servants' quarters, she stirred awake, she had served House Stark nearly half her life, in kitchens and corridors, at births and burials. Winterfell was hers as much as her home.
She woke with a start, her heart fluttering in the stillness. The cold had crept through her blanket again. Muttering under her breath, she swung her legs from the cot and reached for her cloak. The air bit at her bare feet as she stood.
The corridors were empty.
'The men must have made their pass.' She thought.
Her footsteps made soft, careful sounds against the flagstones as she made her way toward the back passage, the one that led out into the yard.
She had no wish to wake the others.
The torches along the hall had burned low, their flames thin and trembling. Shadows wavered behind them like restless things.
Halfway to the door, she paused.
Her eyes squinted as she noticed a trail of footsteps upon the mud, leading away.
There, she saw a figure, tall and cloaked, slipping soundlessly out through the main doors of the keep.
It moved with a slow, deliberate grace, as if it knew the place as the back of it's hand but carried no torch to see through the dark.
She froze as she realized, the figure carried no coat, It was no guard, none in Winterfell moved so quietly, nor wore a cloak of that cut.
Her first thought was of thieves or spies.
Her second, of ghosts, the kind Old Nan spoke of in hushed tales by the hearth.
This was Winterfell, after all, and the crypts were full of Starks whose rest might not always be peaceful.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of her cloak.
She ought to fetch the guards, she told herself. She ought to.
But she didn't.
The moonlight caught the edge of the figure's cloak as it turned down the path toward the crypts.
'It truly is a wraith.' She thought to herself.
She hesitated for only a heartbeat, then followed slow, cautious steps that carried her forward before her courage could catch up.
Snow had begun to fall again, light as ash.
Each flake seemed to hush the world further, until the night itself held its breath.
The figure's steps left no trace after the entrance. It passed beneath the stone archway and disappeared into the black mouth of the crypt.
She hesitated at the top of the steps.
The air that drifted up from below was older, stale and cold, smelling faintly of dust and something that might have been blood long dried.
Her breath fogged before her, white and frail.
Slowly, she descended.
The torches along the walls were long dead.
She brushed her hand along the stone to guide herself, her fingertips slick with cold moisture.
The silence grew thicker as she went, pressing against her ears like a held breath.
And then a sound.
A faint whispering.
At the base of the steps, the corridor opened into shadow.
Statues of kings and lords lined the walls, the stone faces of long-dead Starks gazing down with eyes empty and cold.
Her breath came quicker.
She passed the first, then the next, her candlelight trembling.
The sound grew clearer, a voice, low and steady, like someone praying.
The cloaked figure stood before one of the statues, a woman, slender and sorrowful, her stone hands folded around a small sword. Lyanna Stark.
The figure lingered there, unmoving, as though listening.
Leira's heart pounded in her chest.
She almost called out 'Who goes there?' but something in the air pressed down on her, smothering her courage.
Then, slowly, the figure moved on deeper, past where visitors ever went.
She stood quietly, questioning herself if she should return and bring the guards.
But then what would they say, that she saw a ghost or she is a woman going mad.
She steeled herself and walked forward.
The steps grew rougher, the air heavier.
The faint scent of earth gave way to something stranger, metallic, sour and rot.
The flicker of her candle caught on something pale in the dark.
They were bones, set into the stone, twined with roots of weirwood.
The corridor opened into a low chamber.
A single candle burned from the hollow of a skull, its light thin and sickly. The walls were alive with patterns of bone and wood, the weirwood branches twisting like veins through the stone.
At the center of the chamber stood the cloaked figure.
As he lowered his hood, her breath caught in her throat. It was the young lord.
He knelt before something that sat on a crude altar, a small idol of dark wood, carved into the shape of a man with wings. Its face was eyeless, its mouth open in an eternal scream.
The candlelight painted his face in pale gold and shadow.
Atop his head rested a twisted crown, made of thorn branches and broken twigs, blood pooled out from them and marked streaks over his cheek, not his own, she thought.
His lips moved soundlessly, whispering to the thing.
Her voice escaped before she could stop it. "Milord?"
The whisper cracked the silence like shattering glass.
He did not turn at once. His voice, when it came, was calm, too calm. "You shouldn't have followed me through."
He rose slowly, the folds of his cloak falling into place, raising dust. "The crypts, this late, are no place for a lady."
His head tilted, as though hearing her from a distance. The shadows around him danced in a pulse, swallowing the weak light of the skull's candle, her fear surged.
"What's all this, Milord?" she asked, her voice trembling, one hand pressed to the wall behind her.
Every part of her screamed to run.
For a heartbeat, the young lord did not answer. Then his eyes lifted to hers.
They were not the grey she knew anymore.
They were cruel black, deep, fathomless and dead, like the void between the stars.
Her knees went weak and she stumbled back.
The candle's flame sputtered once, twice. The air thickened, heavy and cold enough to burn.
"This?" His voice was calm, almost gentle. "This is a debt, one I am bound to."
He tilted his head back and breathed out slowly, almost wistful. "Lora and Haden, was it?"
Her breath caught in as she heard the names of her children.
Her legs turned and she tried to run back but her feet stumbled in the dark, her throat roared to scream but no sound came.
He stepped closer, his shadow crawling up the wall behind him.
"A mother's love is the truest offering," he murmured.
She turned to beg but he was gone.
She blinked as she saw the lonely candle over the skull waving slightly.
Something rustled behind her, the whisper of a cloth and the stir of air.
She turned, the candle went out and darkness swallowed the room whole.
Leira froze, she could feel the air change, cold and thick as water.
A thousand tiny sounds filled it: the creak of old wood, the shift of bone, a low hum like the earth breathing.
Hands, she could feel them before she saw them, they were cold and they were reaching from the ground, from the walls, from the dark itself. Too many to count.
Then came his voice, soft and low beside her ear.
"Your sacrifice has been noted. Your children will be taken care of."
A flash of steel. A single, sharp pain, just below her breast.
Her scream caught in her throat.
She sagged forward, her blood warm against the cold stone.
Strong hands caught her before she fell.
The young lord held her as a mother might hold a newborn, careful, almost tender.
His face was close, his eyes no longer black but a pale grey, soft with something like sorrow.
Her eyes trailed down to her torso, a dagger had been plunged into her heart, his hand resting on the blade.
"Lora will marry a good man," he said quietly, wiping away the tears that streaked her face. "And Haden will become one. I promise you this."
Her lips trembled, perhaps she tried to speak, perhaps she believed him.
She closed her eyes slowly, losing her sense.
He laid her down gently, her hair splaying across the cold floor like spilled ink.
The shadows moved closer, thick and slow, curling beneath her and the ground itself seemed to open.
Pale, formless hands reached up, dragging her down into the dark.
Her body sank inch by inch until nothing remained but the faint ripple of her cloak and the echo of her last breath.
When the light returned, the candle burned again, steady, calm, its flame reflected in the empty hollows of the skull.
The chamber was still.
Only the idol remained, its eyeless face staring upward, its mouth forever open in silent hunger.
Above, in the sleeping keep, a wind moaned softly through the halls, a sound half sigh, half lament as if the castle itself had dreamed something it could not bear to remember.
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A/N:
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A few comments and thoughts.