The Mourning
Winterfell had never been so silent.
Snow fell in slow spirals, whispering across stone battlements that had seen too many kings die.
In the Great Hall, candles burned low their flames thin, uncertain, as if even fire feared to live.
Job Snow sat upon the dais.
Before him lay the woman who had saved the North and damned herself to do it.
Althea Baelish, wrapped in furs and frost, her hands folded over her chest. Her skin was pale, not with death, but with something that defied it.
The northern lords spoke in hushed tones
"Is she dead?"
"No breath, no warmth."
"Then she's not gone only waiting."
Job said nothing.
His sword rested beside her bier, the steel dulled by grief.
"I've buried too many queens," Davos said softly, standing beside him.
"She wasn't a queen," Job murmured. "She was the storm that made them bow."
He rose, staring down at her face peaceful, almost regal. There was a faint shimmer upon her lips, like frost that refused to melt.
He touched her cheek.
Cold but alive in a way he couldn't name.
"You once told me the gods envied us," he whispered. "Because we love in defiance of them. Let them envy me now."
He bent, pressing a kiss to her brow.
And in that moment a drop of water slid from her temple, though no one wept but him.
Beneath the River
Darkness.
Then sound a faint pulse, like the beat of a distant heart.
Althea's eyes opened to a world of silver.
She was floating, suspended in water that glowed faintly with stars. All around her, figures drifted pale, familiar, forgotten.
The ancient gods of the North.
The spirits of fire from Valyria.
All watching her.
"Where am I?" she breathed.
A voice answered deep, feminine, sorrowful.
"Between."
A woman rose from the current cloaked in frost and flame both. Her hair shimmered white and gold.
"I am the River Mother. The first crown. The last whisper."
"Am I dead?" Althea asked.
"You are divided," the goddess said. "Half of you still breathes through him. Half of him still burns through you."
Althea looked down. Beneath her ribs glowed a faint mark the sigil she had once drawn in frost a circle pierced by three blades.
"The bond," she whispered.
"The curse," the River Mother corrected. "You sought to bind love and power. You succeeded. But every balance demands a choice."
The goddess extended her hand, and the water parted, revealing two paths beneath the surface
One of firelight, leading upward toward the world of men.
One of frost, spiraling downward into the realm of the old gods.
"Choose," said the goddess. "Return or reign."
The Fire Above
Job woke to thunder.
He had fallen asleep beside her bier, his head bowed to her hands.
But now, the air crackled. The torches flickered blue.
"Job!" Davos shouted from the door. "The godswood it's burning!"
Job ran through the hall, cloak trailing snow.
Outside, the Weirwood glowed with twin fires one gold, one silver. The sap in its trunk hissed like blood boiling.
From the heart of the flame, he heard her voice.
"Job"
He fell to his knees. "Althea?"
Her shape flickered in the firelight not whole, not gone, just between.
"I can't come back," she said. "Not unless you call me."
"Then I call you!" he roared. "I'll burn every god and every crown until you return!"
She smiled faintly. "You would end the world for me."
"I already did."
The Weirwood shuddered. Its branches burst into frost and flame ice melting, fire freezing, impossible balance.
Then came the River Mother's voice, echoing through both worlds
"If he calls you, Althea Baelish, you may return.
But his heart will turn to ice.
If you stay, his fire will consume the North.
Choose."
The Weight of the Crown
Althea floated between paths one blazing, one cold.
Through the veil, she saw him kneeling, desperate, defiant the wolf who refused to kneel to gods or queens.
"If I return, he dies."
"If you remain, he burns," whispered the goddess.
"Then let me bear both."
The River Mother smiled sad, knowing.
"You would wear the crown again?"
"Not of frost," Althea said. "Of balance."
She raised her hand and from the silver water rose the Crown of the Trident, reforged from the river itself. It shimmered half in flame, half in ice.
"Let it be shared," she whispered. "Through him and through me."
The Return
At Winterfell, the wind stopped.
The fire died.
And then the snow began to fall upward.
Job looked to the bier.
Althea's body was gone.
He turned and there she was, standing beneath the Weirwood, bare feet on frost and ash alike. Her hair shimmered white and gold, her eyes reflecting fire and snow.
"You called," she said softly.
He took a step forward, disbelief shattering into wonder.
"You came back."
"Not entirely," she whispered. "Part of me is still below. But part of me belongs here with you."
Job touched her face.
It was warm. Then cold. Then warm again.
"Then we'll share what life we have left."
"And rule?" she teased faintly.
"No," he said. "We'll protect."
She smiled, and for the first time since the Trident, the Weirwood's tears froze mid-fall as if even the gods paused to watch.
The Crown Divided
That night, Winterfell's people gathered in the godswood.
Before them stood Job and Althea fire and frost, wolf and crow, reborn together.
The maesters would later record the omen
The snow burned. The fire froze. And a new crown rose not of gold, but of balance.
As they joined hands, the River Mother's voice faded into the wind
"When ice loves fire, the gods tremble."
And far beyond the Wall, something ancient stirred watching, waiting.
Because balance, once broken, demands to be tested again.