Eddard III
296 - AC
Winterfell had not been silent, not truly. Even in the deepest hours of the night the old stones breathed—warm with the heat of their ancient forges, whispering with the echoes of wolves beyond the walls.
He had grown accustomed to its rhythms long ago, but today there was a different… hum beneath it. A restless shifting, as if the castle sensed change drifting in from the south.
He stood in the solar with a set of parchments spread across his desk. Ledgers. Trade manifestos. Letters sealed with wax from Karhold, White Harbor, Barrowton.
What they spoke of was coin.
His hands moved slowly over the parchments, as if the figures themselves were strange to him.
Winterfell had seen good harvest years. Had seen lean ones too. But never had coin trickled so steadily through the North. Never had smallfolk, hard, suspicious Northerners, written to him asking for permission to bring their kin to Winter Town for work. Never had so many southern merchants written asking for shipments of Lady Frost, the northern drink that seemed to be creeping into inns and ports along the western coast.
It was not enough to change the North. Not yet. But it was enough to be noticed.
Ned exhaled softly through his nose.
"My boy," he murmured. "What are you shaping?"
A knock came.
"My lord?" Maester Luwin entered with quiet steps. "Another request from White Harbor. A merchant guild in Volantis asks whether more barrels of Lady Frost may be purchased before spring."
Ned nodded, not surprised. "Set it aside. I'll have Tepes look at it later."
Luwin hesitated. "There is something else."
Ned raised an eyebrow.
"A raven from the south," Luwin said carefully. "Lord Arryn has written. The Crown is… curious about the flow of coins from the North."
Not threatened. Not impressed.
Just curious.
Ned almost smiled. "Write to Lord Arryn about the trade, we'll send ledgers if necessary and one to Lord Manderly to prepare them, It is trade, nothing more."
He dismissed the maester with a small gesture, and once he was alone again, Ned allowed himself to lean back, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
He should have expected this. Coin made men look north more than honor or war ever had, a pity.
He glanced toward the window.
Snow drifted down lightly across the yard. Robb was out training again—he could hear the faint clashing of wood on wood, the laughter of boys, the barked commands of Ser Rodrik.
They had returned only three weeks ago, and already Robb fell into the rhythms of Winterfell as if stitched into the stones.
But something in the boy had changed.
Ned felt it every time Robb entered a room. He carried himself taller, spoke more firmly, thought more deeply. It stirred both pride and unease in Ned's heart.
His mind drifted—to a memory from nearly a year past.
---
294 - AC
Snow fell like sifted flour on their cloaks. Robb walked beside him, boots crunching over frost-bitten ground, hair ruffled like a pup trying to look like a wolf grown.
A dozen workers hammered stakes into the frozen earth. Two carpenters argued over the length of a beam. A pair of men rode out with parchment plans in hand, arguing about grain measurements.
The boy watched them all with bright eyes.
"What do you think, Father?" he asked, voice buoyed with excitement. "If we place the main barrels closer to the east walls, the workers say the heat will stay longer. And Tepes says cooling the wort with snow would give it a flavor no southern ale can match."
Ned had taken a long moment to answer, watching the boy—his boy—already directing grown men with the earnestness of someone who believed the world would obey him if he worked hard enough.
"It is a fine idea," Ned had said slowly. "One with potential."
His face lit up.
"You are but eleven." Ned's voice was gentle but firm. "I will not have you riding across the North in search of glory or fame.."
Robb breathed in through his nose. "It isn't glory I seek. Nor fame."
Ned continued walking, letting the memory settle between them like breath in the cold.
Ned raised an eyebrow. "Then what do you call it? Leading the sons of half the houses? Fighting bandits? Taking responsibility no boy your age should take?"
Robb's back straightened. His hands tightened faintly on his knees.
"Duty," he said. "I call it duty."
Ned blinked.
Robb continued, voice low but steady. "The North is vast, Father. Wild places are growing wilder. Bandits travel the lonely roads. Clans raid the foothills. There are villages who have not seen a knight or bannered lord in years. When I ride with the boys from the houses, I am not doing it for stories or victory feasts. I do it because the people of the North deserve someone to answer them when they call."
And Ned Stark—Warden of the North, Lord of Winterfell—had almost broken then, seeing the earnestness in the boy who would one day rule after him.
He leaned back, caught between pride and a sharp, twisting fear.
Duty, Robb had said. Duty was the iron that forged Starks — and the sword that broke them.
"You speak of duty," Ned said quietly, "and I believe you mean it. But even duty has its dangers, Robb. Promise me you will not let the praise of the northern lords turn your head. Promise me you will listen to Ser Jory. He has served our house since before you were born."
He had rested a hand on Robb's shoulder.
A wind had swept across the field, carrying with it the scent of snow and sawdust.
Robb nodded with a smile. "I will, Father, I promise."
Ned studied him. Every word was earnest. Every breath tempered with purpose.
"And mother?" he asked gently. "She is still bitter about my decision."
Ned winced faintly. "I know. She doesn't speak of it truly, but she fears something will happen when you ride out."
They watched as a man moved across the Brewery's roof, calling men in the snow to move heavy stones.
"She is not wrong to fear," Ned said. "When a son leaves, a mother's heart leaves with him. She nearly broke when you fell ill a year ago. She will never admit how deeply it frightened her."
Robb bowed his head. "She will oppose riding out."
"Perhaps," Ned said, "but I will convince her. That is my burden, not yours."
Robb's face softened into relief. Then, with a boyish brightness that still lived in him, he ran off toward Tepes, shouting something about barrel-tightening and heated stone.
Ned watched him go, exhaling into the cold air and looked above at the ashen sky and muttered a prayer to the Old gods and the new.
To keep his son safe for the moons to come.
—
Ned blinked, the memory dissolving under the soft shadows of the solar.
Robb was older now. A year changes a child more than a decade changes a man.
But that stubborn spark remained.
There was a knock.
"Enter." He said.
There was a quiet between them, long but not uncomfortable. Robb stood respectfully, bowing his head before stepping in.
"You called for me, Father?"
"Aye," Ned said. "Sit once more. There are matters we must discuss."
Robb sat across.
Ned reached to the table and picked up a sealed letter stamped with a sun-and-spear sigil.
"A raven came yesterday from Sunspear."
Robb straightened, eyes widening with curiosity.
"From House Martell?" he asked.
"Aye," Ned said, lifting the letter. "Prince Doran acknowledges your request for sand steeds."
Robb's face remained calm, but Ned saw the spark of thought behind his eyes.
"He will grant them," Ned said, "and he sends Prince Oberyn to deliver the first batch."
Even Robb blinked at that. "Oberyn Martell? The one they call the Red Viper?"
"Aye."
Ned folded the letter and set it aside.
"This concerns me," he said quietly. "The South rarely casts its gaze this far north unless it has reason."
Robb's brow furrowed. "Do you think they suspect something?"
"I think," Ned said, "that Dorne rarely acts without intent. The work didn't need a prince to sail across the entire realm, a loyal man would have done it and the Viper is not sent here lightly. And I have no doubt he will look closely — at our lands, our people, and most of all… at us."
Robb said nothing for a moment.
Then he nodded. "We shall care for him appropriately."
"We will tend with him carefully," Ned corrected. "A man like him is as dangerous with words as he is with spears."
Robb offered a thin smile. "Then I will listen more than I speak."
Ned nodded approvingly.
He leaned back, rubbing a thumb across the cold wood of his chair.
"These are changing times," he said softly. "The South stirs too easily. Even the Vale and the Reach have begun sniffing at their neighbors. And the crown… the crown is curious about the coins."
He exhaled slowly.
"When the South grows curious about the North, that is when we must be most cautious."
Robb nodded again.
"Father," he said quietly, "I understand."
Ned looked at his son — truly looked — and felt a heaviness settle in his chest.
"Give this to Tepes." Ned said as he handed the letter from White Harbour to his son.
Robb stood, bowed, and departed with it. Ned watched him go, listening to the soft fall of his footsteps fade down the corridor.
When the door closed,he let the mask fall from his face. Worry etched itself across his gaze — deep, quiet, familiar.
The South has grown curious.
Dorne was reaching.
The lords of the North were whispering Robb's name too loudly.
He rose from his chair and stood before the window.
Winterfell breathed beneath him.
And Ned Stark wondered, with a weight he had not felt in years, whether the snow carried warnings no raven had yet delivered.
—---
Robb V
296 - AC
The night in Winterfell had settled heavy and cold, the kind of cold that pressed against the stone as though trying to seep into its marrow. The moon hung thin and sharp above the towers, casting long silver blades of light through the courtyards and across the snow-blanketed roofs.
All was quiet.
Too quiet, almost.
Robb Stark moved like a shadow through the keep, his cloak barely whispering against the floor. The guards did not see him—never saw him, not when he walked this way, guided by something far older than Winterfell's torches. His boots touched the worn steps descending into the crypts, each footfall swallowed instantly by the deep, ancient dark.
The air grew colder with every step, old, dry and still.
The statues of dead Starks lined the hall—grim faces carved in stone, wolf-headed swords clutched between stony hands. Their empty eyes watched him pass, and though Robb had walked this road a hundred times in his life, tonight he felt each gaze like the brush of a cold finger down his spine.
At the end of the passage, beneath the oldest vault, he knelt, before the wooden carving of the screaming winged man.
He closed his eyes, placed both palms upon the icy ground, and whispered in a tongue he had never been taught and yet always known:
The air tightened, a shiver crawled up his spine, then his breathing slowed, slowed, slowed, until it was almost still.
Robb opened his eyes.
They were no longer grey.
They were pools of black—ink swirling in a void without reflection.
He did not gasp, he did not tremble, he merely took a single, silent breath—steady and certain.
He had been here before.
And when he blinked next, the crypts dissolved around him like sand slipping off stone.
He stood amid ruins.
A vast, broken hall stretched out in every direction, its once-great pillars crumbling beneath heavy mats of moss and spiraling vines. Shafts of warm golden sunlight poured through a shattered roof, scattering dust motes through the air like drifting embers.
Birdsong lingered faintly from far above—yet the place felt profoundly dead.
Robb inhaled, the air was strangely warm here.
Alive in a way that made the dying cold of the crypts feel like another world entirely.
Before him rose the throne.
Or what remained of it—a fractured stone seat swallowed by vine and shadow. Dark smoke curled around it like a living shroud, swirling and coiling in slow, deliberate motions. And within the heart of that smoke…
Two eyes gleamed.
Crimson, bright as fresh blood, burning with quiet amusement.
The figure on the throne leaned forward slightly, though its shape remained impossible to grasp—half man, half shadow, half formless drifting haze.
"You have done well," it said, voice echoing like a whisper through stone corridors that no longer existed.
Robb stood tall before it, offering a polite, shallow smile—thin and deliberate, without warmth, without fear, without pride.
"I have done what was required," Robb said. His voice was calm, almost courtly. "It is a part of my debt."
The shadowy figure chuckled, a soft, rich sound that reverberated through the ruined hall.
"That it is…" it said, the red eyes narrowing with something like pleasure. "But still."
It snapped its fingers.
The sound struck the air like a crack of ice.
And the hall filled—instantly—with ghosts.
Not true ghosts, not spirits—wraiths, pale shapes coalescing into half-formed bodies of men and women.
Robb recognized them all. Bandits cut down in the wilds. Thieves who had died begging for mercy. Raiders slain under the Winter Sons' banner.
Every death that had been delivered by his hand and by the Winter Sons stood before him in shifting phantoms of smoke and memory.
Robb only raised a brow, not startled, not afraid, simply curious.
The figure on the throne smiled wider, Robb could feel it in the smoke, even if he could not see a face.
"Every death by your hand," it said, "and every death in your name… gives me strength in my realm."
The wraiths flickered like dying candles and bowed their heads toward the throne.
"And in turn," the figure continued, "makes you stronger."
Robb felt warmth bloom beneath his ribs—small at first, then brightening like a coal pressed into his chest. A soft pulse of light flickered beneath his tunic, golden and brief, before fading.
He exhaled slowly, the sensation leaving him momentarily breathless.
"This is a gift," the figure whispered, voice curling into his ear like smoke—too close, too intimate, too knowing. "One you do not need to repay."
A pause.
"But one you may need… when the time comes."
Robb's expression shifted, faint doubt, sharpened into contemplation. But he bowed all the same, graceful and composed.
"I thank you for that, Ser Fool."
The shadow-shrouded figure inclined its head. The throne behind it groaned as if shifting under ancient, unseen weight.
The wraiths dissolved—vanishing into trails of smoke that drifted upward, breaking apart into sparks before disappearing entirely.
The warm air dimmed, the golden sunlight dimmed, the vines curled inward like dying hands.
Robb knelt once more, placing his palms flat against the ruined stone floor.
He closed his eyes and whispered:
"Praise the Fool, the one who does not know life or death."
Darkness gathered around him and folded inward.
And when he opened his eyes again, he was back in the crypts, cold, still, silent.
The statues of dead Starks stood where they always had. The air tasted faintly of dust and stone. The torches flickered low, their flames bending as if disturbed by something unseen.
Robb drew a breath—steady, calm, ordinary.
His eyes were grey once more.
He rose slowly, brushing frost from his knees. His heartbeat was quiet. His breath even. There was no tremble in his hands. No sign of the warmth that had bloomed in his chest moments ago.
Robb exhaled, the sound misting in the cold.
He turned and began the long walk back toward the stairs, the darkness swallowing his silhouette with each step.
Winterfell slept but he did not.