The Hunt Begins
The tracks led north small prints half-buried in snow.
Job and Althea rode ahead of a small company Arya, Ser Davos, and two silent rangers.
The wind bit like knives, the air thick with the scent of cold iron.
"You're sure she went this way?" Arya asked.
"She didn't go," Althea murmured. "She was called."
The others exchanged uneasy glances. Since the child's disappearance, Althea's voice had changed softer, distant, like she spoke with something listening behind her.
Job looked toward the horizon. "If she's heading beyond the Wall, she's heading home."
Arya frowned. "Home?"
He didn't answer.
The Northern Camp
By nightfall, they reached the ruins of the Last Hearth.
Fires burned low in the snow, their company huddled around what warmth they could find.
Ser Davos rubbed his hands together. "Feels like the old days, eh? Chasing ghosts and prophecies."
"The old days ended in ashes," Job said.
"Aye," Davos replied. "But they ended."
Althea stood apart, staring into the dark woods.
The wind whispered her name not aloud, but inside her chest, like a memory breathing.
She turned suddenly. "We're being followed."
Arya was already moving, dagger in hand.
From the treeline came a figure cloaked in grey.
Not an enemy but a girl, thin, trembling, with eyes too old for her face.
"You shouldn't be here," Althea said gently.
The girl stared at her. "I had to come. The child she's beyond the Wall. The old gods are waiting."
The Council by Firelight
Inside a broken hall, the fire crackled.
The girl who called herself Maege told her tale.
"She walks in dreams," Maege said. "The trees follow her. When she cries, rivers freeze. The crows whisper her name Nyra."
The sound of that name froze the air.
Althea's hand trembled. Job reached for hers beneath the table.
"She was meant to sleep," Althea whispered. "The crown wasn't supposed to awaken again."
"Crown?" Arya asked.
"The Crown of Dawn," Job said quietly. "Forged from what we broke fire and frost together."
Davos frowned. "And this child wears it?"
"No," Althea said. "She is it."
The Shadow of Crowns
They rode again at dawn, north into the blizzard.
As they crossed the frozen river, Althea saw shapes beneath the ice figures moving slowly, whispering through the frost.
"The dead?" Davos asked.
"No," she said. "The waiting."
The air shimmered faintly aurora lights swirling like a crown of fire and silver above the horizon.
Job's horse snorted nervously.
"I've seen that before," he said. "When the Wall fell."
"This isn't the Wall," Althea said. "This is the veil."
And then the ice cracked.
A figure rose from beneath pale, translucent, cloaked in mist.
It bowed low before Althea.
"Mother," it whispered. "You left your throne."
The soldiers drew their blades. Job held up a hand. "What are you?"
"The memory of kings," the shade answered. "And she the child bears your names in her blood."
The Camp of the Lost
They found her the next day.
In a hollow where the forest met the old frozen sea, the child sat among ancient stones, playing with fallen feathers.
The air around her shimmered warm despite the snow.
When Althea stepped closer, the girl smiled.
"You took long," Nyra said.
Her voice was calm, too knowing.
"You shouldn't be alone," Job said, kneeling.
"I'm not," she said. "They're here."
She pointed to the trees and from the shadows, faint lights glowed within the bark, like eyes opening.
Althea felt the ground tremble. "The godswood it's spreading."
"No," Nyra said softly. "It's awakening."
The Politic of Fear
When they returned south to Winterfell with the child, word spread faster than fire.
Lords gathered again, this time with sharper tongues.
"This is madness!" Lord Glover roared. "The last time gods walked, the world burned!"
"And the last time kings ruled, the world starved," Arya snapped.
"You'd let a baby rule you?"
Althea's gaze cut through them. "No one rules me. But this child was made by our choices. Deny her, and we deny the price we paid for peace."
Job's hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
"You'll not touch her. Not while I breathe."
The Dream and the Crown
That night, the godswood pulsed with light.
Althea stood before the Silver Tree, Nyra asleep in her arms.
"Why was she born?" she whispered.
The branches bent as if in answer.
The voice that came was neither kind nor cruel only ancient.
"Because love defied death. Because fire kissed frost. Because the world cannot stay awake forever."
Job stepped beside her. "And when it sleeps again?"
"Then the dream continues," Althea said. "And maybe she'll remember us."
He looked at the child, then at Althea and for a heartbeat, hope warmed the cold.
"You once said we loved in defiance of the gods," he murmured.
"I was wrong," she said softly. "We became them."
The Crown of Dawn
At dawn, the first sunlight broke over Winterfell.
The snow glowed gold and white, and every raven lifted from the trees at once.
In the courtyard, Nyra stood barefoot in the frost, watching the rising sun.
Above her, light formed a faint circlet of flame and ice hovering over her head.
The men fell to their knees.
Job and Althea only watched neither proud nor afraid, only quiet.
Because they knew this was not the end.
It was the beginning of another story.