The Queen's Command
The raven came at dawn.
Its feathers were blacker than night, its eyes pale as frozen moons. When Althea unrolled the parchment tied to its leg, frost rimed the edges as if the message had crossed death itself to reach her.
Return North.
The crown requires your counsel.
The wax bore the imprint of a lion Lily's seal but the message smelled faintly of cold iron and ash. Something older than the Queen had sent it.
Job entered moments later, already armored for travel, his eyes hard with sleeplessness.
"So she calls you back," he said quietly. "Does she think the North still bends to her will?"
"She doesn't," Althea replied, fastening her cloak. "But something does."
He studied her face the paleness beneath her eyes, the trembling in her hands she tried to hide. The curse had deepened since King's Landing; faint, dark veins traced her wrist like spiderwebs, pulsing faintly with every heartbeat.
"Althea," Job murmured, catching her hand. "If the North calls, it's not Lily's doing. It's the thing inside you."
She looked at him and for a moment, the fire in his gaze was replaced by the reflection of snow. Cold, ancient snow.
"I know," she whispered. "That's why I have to go."
Return to the North
They rode for days beneath skies that refused to lighten. The further they went, the colder it grew not the kind of cold that came from weather, but from memory.
Villages watched them pass in silence. Old women crossed themselves when they saw Althea, muttering of crows that bring storms.
At last, the grey walls of Winterfell rose before them heavier, older, and stranger than she remembered. The Weirwood tree loomed beyond, its face weeping into frozen roots.
As she dismounted, the ground beneath her boots whispered faint, like breath against glass.
The North was awake.
Job touched her shoulder. "It's different."
"No," she said softly. "It's the same. It's me that's changed."
That night, she dreamed.
In her sleep, she stood before the Weirwood again, the air thick with whispering snow.
"Daughter of the Crow," the tree murmured, its eyes bleeding light.
"The Lion's shadow has followed you here."
She turned and there, half-buried in frost, stood a golden crown. Not Lily's. Her own.
When she reached for it, the snow beneath her hands turned to ash.
The Frozen Keep
The next morning, Winterfell's halls echoed with strange sounds cracks beneath the stones, whispers behind walls. The servants spoke of ghosts moving through the crypts.
In the Great Hall, Job sat at the head of the table, the air around him colder than any fire could warm.
He was different too. His hair shimmered faintly, silver at the edges, and his eyes flickered like stormlight.
When Althea entered, every torch dimmed.
"You feel it too," she said.
He nodded. "The curse. It's spreading north. It's not just in you anymore."
Althea laid her palm flat on the table. Frost formed beneath it, shaping itself into a sigil a circle pierced by three blades.
"It's a binding mark," she murmured. "The same that was on Cersei's parchment. But now it's feeding on us both."
Job leaned closer, his breath a ghost against her cheek. "Then we sever it."
Her heart twisted. "If we sever it, we sever us."
He didn't look away. "Then so be it."
But neither of them believed the lie.
The Curse Awakens
That night, the wind howled like a thousand voices.
Althea went to the godswood alone, drawn by the pulsing ache beneath her skin. The Weirwood stood waiting, its red eyes open wide.
"Show me," she whispered.
The roots shifted, parting the earth. Beneath them glimmered something ancient a pool of black ice, smooth as glass.
When she knelt beside it, her reflection moved before she did.
"Do you seek to rule fate, Althea Baelish?" the reflection asked, its tone a mocking echo of her own.
"Or to become it?"
She pressed her hand to the ice. The moment she did, the frost burst upward images spilling through it like trapped memories Lily's smirk, Job's burning eyes, her father's whisper.
Then a voice older than all of them filled the air.
"The crown of frost was forged before kings were born.
Only the cursed may wear it.
Only the damned may survive it."
Pain ripped through her. The mark on her wrist blazed blue-white, spreading up her arm. The ice shattered and something within it moved.
A shape. A man.
Trapped beneath the frozen pool, his eyes opened pale, silver, and cold as death.
"Job" she breathed.
The Double Shadow
Job woke with a gasp in his chambers, sweat turning to frost on his skin.
The dream had felt real her voice echoing in the dark, calling his name. But when he touched his chest, he felt it a cold pulse beneath the skin, matching hers.
He rose, grabbed his cloak, and followed the sound of the wind straight to the godswood.
Althea was there, kneeling beside the shattered ice, her hands bleeding from the frostbite.
"Don't come closer," she warned. "It's awake."
He ignored her, stepping forward and the ground split open between them. From the fracture rose a pale mist that took form: his own shadow, moving before he did.
"You cannot save her," the shadow whispered.
"You are part of her curse."
Job drew his sword. "Then I'll fight myself if I must."
Althea's eyes glowed faintly with tears and power. "No it wants to bind us. It feeds on our defiance."
The shadow smiled and the snow turned red.
The Crown of Frost
A storm rose out of nothing a blizzard thick as smoke.
Through the chaos, Althea saw the pool of ice reforming, shaping itself into a throne. Upon it lay the crown she had seen in her dream jagged, translucent, alive.
The voice of the Weirwood thundered:
"To end the curse, one must wear the crown.
To wear the crown is to die."
Job looked at her and without hesitation, stepped forward.
"No," she breathed. "It's meant for me."
"You've carried enough of this curse," he said, eyes burning with cold light. "Let me carry the rest."
She caught his hand, their skin sparking blue-white. The connection flared memories, pain, love all colliding like fire and frost.
The Lion's shadow. The Crow's blood. The Wolf's heart.
Together, they make the storm.
As the crown lifted itself from the ice, it hovered between them, torn by the pull of two souls bound by fate.
Then it split.
Half turned to flame, half to frost.
Althea took the frozen half. Job took the burning one.
Their screams joined the wind.
The Frozen Bond
When the storm cleared, Winterfell was silent. Snow blanketed everything even the godswood.
Job knelt, the crown of fire fading from his brow. The mark on his chest had turned into a symbol of ice the same sigil Althea had drawn on the table.
Althea stood before him, her hair now streaked white, her eyes gleaming like the northern lights. The curse no longer burned her it lived through her.
"You shouldn't have taken it," she said softly.
He smiled faintly. "You would have done the same."
She touched his face and for a heartbeat, warmth returned to his skin. Then it vanished.
"I think the gods envy us," she whispered.
"Why?"
"Because we love in defiance of them."
The Prophecy Fulfilled
The next day, ravens filled the sky. From their wings fell black feathers that melted into snow.
Maesters would later say Winterfell froze deeper that night than in any age before.
But those who walked the halls swore they saw two figures standing by the Weirwood one wreathed in fire, one in frost their hands entwined.
And carved into the tree's bark, beneath its bleeding eyes, were new words written in crimson:
"When the Lion's shadow meets the Crow's curse,
The Wolf shall rise crowned in winter.
And love shall be the weapon that breaks the gods."