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Chapter Text

The Godswood was too quiet.

No bird sang from the branches, no breeze stirred the leaves, and even the air seemed heavy, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath. Sansa pressed close to her mother’s skirts as they passed beneath the weathered arch of stone and into the stillness. The hush swallowed everything…her own heartbeat, the faint rustle of her gown, even her brothers’ constant bickering.

Robb and Jon walked side by side without a word, their boots crunching in the summer snow in the same measured rhythm. Arya, for once, did not dart ahead. Bran’s questions died unasked, caught on the solemn weight of the place. Even Rickon, ever squirming and explorative was silent in their mother’s arms.

Only the sound of breathing remained. Hers was too quick and shallow, while theirs was steady and calm.

At the center of it all waited the weirwood. Its trunk gleamed bone-white, smooth and pale in the dim light, the carved face staring with red eyes that glistened as if freshly weeping. Its branches reached high, stark against the gray sky, and the silence of the grove seemed to pool deepest beneath them.

The tree did not sway or whisper, yet Sansa felt its gaze fixed upon her, patient and unblinking.

It should not have been this way. It should have been done in the Sept. There should have been marble floors cool beneath her knees, sunlit glass painting her prayers in color, and the warm perfume of beeswax candles drifting around her. That was where she belonged, kneeling beside her mother, head bowed before the statues of the Seven. That was where she had spent the whole morning, whispering one plea after another, each prayer soft as breath. First to the Mother for mercy, then to the Maiden for grace, to the Warrior for strength of spirit, the Father for justice, the Smith for creativity, the Crone for wisdom, and even to the Stranger in fear.

Jeyne Poole had knelt beside her too, though her own Book had come weeks ago. It was the soft brown leather for an Artisan. Her Subclass had not yet shown itself, though few ever did so young, most only revealed once a craft or calling had been honed with years of practice. Sansa suspected Jeyne’s would be something with the needle, perhaps a Seamster, for no one in Winterfell could stitch a cleaner hem.

Usually only family attended an Awakening, but she was Sansa’s dearest friend, and believed an Awakening was too important to face alone. Sansa agreed and was thankful for her presence, for though today was an exciting one, it was also incredibly nerve wracking.

They had giggled between prayers, whispering which fates might open for her. Courtier seemed most likely, with her lessons and her mother’s guiding hand. Yet Sansa would not have minded an Artisan’s path, for she loved the needle and the thread, the patient work of embroidery. And sometimes – though she scarcely dared say it aloud – she wondered if the gods might grant her more than one.

A Secondary Class never came with an Awakening, but there was the possibility of acquiring another one, later in life to those who practiced and practiced until their very soul demanded it.

But the Book hadn’t come. Not in the Mother’s alcove, nor the Maiden’s, nor even the Stranger’s, where Sansa had held her breath the longest. One by one, the candles guttered, the hours stretched, and at last even Septa Mordane’s smile turned uncertain. When her father said she must try the Godswood instead, Sansa’s heart had plummeted.

The Seven had given her nothing, and so the Old Gods waited for her now.

She knew what people said about the weirwoods. That they saw straight into you, past silk gowns and sweet smiles, down to the bones of what you truly were. Her father prayed here often, alone. Arya was never afraid of the tree. Even Jon claimed he felt calm beneath its boughs.

But Sansa…she didn’t belong in the cold shade of a heart tree, where the air smelled of earth and secrets. She wanted to belong to her mother’s gods.

Her brothers walked behind her now, whispering despite the quiet hush the Godswood evoked. Robb already bore the steady weight of his Warrior’s Book, leather bright red as a ruby. Jon’s had come a few months after with the same ruby red cover, and he touched it often as if afraid it might vanish.

Nearly every Stark for generations had been named Warrior or Scout. Women even just as often as men, and their children had grown up expecting the same. But their mother had other hopes, determined that at least one of her daughters should awaken as a Courtier.

Arya’s day would come soon, and she strutted as though she expected to be named a Warrior, much to their mother’s dismay. Even Bran had begun to dream aloud of the path that would open when he turned ten, hoping his Book might name him a Scout and set him running wild through forest and field.

Sansa’s hands were empty. No Book floated to her yet, no Class written in her name. And until she touched the tree, she would not know if she had any place at all.

There were always whispers about the Classless. Though it happened rarely, it was very much a real possibility.

Children had prayed and prayed, touched stone or wood or water, and nothing came. She had seen one once, a man who lingered at the edge of a market in Wintertown, shoulders hunched as if to hide the shame of his empty hands. People pitied him, sometimes. More often they turned away. They said the Classless were shunned by the gods themselves.

Sansa’s stomach tightened. What if that was her fate?

She glanced behind her, where her family followed in a solemn line. Her father had his Book in hand, though she knew it needn’t always be carried. Courtesy demanded it, at least at another’s Awakening. Every Book could be banished back to the Eternal Archives until called forth again, but it was considered in poor taste to not summon it during an Awakening.

Her father’s Book was as plain and unyielding as the man himself. A deep crimson leather for the Warrior’s Guardian Subclass with the mark of the Warden pressed clean into its spine. Beside him, her mother’s gleamed a rich plum – the Courtier’s purple hue deepened for an Arbiter – its edges bound in careful silk.

The spine of her Book was embossed with the symbol for Lady of Winterfell. Not surprising, considering her position, but it wasn’t unusual to not have a title at all. Titles were fickle things and acquired if only certain requirements were met. Most everyone in the whole of Westeros bore no title at all.

Robb and Jon’s Books matched like the rubies all Warriors bore before they claimed a Subclass. If Jon’s looked a shade darker today, it was likely only Sansa’s worry painting shadows where none existed.

She had half-expected Theon to be there as well. He was not a Stark, but he had lived among them long enough that his absence tugged at the moment like a loose thread. He was no doubt waiting at the gates where she had been forced to part from Jeyne. The Sept was for everyone of the Faith…but the Godswood in Winterfell was only for the Starks.

The Books seemed to glow in the dimness beneath the trees. All of them shining with certainty. All of them a reminder that Sansa’s hands were bare.

Bran and Arya trailed at the back, whispering. They did not yet have their Books, and Rickon was too small to understand what any of it meant. But they would have their days. Today was hers. And if the gods turned their faces from her…if she touched the tree and nothing came, then she would never have her day at all.

The weirwood loomed closer. Its bark gleamed like bone, its carved eyes dripping bright red. Sansa wanted to turn, to run back to the warmth of the Sept and the Maiden’s gentle smile. But her mother’s hand rested firm on her shoulder, guiding her forward.

Every tale she had ever heard about heart trees crowded her mind at once. They saw everything, they whispered secrets to the Old Gods, they could lay bare the truth in a soul whether one wished it or not. The Seven never looked at her this way. The Sept had been filled with colored light and kind statues who seemed to listen politely. But the weirwood watched…and it judged.

The silence deepened as she neared, until even the sound of her own breathing seemed too loud. She dared a glance over her shoulder, hoping for courage. Her father’s face was solemn, unreadable. Her mother’s hand still pressed to her shoulder. Robb and Jon stood tall with their ruby Books, Bran and Arya fidgeted, Rickon squirmed. They all belonged.

But what if she did not? What if she was Classless. Doomed to a life of drifting, never chosen, never bound. She swallowed hard, the thought pressing cold against her ribs.

The red eyes of the tree seemed to narrow as she stopped before it. The carved mouth was open, weeping sap that glistened like fresh blood. It would have been so easy to run. To cling to her mother’s skirts and beg for the Sept again. But she would shame herself and her house if she faltered now.

Her mother’s hand gave one last squeeze, and then Sansa was alone.

She raised her hand, trembling, and pressed her palm to the smooth white bark.

All at once the world fell away. The rustle of leaves became a roar, and pale cold light blossomed before her. Out of it drifted a Book, floating weightless in the air, its pages fluttering open to the place that was hers.

Her Book hovered before her, pale as snow, its covers gleaming with a light that made her squint. Relief flooded her even as she silently despaired for being bound to the Old Gods over the Seven. But she wasn’t Classless, she wasn’t forsaken. The blank pages flipped to the beginning of the Book and for one breathless moment, Sansa thought it might stay that way, perfect and blank.

Then the pages stirred. Ink bloomed in careful script at the top, elegant as a herald’s proclamation.

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Sansa Stark
Base Class Confirmed:

COURTIER
Grace, poise, and diplomacy are your inheritance.
A noble’s tongue is sharper than any blade.

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Traits Unlocked

Tier 1

Passive – Courtly Bearing
Innate composure in posture, tone, and etiquette.
Your presence alone commands respect.

Active – Courtly Poise
Once per encounter, cloak yourself in flawless grace.
Stumbles vanish, words flow smoothly, and all eyes turn to you.

Active – Silver Tongue
Speech holds subtle enchantment. Lies slip smoother,
truths shine brighter, persuasion is in your favor.

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Purple washed across the Book’s cover, soft as twilight at first, then blooming into a regal glow that seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heart. The color shimmered like velvet in candlelight, alive beneath her fingertips. Relief surged through her chest so suddenly she almost swayed where she stood.

It was everything she had begged for, everything she had whispered at the feet of the Maiden and the Mother. She was a Courtier, just like her mother. She would walk in silks and jewels, glide across polished floors, command attention with a lifted brow. She would be admired, she would be loved. The gods had heard her. They weren’t the ones she had wanted, but they had listened.

Her lips parted, ready to smile…but the pages kept turning. The ink did not stop.

Letters bled across the parchment in strokes too thick, too dark, pooling like spilled blood that would not dry. Line after line unfurled, deliberate and damning. The purple of the cover deepened in her hands, darkening past regal sheen into something bruised and heavy. It was no longer a Courtier’s noble hue but plum-dark, darker than her mother’s, shadows clinging to the edges as if the Book itself recoiled.

The glow dimmed to a throb beneath her fingers, like something alive and wounded.

Sansa’s breath hitched. The pride that had lifted her a moment before shriveled to a knot of dread. Her smile faltered, slipped, vanished altogether as the script pressed on without pause. Each word etched itself into being as if carved with a knife, permanent, undeniable.

And with every stroke, prickles crawled at the nape of her neck. Her skin felt too tight, her bones too small to contain her. A cold weight settled in her stomach, dragging her down, and for the first time in her life she wished she had not prayed so hard.

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Secondary Class Confirmed:

NECROMANCER
You are marked by the veil. Where others hear silence, you hear the echoes of death.

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The Book did not stop. Its pages shivered with a will of their own, the parchment trembling as though stirred by some hidden breath. New words seared themselves onto the page, curling larger than the rest, bold strokes glowing hotter and darker, burned deep into the fibers.

The letters seemed to rise from the paper itself, smoking faintly, not merely written but branded, demanding her gaze, demanding an answer.

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Choose Subclass

SHADOW WEAVER
Call forth the lingering shades of the dead, bound to the place where their lives were lost. Shadows heed your will, cloaking you in their veil and lighting your path in the dark.

BONE BINDER
Command the remains of the fallen, tethered to the earth where their bodies lie. Bone, sinew, and flesh move at your bidding, vessels emptied of spirit, bound in silence to your hand.

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Her breath caught. She could not close the Book. Her fingers clawed at the covers, willing them shut, but the pages refused to yield. They held fast, fluttering against her hands as though the gods themselves had bound them open.

Behind her, the silence of her family pressed like a weight. She could feel their eyes on her back, their breaths measured and waiting. Her Awakening had already taken too long. Others’ Books appeared in moments, their classes written quick and clean, but hers dragged on, ink still spilling across the page as though determined to betray her. Suspicion would grow with every heartbeat she lingered beneath the weirwood’s gaze.

If they saw these words, if they saw the truth written blacker than blood, it would be the end of her. Her throat tightened. She swallowed hard against the lump rising there, heart hammering so loudly she feared they might hear it.

The Book pulsed, waiting…demanding.

Sansa’s vision blurred with tears she dared not shed. She pressed her trembling fingers down on the choice that sickened her least.

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Secondary Class Confirmed:

SHADOW NECROMANCER
The veil bends at your touch; the shadows beyond death answers when you call.

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Traits Unlocked

Tier 1

Passive — Death’s Whisper
Faint echoes of the dead reach you near places and people steeped in loss.

Active — Shadow Veil
Blend into darkness. Lamplight slips from you and footfalls hush for a brief span.

Active — Shade Lantern
Conjure an orb of shadow-light that reveals shades and hidden traces without betraying your position.

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Title Bestowed: Lady of Ashen Boughs

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For a moment, Sansa thought it was over. The words had slowed, the dark plum cover pulsed faintly in her hands, and she felt the weight of silence pressing close, expectant. The title burned the pages, burning into her mind as she stared at them. That was all. No blurb, no traits, no careful lines of guidance as there had been for Courtier or for Necromancer. Just the name, dropped like a stone into still water, leaving only the ripple of dread behind.

Sansa stared at it, throat dry, waiting for more, waiting for some hint of meaning…but the page offered nothing. It was as if even the Book itself did not know what it had written, or dared not explain.

And the Book kept writing.

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Reveal Secondary Class?
Yes / No

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Her breath caught. Her hand moved before thought could follow, slamming her finger onto the word No before she could give it any thought. The words dissolved, fading into the parchment as if they had never been.

The Book shuddered in her grasp, then closed with finality. It was hers now, dark purple and heavy, the ink of her secrets locked within. Sansa pressed it to her chest as if to hide it, knowing that the color would give away that her Awakening had not been a normal one. But there was only one way to hide the Book, and for that she had to let it go.

With trembling hands, she released her death grip on her Book, and she watched it fall for just a moment, before it broke apart into shards of light and disappeared to the Eternal Archives.

She turned, relief half-formed on her lips and then froze.

There were words above her family. Not written on parchment, but hanging in the air, pale as breath against winter sky. Her father’s name was burned a deep red, edged with purple, and felt heavy as iron to look at. Beneath it stacked his Class and Subclass, and at the bottom was his title.

Eddard Stark

Warrior – Guardian

Warden of the North.

Her father stood just as he always had, hand steady on her mother’s shoulder, but now she knew. The Book had opened her eyes. Her mother’s name gleamed in yellow, softer but no less commanding.

Catelyn Stark

Courtier – Arbiter

Lady of Winterfell

Behind them, Robb and Jon bore yellow letters. Robb’s glowed bright, untested, while Jon’s was edged faintly orange, as if already sharpening into something more.

Robb Stark
Warrior
Heir of Winterfell

Jon Snow
Warrior
Bastard of Winterfell

The younger ones shimmered pale white, harmless as snowflakes. Arya fidgeted beneath hers, Bran’s eyes were wide, Rickon’s tiny mark fluttered faintly above the nurse’s arms. White was the color of children, of the untested and the weak, the lowest rung on the scale of danger.

Sansa’s mouth went dry. She had heard of this, everyone had. It was said to be the first gift of Awakening. To see the measure of others written above them, plain as names carved in stone. The colors were no private judgment, not hers alone, but a truth the world itself declared.

A man marked yellow carried some strength, orange stronger still. Red warned of danger, and purple of peril beyond measure. Those that held the edges of the next color were close to crossing into the next threshold, but never quite tipped over.

Like her father’s name…Sansa hadn’t realized he held so much power to be nearly on par with a King.

She also had not expected it to feel so heavy to look at, and so impossible to ignore.

And then a colder thought struck her. If she could see theirs, then they could see hers. What color burned above her head at this moment? White, as it ought to be…or something darker, something tainted by the Book she dared not speak of?

Her father’s brow furrowed, her mother’s lips pressed thin. The faintest flickers of disapproval shadowed their faces, and Sansa’s stomach dropped. What had been written above her? What color glowed for them to frown so?

She did not dare ask.

Her mother’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer, and Sansa thought she might faint beneath it. But then Lady Catelyn’s face softened, the tight line of her lips easing into a smile.

“Courtier,” she said, warm enough for all to hear.

The knot in Sansa’s chest loosened, if only a little. That was the word her family would carry back to Winterfell. That was the word they would tell the servants and whisper to the banners. Courtier, graceful, noble, proper…safe.

“Why does it say Lady of Ashen Boughs, then?” Robb’s voice broke the hush, earnest and puzzled as he squinted at the air above her.

Before Sansa could even draw breath, her father cuffed him sharply on the back of the head.

“Mind your tongue, boy,” Eddard Stark said, voice low but firm. “It is not our place to question what the gods bestow.”

Robb ducked his head, cheeks red, muttering a quick apology. But the words still hung between them, heavy as the shadows beneath the weirwood’s boughs.

Relief flooded through her so sudden and fierce she nearly buckled at the knees. Courtier…her mother had spoken it for all to hear, and the sound of it felt like a hand lifting her from the edge of a cliff.

They couldn’t know what else had been written. They couldn’t have seen the dark purple shade of the Book’s leather cover, or the Secondary Class spelled out under her own name. If her mother smiled, if her father had said nothing, then her name above her must have gleamed the safest hue of all…white, like any child, harmless and untested. The darker truths, the necromancer’s script, must belong to her eyes alone.

Her brothers and sisters crowded near, Bran and Arya tugging at her sleeves, Rickon babbling from their mother’s arms. Jon hung back as he always did when Catelyn Stark was present. Only his Stark blood kept him in the Godswood during the Awakening, and tradition demanded he be present, regardless of what her mother wanted.

There were too many faces, too many voices, and above them all the endless words glimmering in the air. Colors and titles and measures pressing down on her until she thought she might scream. A steady hand rested on her shoulder.

“Come,” her father murmured, drawing her aside beneath the looming branches as Arya and Bran argued their future Awakening results and Robb tried to catch Jon in a headlock while her mother watched on with a fond look on her face and ruffled Rickon’s hair as he squirmed in her grip.

“You’re seeing more than you can yet bear. That’s common,” his gray eyes studied her, cool and unwavering. “Close your eyes.”

She obeyed, trembling.

“Now picture it as though it were mist. Let it thin, let it drift, let it fade. When you open your eyes again, and it will be gone.”

Sansa’s lashes fluttered open. The words had vanished and the colors with them. Only her family remained, ordinary and solid, and she almost wept with the relief of it.

Her father gave a single nod. “In time, it will come as easy as a breath. One day, with little more than a blink, you’ll call it forth or let it go as you choose.”

She prayed he was right.

The godswood was silent again, save for the slow drip of red sap down the face of the weirwood. Sansa turned from it and followed her family out beneath its watching eyes to the feast that awaited her in celebration, ignoring her brothers questions about her missing book.

Each step away from the tree should have lightened her heart, yet the title still echoed in her mind, ink-black and unshakable.

Lady of Ashen Boughs.

Chapter Text

The wind worried at the shutters of his solar, a thin keening that slipped through stone the way a knife found a seam in chainmail. Ned Stark set his palm flat upon his Book and let the quiet fill him. The leather was warm to his touch as if it remembered every winter he had carried it, every judgment made in its shadow.

“Search,” he said softly, and the pages stirred.

They turned with a life of their own, parchment rustling like dry leaves caught in a current. Columns of script shimmered and shifted, rising and falling like a tide as the Eternal Archives answered. Ned bent his mind to the task, the words unfurling in long, ordered ranks, some old as runes, some recent as a scribe’s quill in Oldtown.

He let the queries cast wide at first. Titles bestowed by gods, titles bound to places, titles given to children. The answers flickered by. Saints of the Seven, forgotten Queens of the Reach, Northern lore that spoke of woods or lakes. He sifted them patiently, his eyes trained to glean sense from the deluge.

Then he narrowed the words, drawing the net tighter. Lady of the Boughs. Lady of Ash. Ashen Boughs. Ashwood. Weirwood’s Lady. Each phrase carried the weight of a prayer, and each time the Book obliged, spitting out lineages, village tales, scraps of ballads. He asked for southern tongues and northern nicknames, for old Riverlander saints and First Men spirits, for anything that might twist those three words into sense.

There was nothing.

The words faded, dissolving back into the page as though ashamed to have wasted his time. The parchment smoothed, the ink stilled, and the Book grew quiet again, heavy and mute beneath his palm.

The silence rang in his ears. Ned exhaled through his nose, a breath he had not realized he was holding.

On the table beside him, Maester Luwin’s parchments lay in ordered but unhelpful stacks. The maester had applied himself with the tidy relentlessness of his advanced tier, quill scratching far into the night. The neat script recorded everything…inquiries to the Citadel phrased in proper caution, annotations on ancient groves and sacred trees, a catalog of known epithets bestowed by the Seven and by the old gods both.

Luwin had even ventured into the stranger corners of lore, noting rustic spirits from Rhoynar and river-gods long since forgotten in the hopes that maybe a Tully had crossed with a Dornish sometime in history since nothing turned up in the Riverlands nor the North. He searched the Crownlands, the Reach, the Westerlands, and even Old Valyria.

The ink was dry on all of them.

The ravens had flown, wings beating south and even further north into the cold skies. The replies that had trickled back were clipped and careful, or else vague and dismissive, none daring to claim knowledge. The ravens returned empty handed…every single one.

Ned shut his Book. It was like closing a door on a room he already knew was bare, and the sound of it snapping shut was louder than he liked in the stillness of the solar.

Beyond the walls, Winterfell moved through its morning. The ring of hammers from the smithy echoed like heartbeats. From the yard drifted the bark of orders, the answering cries of boys straining to plant their feet and keep their guard. A woman’s laugh rose from beyond his window, warm for a moment before the wind cut it short. A hound bayed and was silenced by its master. All the sounds of home, of life pressing steadily on, unbothered.

Familiar and comfortable. And yet none of it comforted him.

He leaned back in the chair his father had used before him and watched the fire gnaw a log to ember. Sparks drifted from the hearth. He remembered Sansa at nine, just before her Awakening, nagging Arya into better manners with her prim little frown, plucking at Rickon’s hair with ribbons until the boy howled and kicked. Bright as a summer berry among the gray stone, her laughter had carried through the halls as surely as any harp-string.

She should have been down there still, weaving herself into the clamor of the keep. But she was not.

Instead, for weeks now, she had moved like a girl dancing along the edge of a dream she could not speak aloud. She smiled when she was smiled at, curtsied without being asked, every gesture smoothed and polished until there was nothing left to correct. Her posture so flawless it might have even pleased even Catelyn’s grandmother, whose eye had missed no fault in deportment.

Yet perfection in a child was no comfort to him.

Every now and again he caught her standing very still in a doorway, as if she had stepped out of time itself. Her head would tilt, her lips parted just slightly, listening to something he could not hear. To any other it might have looked like a girl daydreaming. To Ned it looked like a shadow lay heavy across her shoulders and her mind.

At supper she ate little, pushing food across her plate until her mother’s gentle rebuke brought her to motion. In the mornings he found her awake before dawn, hands folded on her lap, eyes fixed eastward through the frost-streaked glass, so intent it was as if she expected the sun to carry her an answer.

He had asked her once, if she was happy…and then again, later when he wasn’t convinced by her first reply.

The first time she only kissed his cheek, sweet and swift, and told him she was happy…of course she was happy. She was a Courtier, like Mother. The second time she gave him the same words, and then quickly changed the talk to needles and silks and a new pattern she wished to try, her voice bright with practiced ease. All sweetness, all surface. A mask that fit her too well for ten.

Ned rubbed at the bridge of his nose and felt the beginning of a headache press behind his eyes. He had seen children go solemn after their Awakenings, it was true. The world grew larger in a breath and the sight of it was not always kind. The Measure that appeared above men and women had unsettled Robb and Jon for a day or two as well, until they learned to master it.

In time it became a trick of focus, called forth and dismissed with no more effort than a blink.

Sansa had learned that lesson quickly enough when he taught her beneath the heart tree. She had nodded, practiced, and shown him she could do it. Still, since then, there was a hush about her that did not sit right with him. She did not stumble or fret as others did when new power brushed against their lives. She simply carried it, quiet and grave, as if she had always known it was waiting for her.

And that was what chilled him most.

He drew the Book nearer again out of habit more than hope and let his thumb worry at the edge of a page. Lady of Ashen Boughs. The words had hung above her like a frost-moon, bright and cold, without explanation or guidance. No neat description of duty, no list of traits, no path laid out as there had been for Lord or Heir or Warden.

It was a thing dropped into a still pool, leaving only ripples of unease in its wake. Ned did not like mysteries that touched his children. The world would bring them hardship enough without the gods adding riddles besides.

A soft knock sounded at the door.

“Enter,” Ned said.

Maester Luwin slipped in, neat as always, the chain of links at his neck whispering faintly as he moved. He carried another scroll, held carefully in both hands. “From the Riverlands, my lord. A reply from Septon Osric at Fairmarket, who keeps a collection of antique prayer-forms.”

Ned took it, broke the seal, and unrolled the parchment. The septon’s hand was round and eager, his ink flowing with the confidence of a man who fancied himself thorough. There were apologies for delay, citations of obscure hymns, comparisons drawn between rustic chants and the veneration of saints. Yet when all the flourishes were stripped away, the words said what all the others had said.

No such title was recorded among the Faith’s honors, neither high nor low.

At the bottom, a hesitant postscript suggested that perhaps the name was only local, rustic in origin, the sort that springs from a village tale and never leaves the village that first spoke it.

“Summer tales,” Ned said, folding the parchment in two with deliberate care. “And winter hears none of them.”

Luwin’s shrewd eyes lingered on him, weighing the silence. “If it is of the Old Gods, my lord, the Citadel will have little to offer. The First Men left few records we can read, and those they did are half-lost in stone and runes. The trees keep their own counsel, as they always have.”

“So they do,” Ned’s gaze slid past the parchment in his hands to the window beyond. The glass was rimed in frost, and through it, passed the lower courtyard, the Godswood stretched stark against the gray sky. The branches of the heart tree clawed upward, bright red and waiting, as if it reached for something beyond men’s understanding.

“You’ve seen the girl,” he said at last.

“I have,” Luwin’s reply was gentle, careful, as though each word were chosen like a stone laid in a wall. “She is not frightened in the common way. Not of thunder, nor of shadows, nor of her lessons. She listens. That is all.”

“To what?”

“I cannot tell,” the maester’s mouth turned rueful, his eyes soft with the patience of age. “You know what children hear when the world first speaks back to them. Some hear glory and grow proud. Some hear warning and grow wise. Some hear both together and grow quiet.”

Ned said nothing. The fire cracked and spat, collapsing a log to ember. From the ledge above the window came the harsh croak of a raven before it took wing, its shadow fleeting across the frost.

His thoughts drifted, unbidden, back to his own Awakening, so many winters past that the memory should have grown dim. Yet it had not. He could still feel the chill of the Godswood at the Eyrie, where he had been fostered. Not Winterfell’s heart tree, but a smaller grove, its weirwood pale and twisted, its red eyes watchful all the same. He had gone to it alone, with only the rustle of leaves and the silence of the gods for company.

His Book had come quick and sure, bright red and terrifying. He had not trembled. He had not wondered what the gods might write. There was pride in him, a boy’s pride, and when the pages granted him Guardian six years later, he had felt ten feet tall. When they named him Lord of Winterfell only to be immediately overwritten by the higher title of Warden a few years after that, in the wake of his father’s and brother’s deaths, he felt hollow.

It had been a simple thing. A clean thing. There had been no lingering pages, no silence afterward, no riddle of titles that came without meaning. The Book had closed, and with it the matter was settled.

Ned leaned his brow against his knuckles, the heat of the fire warm on his cheek. He had not thought of those days in years. Now it came back to him with the sharpness of a fresh wound, and the difference between his path and his daughter’s lay heavy as iron in his chest.

He thought of Sansa’s hand in his when she was small, her fingers warm and certain in his grip. He thought of her clutching her mother’s skirts in the Godswood, blue eyes wide beneath the bleeding face of the weirwood, her breath hitching but her chin lifting all the same when the Book appeared.

He thought, too, of the straight line of her shoulders when Catelyn had said Courtier for all to hear, and how her smile had seemed to brighten the world for a moment.

And he thought of what had come after. That flicker in her eyes, fleeting and strange, as though the light that bathed her was colder than any sun. For a brief moment, he thought he saw her eyes glow blue. He had told himself it was nothing, a trick of shadows beneath the branches. But the memory clung to him still, sharp as a splinter lodged too deep to work free.

“What would you have me do?” Ned asked at last, his voice low.

“Watch,” Luwin said. “Ask, but gently. The Book is hers, not ours. No one may open another’s Book without consent, not even a father. If harm lies in it the gods will not hide it long. If help lies in it, she will find the use of it near enough. Some titles declare themselves in deed, if not in ink.”

Ned’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “And if the title is a warning?”

“Then better that Winterfell learn it now than later,” Luwin answered. His tone was even, though his eyes flicked toward the darkened window as though the words themselves might carry. He hesitated before speaking again. “I will send a quieter inquiry to the Citadel’s secret archive. There are…older glossaries, not often shown. They do not love the Old Gods there, but they love knowledge more, and some among them will trade caution for curiosity.”

“Do it,” Ned said, his jaw tightening.

The maester bowed, the faint clink of his chains marking his departure, and the solar door clicked softly shut behind him.

Alone again, Ned rose from his chair and crossed to the window. Frost feathered the leaded panes, clouding the view, but he could see well enough to peer down into the yard.

Robb’s laughter cut sharp through the cold air, bold and careless. Jon circled him with measured steps, quicker than his brother and more patient, his wooden blade darting in with the precision of a boy who thought before he struck. Arya had climbed a barrel to jeer at both of them, her hair coming loose from its braid as she shouted advice neither boy wanted. Bran tore past them with a stick in hand, stabbing at enemies only he seemed to see, his small face alight with earnestness.

The sight of them should have eased him. It was the sound of life, the sound of children in a safe hall. Yet even there, with his sons and daughter tumbling through the yard, the weight of Sansa’s silence pressed close. Her laughter was missing from the chorus, her ribbons absent from Rickon’s hair, her bright chatter gone from the air.

The others were loud in their growing. She, somehow, had grown quiet.

Ned caught a glimpse of her bright red hair, and he saw her walking with Catelyn along the covered way, her head bent to catch her mother’s words. The two moved like mirror images, gowns brushing stone in the same rhythm. When they parted, the girl paused. For a heartbeat she lifted her face to the keep as if listening, her eyes distant, unreadable. Then she smoothed her skirts, composed once more, and went on.

He considered going to the Godswood, to lay his own hand upon the pale bark and ask the silent face what the gods meant by setting new names upon his child. He had learned, long ago, that the trees answered as they wished and in their own time, and not always in words a man could understand.

Ned even thought to summon Sansa to his solar, seat her across from him, and setting her Book between them. To open it would mean truth. To open it would mean an end to the questions that gnawed at him.

But Books were private things, as private as prayers. Even a father had no right to demand a daughter bare hers. To ask would be to break trust, and worse, might force her into lies before she had even had the chance to choose honesty. That thought chilled him more than any silence.

He opened his own Book one more time, letting the pages flutter, their sound like dry wings in the stillness. They lay quiet when they settled, the ink yielding nothing. He could protect Sansa with sword and with guidance. But he could not unwrite the ink the gods had spilled for her. He could not pull a title back out of a page.

Ned closed the Book and set it aside as he returned to the window.

The door creaked behind him, softer than the wind against the shutters. He did not need to turn to know it was Catelyn. Only her and the children entered without knocking, and only his wife entered so quietly.

She stepped into his solar without haste, the hem of her gown brushing the floor, the faint scent of rose oil following her. Cat had the look she often wore at night, when the day’s labors pressed heavily but she held her chin high all the same.

“You brood too much in here,” she said gently, folding her hands before her.

“It is a Warden’s duty to brood,” Ned answered, though the words were dry. His eyes returned to the window where his children all played, except the one that lay heavy on his mind.

She moved to the table, her gaze falling briefly upon the closed Book. She did not touch it, she never did, but he saw the flicker of question in her eyes. Some married couples shared their books with each other, but Ned had never dared, not after the Tower of Joy, afraid of what Cat would see when she read his pages. She never asked, but he could see that she wondered.

“It is Sansa, is it not? That you are up here fretting over.”

“It is always our children, Cat,” Ned sighed, the sound heavy. “But yes…this time it is her.”

Catelyn came closer, standing beside him in the window to look down upon their children in the courtyard. “She is everything I prayed she would be. Graceful, dutiful, polite. She will be a jewel in any court. What troubles you in that?”

“She is all those things, true,” he looked up at her then, his mouth set in a grim line. “Yet I see her smile too quickly, hear her voice too carefully measured. It is as if she is playing a part that costs her dearly. Children should not wear masks so young.”

“All children wear them sooner or later. Especially daughters of great Houses,” Catelyn’s brow furrowed, but her voice stayed calm. “Better that she learns it now than when it is too late.”

“Not like this,” Ned shook his head. “There is more in her than she shows, something she does not dare speak. The gods named her Lady of Ashen Boughs, and I cannot say what it means. Luwin has searched, and I have searched, and we have found nothing…not even whispers.”

At that, Catelyn’s composure wavered. Her hands twisted together before her as she turned fully from the window to face him. “The gods choose their words carefully. If it was given, it was meant. Perhaps it is not for us to understand yet.”

“Perhaps,” Ned allowed, though the word tasted like ash. He turned back to the fire, voice low. “But it is my place to guard her until she does. And guarding her against shadows and whispers is harder than against swords.”

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the pop of the hearth and the moan of wind through stone.

At last Catelyn laid her hand on his shoulder. “She will grow into it, whatever it is. She is still a child, Ned. Let her be that, at least a while longer.”

“That is all I want, Cat. For her to have a little longer before the world claims her,” he reached up and covered her hand with his, though his eyes stayed on the window.

The wind rattled the shutters, cold air needling through the cracks. Somewhere in the keep a door slammed. Loud laughter echoed through stone before being hushed. From the distant tower a baby’s cry rose and softened as its nurse soothed it back to rest. Winterfell breathed around him, stone and steam and hearth-smoke, alive in its ancient rhythm.

But the title clung to him, as it had clung over Sansa like frost on a branch. Lady of Ashen Boughs. A thing given without explanation, too heavy for a girl of ten, too weighty for him to lay aside.

He did not know what it meant. He only knew it was his place to stand between his child and the world until she was grown enough to face it. He turned from the window as Catelyn slipped from his solar as silent as a ghost. And, like a man going to war, Ned began to make his quiet preparations to wait and see and to be ready for whatever came for his eldest daughter.

And he would wait for Sansa to come to him. He prayed she would, before the gods or the world forced the truth into the open.

Chapter Text

Sansa had grown taller in three years, but her shadow seemed taller still.

At thirteen, her days should have been filled with songs and stitches, whispered tales of knights in the yard, and girlish secrets shared in the solar. She played her part well enough. Her embroidery was always laid out neatly before her, her courtesies learned by rote, her laughter chiming at the right moments like a bell struck on command.

From the outside she was every inch the child her mother had hoped for, bright and proper, a Courtier in training. But the mask she wore was tight against her skin, and behind her smile something darker pressed.

And every day, it seemed her book turned a little darker as well. She kept it hidden, summoned only in moments when she was sure no one would see, holding her breath as it shimmered into her hands. Its dark purple leather had deepened with the seasons, so rich now it was almost black in certain light. Inside, the pages waited like a living thing, heavy with a hunger she did not understand.

A twisted white branch with red leaves crawled up its spine. Her title of Lady of the Ashen Boughs embossed in weirwood and shadow. Each moon brought some subtle change, while her brothers had taken years to earn theirs.

The worst part was that it still had not stopped writing, no matter how she prayed it would. Sansa had refused its call for advancement, turning her eyes away from the neat lettering that urged her onward.

═════════════

SHADOW WEAVER

Tier 2 Advancement Available

To proceed, you must choose. One path cannot be walked without the sacrifice of the other.

═════════════

Active Ability Achieved on Advancement

Veil of Ash
Your presence is cloaked beneath a false measure. To every eye your Measure gleams White, harmless and untested. When the veil is lifted, the truth will be revealed.

Passive Ability Achieved on Advancement
Shadow’s Refuge
Bound shades and doubles retreat into your own shadow when dismissed. None may see them until you call.

═════════════

Choose One Active Ability:

Shadow Summon
Bind the shadow of a creature or person that has just passed. The tether is intimate and fragile, yet the shade retains fragments of what it was in life.

Umbral Echo
Call forth a double made of your own shadow. Insubstantial, convincing at a glance, it may mislead, distract, or cover your escape.
═════════════

She didn’t want to read it, she didn’t want know what the next stage demanded of her. The very thought of it felt like a door she dared not open, like a staircase spiraling into darkness.

And yet, her refusal seemed meaningless.

Each night she tested herself in secret, calling the Measure with a whispered thought. The letters above her glowed white still, but less so with each passing moon. A faint yellow shimmer crept along the edges like bruised sunlight, the purity of the light thinning as if her name were being stained by something it could not hide.

Every time she brushed against shadow, every time she felt the presence of the dead stir faintly near stone or bone, she imagined that thin edge of yellow spreading a little farther.

She knew what it meant. White was for the harmless, for children and those untested. Yellow was the first step toward danger, the color of potential untempered by control. Robb’s name had not begun to warm toward yellow until he was nearly five-and-ten, already deep in his training, strong and sure with sword in hand. Jon’s had come just before, his own glow edged faintly with orange where it marked the Warrior’s rising confidence.

Both boys had been proud of the change, boasting in quiet to each other, certain it meant they were becoming men.

Sansa could remember standing beside them when their Measures first shifted, the glow brightening as though the very air approved. Her father had clasped Robb’s shoulder and called it well-earned and his stern face had softened when he saw Jon’s light change.

She had wanted her turn then, had wanted the proof of growing stronger. Now she wanted nothing more than to keep her light from dimming further.

Sansa was only three-and-ten. No child her age had ever began to yellow unless their Class drew them toward combat or danger. Courtiers stayed white until they were grown, sometimes longer, their color a sign of safety, of gentleness, and of grace. For her, it should have been years before the glow even thought to shift.

Measure did not mark strength of arm alone. Its color deepened for power of any kind. Political, magical, or social. It was not unheard of for a young lord or heir of great house to yellow early. But for girls, especially Courtiers, it was different. Their Measure was meant to remain pale, a symbol of peace, of poise, of innocence unsullied by struggle.

To darken early was unseemly, a quiet whisper of threat. And hers was darkening all the same. The Book was changing her from within, dragging her forward whether she wished it or not.

That was when temptation whispered loudest. If she advanced, if she accepted the next tier, the active ability promised concealment. Veil of Ash would shroud her truth, cloak the blackness rising in her, keep her hidden even from her family’s eyes. With it, her Measure would remain white and harmless, no matter what shadows coiled within.

More than once, she had stared at the waiting page and thought of yielding. She imagined pressing her hand flat against the parchment, imagined the surge of relief as the veil slipped over her like a second skin. More than once she had found her fingers hovering over the page, so close to choosing the least-worst of the options to bring her some relief from her everyday dread of being caught.

But terror always held her back. What if advancing bound her tighter to the Necromancer’s path? What if by taking the veil she admitted to the Book, to the gods themselves, that she belonged to it? The choice felt like a door that, once opened, could never be shut again.

Her only saving grace was that few people thought to take Measure often. Men did not spend their days weighing the strength of their wives and children. Women did not pause at every hearth to peer at their neighbors’ names. It was a trick most left aside except in moments of need, of meeting, of curiosity. That gave her room to breathe, a sliver of safety in which to pretend.

So long as no one thought to look too closely, she could go on smiling, curtsying, playing the Courtier she prayed she would one day truly become.

She threw herself harder into her Courtier’s path to try and erase the darkened pages. Sansa curtsied until her knees ached, practiced poise before her mirror, bent her voice toward silver and sweetness. She studied rhetoric until her throat was raw and recited the histories of every noble house until she dreamed of their banners fluttering behind her eyes.

If she could advance that path quickly enough, if she could make the Courtier’s white light burn bright and pure…then perhaps it would mask the yellow that crept along the edges of her name.

Dedication could be mistaken for divine favor. Mastery could be mistaken for grace. If she shone brightly enough, the shift might go unseen. And if her progress was swift enough, no one would notice that her Measure shifting would be considered strange. Her radiance would blind them to the truth beneath.

And so she smiled brighter, bowed deeper, and prayed harder that her lies would look enough like virtue to fool even the gods.

But Winterfell was no court. It was a fortress of stone and snow, not silk and song, and there were few chances to hone the arts her Book demanded. Unless her father called a feast or a visiting lord passed through the gates, there were no gatherings to charm, no courtiers to impress, no rivalries to outmaneuver.

Sansa did what she could. When her lessons ended and her mother’s back was turned, she slipped down into Wintertown with her hood drawn and her heart pounding. There, among the noise and smoke, she practiced what she could not within the keep. The women of the brothel, painted and laughing, humored her. Especially Ros, who found endless amusement in Sansa’s prim curtsies and careful diction.

“You’ll never win hearts with perfect manners alone, little lady,” Ros would tease, brushing a curl from Sansa’s cheek. “People like to be seen, not studied.”

Sansa would nod, cheeks burning, and try again. She learned to listen, to tilt her head just so, to ask questions that made others glow beneath her gaze. Her poise came easily; her tongue still tangled when charm required truth she did not wish to give. But Ros was patient, and their early morning lessons continued until the matron caught wind and sent her scurrying back to the castle before the Warden’s daughter could be corrupted.

The practice helped. Slowly, her Courtier’s light brightened, her words gained weight, her confidence sharpened. But it was not enough. For every step forward her Courtier’s path took, the Necromancer’s shadow stretched two paces longer behind it.

Little things pushed the Shadow Weaver forward even though Sansa went out of her way not to improve that particular Class. But it was like water seeping through stone. Unstoppable and persistent.

When Sansa lit a candle in her chamber, the shadows did not scatter as they should. They shivered and stretched instead, leaning toward the flame as if they longed to smother it. When she walked the corridors after dark, her steps were followed by faint sighs that brushed against her ears. The whispers always slipped away when she turned her head, leaving only silence, yet the hair on her arms prickled with the memory of them.

Even in daylight Winterfell carried too many ghosts, its stones sighing with old memory. Her dreams were corrupted. Sometimes she woke certain she had spoken with someone all night, though no words remained in her mind, only the sense of voices murmuring low in the dark.

She lived in terror that someone else would notice. Sometimes she thought someone already had.

Each time her father’s gaze lingered, steady and gray, she wondered if he could see it. She wondered if he noticed how the torchlight bent too much away from her or how the shadows followed her like hounds that refused to be dismissed. Every word he spoke seemed weighed, and she dreaded the moment he might say her name and find it altered.

Her mother’s hand on her shoulder was worse. More than once she had flinched, afraid that Catelyn Stark might feel something strange in her pulse, something colder than it ought to be. She forced herself to smooth it over quickly each time, with a laugh or a smile too bright to be questioned, though her heart would pound in her chest until the moment passed.

Again and again she imagined what would happen if the truth came out. In her mind she saw herself dragged from Winterfell with the word Necromancer hurled like a curse. She saw her father’s sword raised high, Ice gleaming in the cold light. She saw her brothers turn their backs. She saw her mother’s hands fall away. Worst of all she saw the Godswood open for her, the weirwood’s mouth gaping wide, its eyes dripping red as it pulled her down into the roots.

She told herself these were only fears. She told herself no one could see what she hid. But the visions came back each night, and each time she woke shivering, even when the hearth was warm.

The word necromancer itself was enough to chill her blood. No other name in all the histories was bound to it save one, and he was a terror whispered of in every cradle-song. The Night King, breaker of oaths, master of the dead. To share even a sliver of his path was unthinkable.

If anyone learned the truth, they would not see Sansa Stark at all. They would see only him, reborn in her. And she could only tremble in fear at the thought of what future awaited her should her truth come to light. Even when she whispered that these were only fears, only shadows in her mind, her hands grew clammy and her heart refused to believe her.

She told herself it was nonsense, a child’s fear. But she never truly believed it.

So Sansa smiled when she was smiled at. She bowed and curtsied to everyone she came across when appropriate. She laughed when it was expected and fell silent when silence was proper.

She pretended not to hear the low voices that stirred when she passed near the crypts or the Godswood, the half-heard murmur of words too old or too sorrowful to understand. And she forced herself to ignore the womanly voice that would sometimes whisper around her father the same plea over and over again.

Promise me, Ned. Promise me.

Sansa never asked him if he heard it too. She never dared.

Instead she kept her Book hidden, summoning it only when the doors were locked and the candles had burned low, her breath held tight as she traced the edges of the cover with trembling fingers. The leather was cool beneath her hand, the dark purple shade seeming deeper with every moon that passed. She prayed for it to still itself, to quiet, to leave her in peace. But it never did.

Each day she told herself she could hold it back. That if she refused Tier Two of Shadow Weaver long enough, it might go dormant, like a seed starved of water. But in her heart she knew it was already growing, whether she wanted it to or not.

Necromancy crept forward whether she accepted it or not, the marks of progress appearing in quiet, unavoidable ways. When she lit a candle in her chamber, the flame always guttered twice before it steadied, shadows around her lengthening as though listening. After that, she tried to avoid lighting candles when possible, but if the servants didn’t light them, she was forced to. Her parents were determined to have her do her own tasks to teach her humbleness, just like all their children.

Sansa would have sat in the dark instead, but that only seemed to advance Shadow Weaver faster. So she lit her own candles and ignored the way her skin tingled each time.

When she walked the corridors at night, she heard the faintest whispers stirring at the edges of her hearing, the stone itself sighing with memories of the dead. She had stopped walking alone after dark, though it mattered little. Even in daylight, she wasn’t safe from the whispers, and listening to them long enough to understand them only advanced her faster.

The worst were the crypts.

Her brothers had tricked her into going once. Bran and Arya daring, Robb and Jon teasing, Rickon toddling after with wide-eyed mischief, and Theon laughing, urging them on. They had snuffed the torches and left her there, promising to return, their footsteps fading up the stairs. It was meant to frighten her, no more than a child’s prank.

But it wasn’t a prank. Sansa had been left alone in the dark, the weight of centuries pressing down from the carved stone around her. She could not breathe, could not scream. The air seemed thick with eyes she could not see, with whispers she dared not answer. And then her hands had moved of their own accord.

Shade Lantern.

The command she had sworn never to speak shaped itself in her throat, and the darkness parted. A black orb of shadow-light blossomed from her palm, cold and steady, casting long trembling figures against the walls. They were not her shadows alone. Faces half-formed in darkness and memory blinked from the stone, fading and reforming with each careful step.

She had walked the length of the crypt with them at her side, the dead of Winterfell watching in silence, until at last the stairs opened to daylight and her siblings returned, laughing. She had smothered the shadow-light at once though she doubted her siblings could see it, smothering it as if it might burn her, but the echo of it clung to her skin long after.

The Book had rewarded her for it. She didn’t need to open it to know. That night, when she laid her head upon her pillow, she felt the tug of new ink being written. Tier Two waited for her now, no longer a choice to come, but an inevitability that stalked her steps.

She dared not tell anyone.

Her mother still smiled when she said Courtier, smoothing her hair with proud fingers. Her father still called her graceful, proper, his little lady. And all the while Sansa prayed they never looked too closely, never saw the way shadows bent toward her feet when she passed through a hall, never felt the faint chill that clung to her even by the hearth.

She thought often of Arya’s Awakening, how simple it had been. Her sister had strode up to the same heart tree just a year ago, with her chin tipped high, and her eyes blazing with defiance. The Book had come at once, bright emerald green for Scout, and Arya had grinned so wide that even Septa Mordane could not scold it away. Their mother had been disappointed, but had still congratulated her.

There had been no hesitation, no whispered pages writing themselves long after they should have stopped. Arya had laughed when she held her Book aloft, as though it had been a game she had always known she would win.

Bran’s had been no less swift. He had laid his small hand upon the bark barely a month ago, eyes round but unafraid, and the Book had floated down like a falling leaf. Its cover gleamed the same green of Scout, plain and sure, the kind of path Winterfell had seen a thousand times before. His smile had been shy, but his pride clear.

Their father had rested a hand on his shoulder, and that was the end of it. It was simple, clean.

Sansa had stood beneath the same red eyes of the weirwood, had touched the same white bark, and for her it had been different. Too long, too strange, too heavy with words that should never have been written. She had watched her siblings receive their futures as if from a clear spring, while hers had poured dark and unending from a well she could not stop.

That was the truth she prayed no one ever guessed.

It was easier, sometimes, to pretend around Jeyne.

Her oldest friend still lived within Winterfell’s walls, though she might as well have come from another world. Jeyne Poole’s laughter drifted through the corridors often, light and untroubled, a reminder of simpler days before Books and Measures and hidden truths. Her father, the castle steward, kept long hours with Lord Stark, leaving Jeyne free to linger wherever Sansa was allowed to go.

They still spent their afternoons together, just as they always had. Sansa stitched with quiet precision while Jeyne prattled beside her, all chatter and warmth. Gossip from Wintertown, the apprentices who tripped over their own boots trying to impress her, the colors of the new fabrics that came with the southern traders.

Jeyne’s world was still soft and bright, untouched by dread.

She spoke of small things, safe things, as if Sansa’s life had not changed at all. And Sansa let her believe it. She smiled when Jeyne teased her, blushed when she joked about Robb’s friends, and nodded along to talk of ribbons and songs.

It should have been easy, this pretending. It had once been the way of their friendship. Sansa’s poise to Jeyne’s mischief, her grace to Jeyne’s giggling boldness. But now the balance felt wrong. Every burst of laughter seemed too loud, every patch of sunlight too sharp. When Jeyne leaned close, Sansa feared she might notice how the air cooled around her, how her shadow stretched just slightly longer than it should.

“You always look so serious now,” Jeyne said once, setting down her needle to squint at Sansa. The afternoon light slanted through the window, painting their threads gold and crimson. “It’s only embroidery, not battle.”

Sansa forced a small laugh, though her stitches never wavered. “Mother says perfection is a lady’s armor.”

“Armor?” Jeyne giggled. “You sound like Robb.”

“Do I?” Sansa turned a page in her handwritten pattern book, careful not to meet her friend’s eyes. “Robb’s armor is steel. Mine is silk and smiles. It’s all the same in the end.”

“That’s nonsense,” Jeyne said, cheerful and certain. “You don’t need armor at all. You’re already perfect. Everyone says so.”

“Everyone says many things,” Sansa smiled again, because it was expected of her.

“Oh, listen to you,” Jeyne rolled her eyes, stabbing her needle through the hoop. “You’ve gotten all grown-up and mysterious since your Awakening. I liked you better when you still whispered about knights and kissed the air when no one was looking.”

“I was a child,” color rose in Sansa’s cheeks, half from memory and half from shame.

“And now you’re not?” Jeyne teased. “You’re only three years older, Sansa. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to dream.”

Her needle stilled. The question cut deeper than Jeyne knew. Dreams. Sansa still dreamed, but not of knights or songs. She dreamed of shadows shifting behind her reflection, of soft voices whispering her name, of a cold hand brushing hers in the dark.

“I still dream,” she said quietly, eyes fixed on the pattern. “Only...different things now.”

“About what?”

“About…” she hesitated. About control. About being safe. About a light bright enough to drive the darkness away. “About what comes next,” she answered instead.

“What comes next is supper, silly,” Jeyne laughed and nudged her shoulder. “And maybe Ser Rodrik will let the new young men he’s training for the guard stay in the hall this time. You can practice that dreamy look you get whenever anyone mentions a knight.”

“There are hardly any knights in the North,” Sansa said, wrinkling her nose, though her lips curved despite herself.

“Then you’ll have to make do with the ones that come visiting,” Jeyne said, grinning. “Maybe some southern lord will ride through, see you sitting all pretty, and fall off his horse.”

“You’re impossible,” Sansa blushed. “And I do not have a dreamy look.”

“You do,” Jeyne said with a grin. “Every time someone says tourney or White Harbor or southern lord, your face goes all soft. You should see it. Even Septa Mordane would call it unseemly.”

“That’s not true,” Sansa’s cheeks warmed.

“It is,” Jeyne insisted, threading her needle again. “If a handsome knight ever came riding north, he’d probably faint from how sweet you’d look at him.”

Sansa tried to laugh, but the sound caught in her throat before she managed to force it free. “Then he should stay in the south, if northern air makes him that weak.”

“You’d still write him songs,” Jeyne snorted.

“Maybe,” Sansa smiled faintly, her eyes fixed on the hoop in her lap.

It was the kind of talk they had always shared – dreams of courts and songs and noblemen with kind eyes – but it felt different now. Each word scraped against something raw inside her. She could picture it so easily: a southern court full of light and color, far from the shadows that clung to Winterfell. Yet even in her imaginings, those shadows followed.

Jeyne didn’t notice. She hummed as she worked, her laughter bright and unburdened. “One day,” she said, “we’ll both go south. You’ll marry a prince, and I’ll be your handmaiden and eat all the lemon cakes meant for you.”

“You’d grow sick of lemon cakes,” Sansa smiled again, the motion smooth, practiced.

“Never.”

They giggled together, two girls at play in the sunlight. But when Jeyne looked away, Sansa’s smile faded. That easy warmth, that small and ordinary happiness, already felt like something from another life.

“And you’re brooding again. You’re turning into your bastard half-brother,” Jeyne said, triumph in her grin. “Come now, tell me what’s really got you glum. Is it Septa Mordane again? Did she scold you for using the wrong stitch?”

“No,” Sansa said softly. “Not Septa Mordane.”

“Then what?” Jeyne tilted her head.

Sansa glanced up, wanting to confess and terrified of what confession would cost. But something in Jeyne’s expression stopped her. The light caught her friend’s face, soft and open and utterly alive, and for a moment Sansa felt the air grow thin. There was such innocence in her gaze, such trust, that Sansa could not bring herself to break it.

“Truly,” Sansa said at last, forcing a smile. “It’s nothing. I think too much, that’s all.”

“Thinking never did anyone harm,” Jeyne said, returning to her work. “Though you might end up like the maester if you keep at it. I’ll have to start calling you Lady Bookface.”

“Better that than Lady Emptyhead,” Sansa laughed again, genuine this time.

Jeyne gasped in mock outrage, and for a little while they were children again, laughing over the clumsy insult. The sound filled the solar and drove back the silence that always seemed to creep toward Sansa when she was alone.

But even as Sansa laughed, she wondered how long she could live with this secret. She had spent so long trying to please her mother and make her father proud. Now all that grace and courtesy felt like polish over cracks, silk drawn tight over rot.

Nothing could stay hidden forever.

Sometimes, when Jeyne spoke too quickly or leaned too near, her voice would falter mid-sentence, her gaze sliding over Sansa’s shoulder as though she had seen someone standing there. Each time, Sansa changed the subject. The weather. The Queen’s latest gown in the southern court. Anything to draw Jeyne’s attention away from the strangeness.

But even laughter felt brittle now. Every shared smile was another lie laid neatly atop the last. Jeyne spoke of the world beyond Winterfell’s walls, and Sansa listened with envy and fear in equal measure.

Sometimes, when Jeyne left and the chamber went still, Sansa found herself whispering to the empty room, “I am a Courtier.” She said it again and again until her voice trembled with the effort. “I am a Courtier.”

But the shadows at her feet whispered other things back.

Chapter Text

Winterfell had grown quiet beneath the summer snows, the kind of stillness that pressed against the heart and made every sound seem sharper. The winds had lost their song, the ravens their chatter, and even the Godswood seemed to hold its breath.

Sansa had begun to think the gods had forgotten her, that her prayers for peace and purpose had gone unanswered. Her Book stayed restless in its hiding place within the Eternal Archives, reachable by no living creature. Even when bound to another plane of existence, it whispered in ink when she longed most for silence.

Once she would have gone to the Sept with her mother and knelt beside Jeyne Poole, whispering soft prayers to the Maiden for grace and to the Mother for comfort. Now she could not. The Old Gods had claimed her beneath their pale branches, and the weirwood had seen her heart laid bare. It would be unseemly to kneel before the Seven again, ungrateful to those that had chosen to answer her.

So she prayed where her mother did not go. Beneath the open sky, before the white trunk of the heart tree, she spoke without words. The wind carried her thoughts into the stillness, and sometimes she thought it carried something back. Theirs was not a faith of songs or vows, only silence and sight. Yet she felt them watching, patient and strange, as if they listened through the roots themselves.

She told herself she was content with that. To be seen was enough. To be remembered was mercy. Then, on a morning wrapped in frost, the stillness broke, and the gods granted her one mercy…or so she chose to believe.

Robb and Bran came riding through Winterfell’s gates with snow in their hair and pups tucked close, grinning like boys who had found treasure. The one that nosed toward Sansa was pale as frost, a little shiver of a thing with eyes the color of new ice. It whimpered once, and she gathered it up without thinking.

“Lady,” Sansa murmured, and the name fit at once, settling over the pup like a soft cloak.

That night, when the keep had quieted and the hearth burned low, her Book drifted into her hands at a thought. The dark purple leather felt cooler than usual, but the page that opened was not a shadowed one. Ink bloomed along the Courtier’s script instead. Fine, elegant strokes that glinted in the candlelight.

═════════════
Achievement Unlocked

New Trait Acquired:

LOYAL COMPANION

A bond formed in trust and tenderness. The beast’s loyalty strengthens your own heart.
While near, serenity endures and fear retreats.

Bound Companion — Lady
═════════════

Not a great change, but it marked a step forward all the same. An advancement, small and certain, written by love rather than fear. Lady’s presence had bolstered the white glow above her name, blunting the yellow that gnawed at its edges.

Sansa clung to that. Naming her had been an act of love, gentle and proper, and the Book had rewarded it. So long as Lady trotted beside her, soft-eyed and loyal, Sansa could almost believe the dangerous script in her Book would remain hidden forever. Lady gave her comfort in the night when whispers crowded too close, gave her warmth in the yard when the cold tried to settle in her bones.

Yet even with Lady at her side, fear lingered. Some nights the Book called to her more insistently, its letters pressing against her thoughts like a door she was meant to open. She resisted. She had to. For every smile from her mother, for every nod of approval from her father, she held her silence.

It was in the midst of this fragile balance, her secret pressed tight beneath silks and courtesies, that the tidings came.

The King was riding north.

The words swept through Winterfell like a fire catching dry wood, whispered first in the kitchens, then shouted in the yard, until even the stones themselves seemed to hum with it. The King, and all his court, would soon pass beneath their gates.

Sansa’s hands shook where no one could see them. She had dreamed of this day for as long as she could remember, dreamed of standing before a court glittering with knights and lords and princes, of being admired, chosen, cherished. Now the dream mingled with dread.

If the eyes of the realm turned on her, would they see a Courtier’s daughter…or the shadow she was trying so desperately to hide?

Her Book whispered its warning every night. Each time she summoned the Measure she saw the faint paling at first, then the dimming at the edges of her name in the mirror. White light thinning, touched by a fragile yellow shimmer like sunlight bruised through glass. It was as if purity itself were beginning to tarnish, soft gold bleeding into the white, the promise of danger wrapped in the color of dawn.

It was Winterfell itself that betrayed her.

Every stone was steeped in old bones. The crypts below breathed with the weight of a thousand years of kings and lords, their shadows restless even when they slept. The Godswood pressed its silence upon her each time she passed beneath its boughs, watching. Even the wind seemed to carry sighs through the covered bridges.

She could not walk a single hall without brushing against some echo of death, and each step nudged her closer to a path she refused to claim.

Her Courtier’s growth was slow. Courtesies and silks mattered little in Winterfell’s rough halls. There were no lords and ladies to charm, no glittering assemblies to outshine. Here she practiced on her mother’s smile and her father’s patience, on Arya’s scowls and Jon’s silences, on her siblings who laughed or frowned but never truly cared.

It was not enough.

Courtier skills needed an audience, a stage, a court that could test and reward them. Her family and the women in Wintertown were not enough. The south could give her the audience that she needed.

Already she thought of ways to shape the chance. If her father allowed her to foster in the south, she could stand before the queen, curtsy before the court, prove herself in every word and gesture. If she charmed them well enough, her Book might finally tip in favor of Courtier, smothering the shadowed pages that waited in secret.

She could show them she was meant for silks and songs, not whispers in the dark.

But how to convince her father? That was the problem. Eddard Stark’s love was steady, but his caution was colder than the Wall. He would never yield to girlish pleading. She would have to be measured, graceful, patient. She would have to remind him of her mother’s teachings, of duty and alliances, of what a daughter might bring to her House if placed in the right company.

And she would have to do it without ever revealing that her life might depend upon it.

The thought frightened her as much as it thrilled her. A single wrong word could set suspicion where she could not afford it. But if she succeeded…if she could leave Winterfell’s death-soaked stones behind for the bright splendor of King’s Landing, then perhaps the shadow at her heels would quiet at last.

Lady whined softly at her feet, and Sansa bent to stroke her fur. “Soon,” she whispered. Whether it was to the pup or to herself, she could not say.

Then before she knew it, the King had come to Winterfell. And with him the court she had dreamed of all her life.

The yard blazed with life. Banners of black and yellow and then crimson and gold, snapped in the sharp northern wind. Trumpets cut through the air, their brazen call echoing off the ancient stones. Horses stamped and blew, men shouted greetings, women leaned from windows to catch a glimpse of the King who had never come Winterfell before. The world seemed painted brighter than it had ever been.

Sansa curtsied until her knees ached, held her smile until her cheeks trembled. She lowered her lashes in careful modesty at the right moments, folded her hands in perfect poise, let her words drip with sweetness like honey. Everything she had practiced, everything her mother had taught her, must shine now. She must charm the Queen. She must charm the King.

If she failed, if she faltered even once, she feared the shadow that gnawed at her name might claim her for good.

Queen Cersei was more beautiful than any song had promised. Her hair shone like a crown wrought in gold, her gown glittered with embroidery so fine Sansa’s fingers ached to study it, her lips curved in a smile that did not quite reach her pale green eyes. Every time the queen’s gaze flicked her way, Sansa’s heart leapt in her chest. To be seen by her was to be measured, weighed, perhaps even chosen.

It was everything she had prayed for.

Yet beneath that golden beauty, another sound pressed close. A girl’s voice, faint but desperate, whispering in her ear where no one else could hear. Please, Cersei! Don’t leave me here, please let me out! I can’t swim!

Sansa’s smile did not falter, though her nails dug crescents into her palms until her skin stung. She dared not glance around her. She dared not show a flicker of unease. She could not look at the Queen for too long, not with that pleading voice echoing in her head like water lapping at stone.

So she forced her gaze to the King. Robert Baratheon laughed like thunder, his voice booming across the yard as though he were still young and strong. His hand clapped her father’s shoulder with a warmth that shook Ned Stark’s frame. The sight steadied her, gave her something solid to cling to.

She curtsied deeper, pitched her voice softer, tried harder than ever to let her Courtier’s mask outshine the shivering inside her. Anything to drown out the child begging in the dark.

But the voices did not stop. Another rose up, rougher and closer, calling out above the crowd. Wait! Wait! The words came not from lips of flesh but from somewhere behind the King himself, urgent and ragged, as though carried on the breath of the dead.

Even that was better than the weeping girl. The sobs pressed at her temples, relentless, every plea burrowing into her bones. Sansa smiled all the same, radiant and practiced, the perfect daughter of Winterfell.

No one must know. No one must ever see.

That night, after the feasting had ended and the laughter had faded into the long halls, Winterfell felt too small to hold her. The air was thick with the King’s presence, with the shimmer of foreign silks and the scent of spiced wine still clinging to the corridors. Even the stars beyond her window seemed changed, brighter and closer, like eyes that could see what she dared not show.

Lady lay curled beside the bed, nose tucked beneath her tail, dreaming softly. Sansa sat before the mirror instead, her candle guttering low, her reflection pale and tired. The edges her name glowed the faintest trace of yellow, fragile and trembling, and for a moment she thought it might vanish entirely. But it did not. It stayed, as though reminding her that even in stillness she was changing.

And that frightened her more than anything.

A knock sounded, light and careful. Her mother.

“Sansa, it is late,” Catelyn’s voice was gentle, but her eyes were sharp enough to catch any lie. “You should be resting.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Sansa turned, schooling her features into softness. “The court is so grand, Mother. Did you see the Queen’s gown? The gold she wore?”

“I saw,” Catelyn smiled faintly, then touched her daughter’s hair. “You carried yourself beautifully today. The Queen noticed you.”

“Do you think so?” Sansa asked too quickly, the words spilling out before she could stop them. “Truly noticed? She spoke to me only once, but she smiled.”

Her mother’s smile deepened, though her eyes flickered with caution. “It was a polite smile, my love. Do not let your heart run ahead of the truth.”

“But what if it was not only politeness?” Sansa pressed on, desperate now. “If I could just stay near them, if Father would allow me to, there is so much I could learn. The Queen has courtiers, ladies who advise and serve. They are trained in everything, letters and diplomacy and grace. I could become something worthy, something our House could be proud of. And Father…” she stopped, biting her lip. “He will not listen to me if I ask.”

“You wish to go south,” she said, her tone not a question but edging onto something that sounded tired but certain.

“Only to learn,” Sansa nodded, trembling with the effort of restraint. “To serve the realm. To better myself for Winterfell’s sake,” she hesitated, then pressed on, her voice low but steady. “And for mine. I will never grow into what I should be if I remain here. The South has courts and company, ladies who study letters and diplomacy and grace. Here there is only snow and silence. I want to learn, Mother, truly learn.”

“Winterfell is your home,” Catelyn’s brows drew together, her words heavy as snowfall.

“It is,” Sansa agreed softly. “But Courtiers are meant to be tested in company, not left to practice before stone walls. If I could go south, I could learn faster. I could become someone worthy of Father’s pride and yours. The Queen’s ladies are trained in every art. I could become one of them, if only I were allowed to try.”

“You are already a credit to your house, Sansa,” Catelyn’s gaze softened, though her voice remained measured. “You need not chase southern favor to prove it.”

“It is not only favor I seek,” Sansa drew a careful breath, folding her hands together. “If I were nearer the court, I could learn from the best, and all of it would serve Winterfell. Grace and poise, diplomacy and counsel. A Stark in the south could do great good, if she were taught properly.”

“And this talk of the prince?” Catelyn asked, her tone sharpening slightly. “Is that part of your plan as well?”

“He is kind to me, I think, and gentle,” Sansa’s cheeks warmed. “If Father accepted the betrothal, I could stay near the Queen and her ladies. I would be safe there, and useful. You could speak to him. Father listens to you. If you thought it wise, he might consider it.”

“You remind me of myself once,” she said quietly, her expression softening, though sorrow shadowed her gaze. Her hand lifted, brushing a thumb along Sansa’s cheek. “Always looking south for answers. The south is not what it seems in songs, Sansa. The air there is warm, but the words are colder. Every smile hides a blade.”

“Then let me learn how to hold one,” Sansa whispered. “Not of steel, but of courtesy. Please, Mother. If Father thought it safe, I would go tomorrow. If he thought it wise…” her voice caught, trembling with all the fear she could not name. Then maybe I could stay myself, she did not dare say aloud.

The plea hung between them, soft as prayer.

Catelyn hesitated, then rose, smoothing her gown as though the motion steadied her thoughts. “I will speak with him,” she said at last. “Nothing more. No promises.”

It was enough.

When the door closed behind her, Sansa turned back to the mirror. The yellow light edging around her name shimmered a little brighter. She reached for her Book, letting it settle against her palms like a heartbeat.

“Soon,” she whispered again. “Soon I will be where I am meant to be.”

The next morning dawned sharp and bright, the kind of day that made the air itself ring like glass. Trumpets sounded in the yard, their calls clear and proud beneath the pale sun. Horses stamped in the frost, hounds bayed in their leashes, and the King’s laughter rolled through the gates like thunder. The hunt had come at last.

Sansa stood beside her mother to watch them ride out, the wind tugging at her cloak and hair. The King looked every inch the hero from her songs, though his girth strained the leather of his hunting jerkin and his laughter carried louder than the hounds. His beard was thick and black, flecked with gray, and his face shone with the flush of wine and pleasure. Still, when he clapped her father on the shoulder, the sound was full of warmth, as though the years had never stood between them.

The Queen did not ride. She lingered in the yard with her twin beside her, golden and still as carved idols, their beauty sharp enough to wound. Ser Jaime’s armor caught the morning light, bright as the sun itself, and beside him Cersei’s smile curved faint and cool.

Even the prince, bright-haired and straight-backed upon his horse, seemed to belong to another world entirely. He looked down at her once as he passed, and Sansa’s breath caught in her throat.

Sansa’s heart quickened at the sight. This was the world she longed to stand within, the one she had dreamed of since her first lessons at Septa Mordane’s knee. Every polished bridle and fluttering banner gleamed like a promise. She curtsied when the royal party passed, lowering her gaze with perfect composure, though her breath trembled faintly in her chest.

“Soon,” she told herself again, lips barely moving.

When the riders vanished into the trees, the yard grew quiet once more. The stillness that followed felt too heavy, too complete, as if the castle itself were holding its breath. By midday, the clamor of the court had thinned to murmurs, and the corridors seemed emptier than they had in years.

It was later, when the light began to fade and the servants lit the evening lamps, that she noticed Bran. He was climbing again, she knew, though he was meant to be at lessons. His skin gleamed pale, his laughter shrill, but the shadows that pooled around him were wrong. They clung thick and close, darker than any candle should allow, the kind of shadows that whispered to her in the crypts.

Something followed him, as if death had brushed too near.

Sansa tilted her gaze down and tried to convince herself it was nothing. When the scream came, when the news spread that Bran had fallen, she wished desperately that she had done something, anything at all. She felt the sudden pull of her Book from afar, a sharp twist in the air as though the Eternal Archives themselves had turned a page in warning, and she feared her brother was dead because of her silence.

She waited outside his chambers for hours, until finally the maester had finished what little he could do and her mother had curled into herself desperately. Catelyn did not notice her daughter in the doorway, did not notice how tightly Sansa’s fingers clutched her Book. The cover thrummed, the pages whispered, as if it longed to open and write what must come.

Sansa sat near her brother and watched the darkness cling to him, thick as a shroud. It frightened her, yet she could not look away. If there were something I could do, she thought, if I could call the shade of his soul back, would I dare?

The hours passed, heavy as stone. Slowly, the darkness frayed, thinning until it slipped away altogether, leaving only Bran’s small, still body beneath the sheets. He was no longer near the edge. No longer balanced between life and death.

She had seen death brush her brother and then pass him by…and she was terrified of what that meant.

Sansa rose on unsteady legs and left the chamber without a word. The air felt too thin to breathe, too heavy to bear. She paused in the passage, her fingers trembling against the cover of her Book. The leather was cool and alive beneath her touch, its weight a constant reminder of what she carried. For a moment she only held it, afraid that it might whisper again.

Then she closed her eyes and let it go. The Book shimmered softly, dissolving into light that folded inward until nothing remained. The air settled, the world stilled, and she knew it had returned to the Eternal Archives where no one could find it.

The corridors beyond Bran’s room were hushed and dim. Servants moved like ghosts, whispering in corners, their faces drawn and pale. The air smelled of smoke and candlewax, the whole castle holding its breath. Sansa walked as though in a dream, every footstep echoing too loudly against the stone.

As she crossed the upper hall, faint voices drifted from her father’s solar. The door was half-closed, and firelight spilled across the stones. Her father’s tone was low and weary, the sound of it carrying like weight through the crack in the wood. Another voice answered, deeper and roughened by laughter that did not belong to him. The King.

Sansa slowed her steps. She could not make out the words, only the rise and fall of them, the rhythm of old friendship pressed thin by something unspoken. The King’s voice boomed once, then softened, as if pleading. Her father’s reply came quieter, a rumble that did not quite reach the hall.

She caught only fragments. Her brother’s name, the south, a word that might have been betrothal. Her breath caught, and for a moment she could not move. Then the King spoke again, a single phrase clear as a bell through the heavy door.

The Hand.

Sansa turned away quickly, her pulse fluttering. The sound of their voices followed her down the corridor until it faded into silence.

The thought steadied her, if only for a heartbeat. Perhaps this sorrow would pass. Perhaps her father would accept the offer after all. Perhaps the south would take her from this place of shadows and sickness.

She followed the covered bridge that overlooked the yard, the sky above bruised with evening. Men shouted faintly in the distance, and a rider crossed below with the stag of Baratheon upon his cloak. She turned another corner and stopped.

The prince stood near the kennels, his hair gleaming like beaten gold, and his smile was calm and practiced.

“Lady Sansa,” he said, inclining his head with elegant grace, “I am sorry for your brother’s accident. It is a dreadful thing.”

“Thank you, my prince,” she replied, her voice small but steady as she dipped into a perfect curtsey.

“It is a cruel thing to fall from such heights,” the prince said. His voice was calm, smooth as polished glass.

Sansa tried to smile, but the sound that met her ears was not his voice at all. It came faintly at first, thin and high, like the cry of a creature lost in the dark. She turned her head slightly, expecting to see some movement near the kennels, but there was nothing.

“Father looked well today,” the prince continued, his tone careless, as though speaking of the weather. “He was glad to see Lord Stark. He said as much before the feast.”

The sound rose again, sharp and terrible screaming as if some poor creature was being torn in two. Sansa froze where she stood. It was close now, so close it felt as though the noise came from the very air between them. Did the dogs get ahold of a cat? Did the prince not hear it? How couldn’t he hear it?

“You will like King’s Landing,” he said, his lips curved in a smile that did not touch his eyes. “The court will suit you.”

She wanted to answer, to agree, to speak with the grace she had practiced so long, but her voice caught. The screaming did not stop. It coiled around his words, a wail that twisted in her chest until she thought she might cry out herself.

“Your father will serve the realm well,” he went on, his tone softening in a way that sounded prepared. “And you will have your place beside my Mother. She has already taken notice of you.”

The sound broke at last, a final gasp that faded into silence so heavy it made her ears ring. Sansa’s heart fluttered in her throat. She forced her mouth into a smile that felt too tight and inclined her head, her hands clasped neatly before her.

“That would be an honor, my prince,” she said, though the words caught at the edge of her throat.

The sound came again before he could answer. It was close this time, too close, a sharp, tearing cry that rose and fell like something dying. The air itself seemed to quiver around it.

“You will be admired in King’s Landing,” he went on, his tone light, almost lazy. “Mother will take you under her care. You have the look she values.”

“Yes, your highness,” Sansa managed. Her voice barely carried. The scream came a third time, breaking into ragged cries that no living throat could make. She wanted to cover her ears but could not move, could not falter before him.

“You will need to learn our ways, of course,” he continued. “Grace is born of the south, not of cold. But you will learn quickly. I can see it.”

“I hope to, my prince,” Sansa tried to smile. The sound pressed against her words like a living thing. Her heart beat so fast she thought he might hear it.

“Good. You will make me proud,” he seemed pleased, his smile deepening.

The cry broke one last time, sharp and final, and then vanished. The silence that followed was so thick she felt it pulse against her skin.

Sansa bowed her head slightly, the gesture small and perfect. “You are very gracious, your highness,” she said.

He regarded her a moment longer, his eyes tracing her face as though searching for a crack in her poise. Whatever he saw seemed to please him. A faint smile touched his lips, sharp as the glint of a blade seen from afar. Then he turned, the hem of his cloak sweeping the stones, his footsteps fading into the hush of the yard along with the pitiful weak cries of a dying cat.

When he disappeared around the corner, Sansa remained where she was. The silence that followed did not feel like peace. It lay heavy upon her, thick and waiting, as though the very air had not yet exhaled. The place where he had stood still felt wrong, as if the death cries she had heard lingered there unseen.

She took a single step back and found the strength to breathe again. The courtyard was empty now, the last of the daylight sinking behind the walls, the air cold turning cold. Somewhere far below, a door slammed, and the noise startled her with its sudden life. She almost welcomed it.

For a long moment she stood in the middle of the yard, her fingers curled tight against her skirts, listening. There was no scream now, only the faint hum that always seemed to stir in the corners of old stone. It whispered like memory, distant and soft, and she told herself it was only the wind.

At last she turned toward the keep. Her steps were careful and measured, each one a quiet act of will. Before her, Winterfell settled into stillness once more, but as she crossed the threshold, she could not shake the feeling that something unseen had followed her inside.

Chapter Text

“Again,” Ros said, her tone patient but edged with quiet command. “Head high. Shoulders relaxed. Let your breath fill the room before your words do.”

Sansa obeyed. Her slippered feet brushed the floor in careful measure, the candlelight sliding across the polished boards as she turned. The parlor smelled faintly of rose oil and old wine, its mirrors fogged with years of use. Her reflection wavered there, uncertain but earnest, a girl caught between silk and shadow.

“Better,” Ros murmured. “But your hands are too still. A courtier’s grace is not only in her words but in the air around them. Let your hands speak too.”

Sansa lifted them slightly, feeling awkward beneath Ros’s watchful gaze. “Like this?”

“Almost,” Ros said, rising from her chair. She moved behind Sansa, her voice low and sure as she guided her through the movements. “Every gesture should seem unplanned. Tilt your wrist. Look to your left, as if someone important is just out of sight. Good. Now turn your head back slowly, as though the world is waiting for you to look at it.”

Sansa did, and for a heartbeat the moment felt real. She could almost hear music, almost sense an audience beyond the walls of the brothel’s parlor, all of them watching her with admiration instead of suspicion. Then the illusion faded, and she saw only her reflection again, framed by peeling paint and candle smoke.

“You learn quickly,” Ros said, stepping back. “But you have little time left to practice it.”

The words stung more than they should have. It had been nearly a month since the King’s arrival, and all of Winterfell had changed beneath the weight of his presence. The court had swallowed the castle whole. Servants running, banners snapping, laughter and secrets threading through every hall. Yet for Sansa, it was as though the doors of her own dreams had been shut tight.

There were no lessons from the Queen’s ladies, no audiences in the solar where she might practice the turn of her phrase or the delicate balance of conversation. Every noblewoman in the royal party was busy with departure, their attention fixed on trunks and retainers, their minds already set on the road south. Her mother was always with Bran, her father forever at council. Even Septa Mordane had grown curt and distracted.

So Sansa came here instead, to the only teacher who would have her, to practice the courtesies that no one else seemed to value. It was foolish, she knew that, but each night her Book whispered more insistently in her thoughts, the pages stirring as if impatient for her to act.

Since her betrothal had been made official, the change in her Measure could no longer be ignored. When she closed her eyes, she could see it clearly. Her name shining white, edged by a solid yellow that had grown richer, brighter, until it gleamed like gold leaf. It should have been beautiful. It should have meant she was chosen, favored, rising. But the color frightened her all the same.

Yellow meant ambition. Yellow meant change. And in one so young, it was meant to come slowly, shaped by guidance and grace. Not forced by fear. Not stained by secrecy.

She told herself the edge of color had appeared because of the betrothal, that the court’s notice was a natural blessing for one promised to the heir of the realm. Yet she knew the truth, though she tried never to think it. The yellow had not come from her betrothal nor from her dedication to her Courtier craft, but from the shadows that answered her when she tried not to listen, from the quiet pull that lingered beneath her skin whenever death passed too near.

The Book had marked her not for charm, but for power. Not the kind her mother prized or the court would ever praise, but the cold, unseen kind that crept through roots and bones alike.

It terrified her.

If anyone knew what it meant, they would not see the yellow as favor. They would see it as corruption, a flaw bleeding through the white.

If she could only reach Tier Two of Courtier before they left, the change would make sense. Her Measure turning yellow would be explained, a natural progression of skill rather than a sign of danger or imbalance. But there were so few days left, and no one cared about a girl’s Measure when kings were feasting and knights were boasting.

Her brothers had each reached Tier Two by five-and-ten, earning it with sweat and steel, the Warrior’s path suited to the North and its cold demands. No one questioned when boys changed early. The glow came quickly where the air itself sharpened resolve. But she was three-and-ten, and her Courtier’s path had no battlefield here. There was no audience, no court, no stage to prove herself upon.

So she came to Ros, night after night, forcing herself through every lesson. The angle of a curtsy. The cadence of her breath. The art of silence as sharp as any blade.

“I have to be ready,” she said softly, half to herself. “When the King’s train departs, I must be ready.”

Ros watched her a long moment, her smile touched with both pride and pity. “You already look the part, sweetling. The rest comes when you stop trying to prove it.”

But Sansa could not stop. Not when every candle seemed to burn a little lower with the passing days, and every whisper of her Book reminded her that her colors were shifting faster than they should. Each night she saw the faint shimmer of yellow brightening around her name, sealing itself over the white like a warning she could not undo.

Ros did not know the reason for her urgency…or if she did, she had never said. Perhaps she thought it was only pride, or childish longing for the south and its silks. Perhaps she guessed that Sansa feared being left behind when the court departed. But she had never asked. Not once.

And Sansa was grateful for that silence more than she could ever say. Ros was the only one who looked at her without suspicion, who did not flinch when her gaze lingered too long or the candles guttered suddenly as she passed. She only corrected Sansa’s posture, adjusted her tone, and went on as if nothing at all were strange about her.

“If I could reach Tier Two before we leave, everything would change,” Sansa turned then, her skirts whispering around her ankles.

Ros gave a small smile that did not quite reach her eyes. “Half a fortnight is not enough to earn the south’s attention. Still, you might surprise me,” she paused then, gaze drifting toward the shuttered window where faint light from Winterfell’s upper towers spilled across the stone. Outside, it started to snow. “The King’s train will leave soon. When it does, half the town will follow. There’s talk enough of coin and promise in the south to make anyone restless.”

“You’ve thought of going?” Sansa tilted her head.

“Thought of it, aye,” Ros admitted softly. “The south pays better for pretty manners than the North ever will. A woman could make her fortune there, if she learned to smile the right way.”

Sansa said nothing, though her heart fluttered. Ros’s words lingered, rich with temptation and warning both.

Sansa lowered her gaze. “Then this will be our last lesson.”

“For now,” Ros touched her shoulder gently. “You have the makings of something rare. But grace can be a weapon, and weapons are meant to be hidden until the moment they are needed.”

Sansa curtsied, her movements smooth despite the weight in her chest. “Thank you.”

“Go now, before the matron sees you lingering,” Ros smiled once more, faint and fleeting. “It is easier to leave when no one notices.”

The brothel’s halls were hushed as Sansa slipped through them. The laughter and song from the lower floors were distant echoes, blurred by heavy curtains and the scent of spiced smoke. She moved carefully down the narrow stairs, her heart pounding with every creak of the wood.

Outside, the night air was sharp and alive. Summer snows had begun to fall again, thin and steady, dusting her cloak and hair. She pulled her hood close and kept to the shadows as she made her way toward the street that led back to Winterfell. The sky was low and silver, the world hushed as if listening.

She approached the corner of the alley, breath clouding before her, and nearly collided with someone coming the other way.

Theon Greyjoy stopped short, one hand lifting instinctively to steady her. The lamplight from the street brushed against his face, surprise flickering there before he found his words.

“Sansa?”

Her name hung in the air, fragile and sharp at once.

He was dressed for the cold, his cloak dusted with snow, his smile not yet formed but already wary. Behind her, the brothel’s door creaked as it shut, the sound small and final.

For a heartbeat neither of them spoke. The laughter and music from inside drifted faintly through the cracks in the shutters, a warm murmur swallowed by the frost between them. Then the silence settled, thick and uneasy, and Sansa realized too late that he knew exactly where she had come from. The alley ended at the brothel, there was no where else she could have come from.

Theon’s hand dropped from her arm as if the touch burned him. His face, still half-lit by the flickering lamp, shifted from surprise to something sharper, colder.

“Sansa,” he said again, more carefully this time, as though testing the shape of her name. “What in the seven hells are you doing here?”

The question hung between them, cutting through the soft drift of snow. Behind her, the brothel door thudded once and went still. The scent of perfume and smoke lingered faintly in the air, clinging to her cloak like guilt.

“I – I lost my way,” she began, her voice too quick, too light. “I was walking and must have taken a wrong turn from the market street. I didn’t even realize what this place was until –”

“Until you walked out of it?” Theon’s tone sharpened.

Sansa’s breath caught. Her fingers twisted in the edge of her cloak, desperate for something to hold. “It isn’t what you think,” she said, and even as the words left her she knew they sounded wrong. Too practiced. Too afraid.

Theon took a step closer, his shadow long against the snow. “You expect me to believe that the daughter of Lord Stark lost her way into a brothel? At night? Alone?”

His voice wasn’t cruel, but there was something hard in it, the iron of disbelief perhaps. And something that sounded a lot like fear.

“I only wanted air,” Sansa said quickly. “The keep is stifling. Everyone’s so busy with the King leaving, and I needed quiet, so I walked, and the lights drew me. I thought it was an inn.”

The lie tumbled out awkwardly, each word thinner than the last. She could feel her pulse hammering against her throat, every beat an accusation.

Theon’s expression shifted again, disbelief giving way to something like anger…or maybe dread. He ran a hand through his hair, his breath fogging the cold between them. “You shouldn’t be here. Gods, if anyone saw –” he stopped himself, eyes narrowing as he studied her.

Her cheeks burned under his gaze. She tried to lift her chin the way Ros had taught her, to summon poise, but it faltered beneath the weight of his stare.

“You’re lying,” he said quietly.

“I’m not,” Sansa flinched as if struck.

“Yes, you are,” his voice dropped lower. “You think I don’t know what this place is? Or who goes there? If your father –” he broke off, the name heavy between them.

The mention of her father’s honor pressed against her like ice. She wanted to vanish, to fold herself into the snow and let the night swallow her whole.

“I only wanted to learn,” she whispered, before she could stop herself. The words slipped free like a secret that had waited too long.

“Learn what?” Theon frowned, his breath a pale mist between them.

Sansa froze, her heart thudding so loudly she was certain he could hear it. The words hovered at the back of her throat like something poisonous she dared not swallow or release. Her Book stirred faintly in her thoughts, its presence dark and patient, waiting to be acknowledged. The air around her seemed to shift with it, as though the snow itself held its breath.

She bit her lip hard enough to taste iron and looked away. The torchlight shivered against the packed snow, glinting off the frozen cobbles and the wet stone walls. Her shadow stretched thin beside her, long and trembling.

“Nothing,” she said at last. “It doesn’t matter.”

Theon didn’t move. He only stared, his eyes narrowing, the firelight catching faintly on the pale scar that cut through one brow. His silence pressed at her until she thought it might break her in half.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, roughened by the cold and something sharper. “Learn what, Sansa? What could you possibly learn in a place like this?”

She flinched. The sound of her name from his lips no longer carried the teasing lilt it once did. Now it sounded like an accusation. He said it softly, as though afraid it might shatter between them.

“I told you, it was a mistake,” she said quickly. “I only –”

“I’ve been inside there,” he interrupted, the words hard enough to sting. His breath steamed in the air, his cloak dusted with snowflakes that refused to melt. “I know what kind of lessons that place teaches.”

Behind her, the brothel glowed faintly, its windows a haze of golden light veiled by frost. The laughter that drifted out was muffled, almost warm, but it carried something raw beneath it, the kind of mirth that cut instead of comforted.

Theon’s mouth twisted in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “If you think that’s what it takes to be a Courtier, you’re more foolish than I thought.”

Sansa’s throat tightened. The snow had started to fall more thickly now, soft flakes clinging to her lashes and melting on her cheeks. “That’s not –”

He took a step closer, his boots crunching in the frost. “Those women might dress like Courtiers,” he went on, his voice low but relentless. “Might flatter like them, might even bow and curtsy if the price is right, but their path isn’t grace or diplomacy. It’s seduction.”

The word struck her like a slap. She saw his breath plume between them, harsh against the dim light, and she wished the ground would open and swallow her whole.

“They sell what they are,” he said, his voice low and his eyes wide. “To men who’ll forget their names by morning. Is that what you’re learning now?”

Sansa couldn’t speak. The wind stirred her cloak, lifting the hem enough to reveal the fine shoes she’d ruined in the snow. Every sound seemed too loud. The distant bark of a dog, the hollow rattle of a shutter, the faint laughter from within the brothel.

She wanted to say no. To explain that her lessons were about posture and grace, not sin. That she came here because no one else in Winterfell would teach her how to survive the court she was promised to. But the words tangled in her throat, thin and useless.

Even if she spoke, it would only be another lie. The truth lived too deep, sealed in the Book’s silence where even her prayers could not reach. To admit why she needed the lessons, to speak of the Book that whispered in her sleep, would undo her. So she swallowed the denial before it could take shape, forcing her tongue still, her hands steady.

She had to bury it…bury Shadow Weaver beneath silks and courtesies, beneath the perfect composure of a Courtier. That was her only choice. If she could smother the darkness with grace long enough, if she could make the world believe in the lie of her light, then perhaps even the gods would forget what they had written in her name.

The world felt unbearably small then. Just the two of them in the alley’s narrow walls of stone, torchlight guttering, shadows pressing close as if to listen. The air was heavy with cold and judgment, thick enough to choke on.

“You don’t understand,” she managed, though her voice shook despite her effort to steady it. “Ros is kind to me. She’s been teaching me how to walk, how to speak. How to carry myself before the court leaves.”

It was almost true. But even that small truth was wrapped in a greater lie. Ros’ lessons were not only about grace, they were about survival. About learning to smile while the shadows gathered, to keep her secrets behind a pleasant laugh. She wanted to tell him that, to make him see that nothing she did was wicked, that every courtesy was armor. But the words tangled in her throat, thin and useless.

If she spoke too much, he would hear the tremor beneath. He would know.

So she swallowed the rest and lowered her eyes, letting the silence settle like snow between them. She could not afford honesty.

“The court?” Theon’s laugh was quick and bitter. “You mean the King’s train? Gods, Sansa, do you have any idea what they’d say if they knew where you’d been tonight? If the Queen heard, or the King –” he broke off, shaking his head. “You’d shame your father before the wagons even rolled south.”

Her heart beat so hard it hurt. “I’m not like them,” she said, her voice cracking in spite of her effort to sound steady. “Ros isn’t teaching me that. I only needed help. No one else has time for me, and the court leaves soon, and if I don’t reach Tier Two –”

“Tier Two?” Theon’s brow furrowed. “You think your father would care about that? You think the King would?”

“He might,” she said, though even as the words left her, she knew they were too thin to hold. “If I could prove myself before they go, if they saw I had potential –”

Theon stared at her for a long moment, snow collecting in his hair. “You sound like you believe it,” he said quietly. “Like all this nonsense about Measures and Tiers matters more than your name.”

“It does,” Sansa whispered. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

He took a small step toward her, his tone cooling again. “And you think learning from a whore will what? Make you more worthy than your name?”

The word hit her harder than he seemed to mean. She recoiled, her breath catching in her chest. The sound of laughter from inside the brothel drifted faintly out again, cruel in its timing.

“Ros is not –” she began, but her voice failed her. Because Ros was and she could not explain, not without saying too much.

Theon looked at her, troubled now instead of angry, his earlier sharpness dimming into confusion. “Seven hells, Sansa,” he muttered. “You don’t belong here. Whatever you think you’re fixing, this isn’t the way.”

She swallowed hard, eyes burning with shame and something like defiance. “You won’t tell anyone,” she said, though it came out more as a plea than a command.

Theon hesitated, his body tense. Snow drifted between them, slow and soundless, gathering in his hair, melting against the heat of her breath. His jaw worked as if he were weighing something heavy and unpleasant, and each breath he took came hard in the cold, white clouds fading quickly between them.

“I can’t promise you that,” he said at last. The sharpness was gone from his voice. What remained was quieter, grim. “If anyone saw us together out here, outside that place…your father would have my head on a spike before dawn.”

Sansa flinched. The image came too easily, her father’s sword gleaming with frost, Theon’s laughter gone still. The thought of it turned her stomach.

“I’m not jesting,” Theon went on, running a gloved hand through his hair as though to steady himself. “You know what I am here, Sansa. A hostage, a reminder. I breathe because your father allows it. If this gets out, he’ll think I dragged you there, or worse. The safest thing would be to tell him first. Let him hear it from me. He could smooth it over before the royal court learns of it.”

The words struck her like a blow. The very idea of her father knowing, of that look he used instead of shouting, that terrible silence that weighed more than anger ever could, and the decision he would have to make after he learned the whole truth…it hollowed her chest.

“No,” she said, the word tearing from her before she could soften it. “You can’t.”

Theon’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of something wary breaking through his frustration. “You’d rather I wait until someone else does? Until one of the guards tells him where you’ve been?”

“If you tell him,” she said, her voice trembling despite her best effort. “If you tell him, he’ll take my head before he ever takes yours.”

He stared at her, disbelief flickering in his gaze. “Don’t be foolish. You’re his daughter.”

She shook her head, quick, sharp, desperate. “You don’t understand. If he knew what I’ve done, he wouldn’t see me as his daughter. He’d see something wrong. Something dangerous. Something to fear.”

The words slipped free before she could cage them, spilled out of her panic like blood from a cut. She froze the instant they were loose, wishing she could claw them back into silence.

The alley seemed to shrink around them. Even the snow held its breath. Theon’s expression shifted, not to mockery as she expected, but something closer to confusion, maybe even pity.

“What could you possibly have done?” He asked quietly. “That would make Ned Stark fear his own child?”

Sansa could not answer. Her throat closed on the truth. To speak it would make it real. The Book, the shadows, the dead that whispered to her in the walls of Winterfell. She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t wickedness she feared, but revelation. That if her father looked too closely, he’d see the darkness the Old Gods had written into her soul.

Instead, she looked away, eyes burning. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me,” Theon took a slow step closer, his breath visible between them.

For a heartbeat she almost did. The words hovered on her tongue. The confession, the plea, the desperate need to be known. But then the moment passed, and she felt the lie she had built around herself tighten again, like silk drawn over stone.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

When she met his gaze again, the Courtier had returned. Her posture straightened, her voice softened, and every trace of fear folded neatly behind composure. She was polite, poised, perfect. The girl beneath the veil was gone.

She had buried Shadow Weaver beneath her smile once more. It was her only choice.

Theon took a half step back, studying her face as if trying to reconcile the tremor he had just heard with the calm that replaced it. His eyes narrowed, not in suspicion but in unease. “What do you mean you can’t?” he asked, his voice low and uncertain.

Sansa’s heart pounded. The Book stirred faintly at the edge of her thoughts, a pulse rising like a warning. The hum of it pressed against her ribs, cold as breath on glass.

She forced her gaze downward, fingers twisting in her cloak. “Nothing,” she said quickly. “It’s nothing. I only meant he would be angry. Ashamed,” her breath hitched. “Please, Theon. Do not tell him.”

Theon frowned, but the sharpness in him had dulled. He looked at her for a long moment, the falling snow settling between them like the silence of judgment. His hand tightened once at his side, then loosened.

“Sansa,” he said at last, quieter than before. “If this is worse than it looks, you need to tell me now.”

“It isn’t,” she lied. Her throat burned.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The torchlight from the street flickered against the snow, painting them both in shifting gold and shadow.

Sansa took a small step back, the snow whispering beneath her heel. Theon’s eyes followed her, sharp and uncertain. She tried to move past him, but his hand shot out and caught her forearm.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” he said. His grip wasn’t cruel, but it was unyielding.

“Please,” she whispered, pulling against him, her voice breaking. “You don’t understand. You have to let me go.”

“I can’t,” he said. “Not until I know what you’ve done.”

The fear in her chest coiled tight until she could barely draw breath. The cold stung her eyes, the wind cutting through her cloak as if it meant to peel the truth from her. “If you tell him,” she said quietly, her voice shaking. “He’ll see what I really am.”

Theon opened his mouth, but the reply did not come from him. It came from the dark.

“See what?” The voice was low and steady, roughened by disbelief.

They both turned.

Jon Snow stood a few paces away, half-hidden by the shadows that pooled along the alley’s edge. Ghost was beside him, white as bone beneath the falling snow, eyes burning red in the lamplight. The wolf’s silence was more terrible than any sound.

Sansa froze, every word dying in her throat.

Jon’s gaze shifted between them. From Sansa’s pale face to Theon’s hand still grasping her arm, and the quiet that followed felt heavier than the cold itself.

“What are you doing standing in front of a brothel with my sister?” Jon asked, his voice low and cutting through the dark.

He looked only at Theon as he spoke, not once at her. His jaw was set, his hand already moving to the hilt at his hip.

The torchlight caught the steel as he drew it, slow and deliberate, the sound of metal breaking the silence like a crack in the frozen air.

Theon stiffened. Sansa couldn’t move at all. Snow fell between them in perfect, endless silence.

Chapter Text

The night had turned colder by the time Jon found his way into Wintertown.

Lord Stark’s words still echoed in his head, quiet and firm as ever. Fetch Theon before the gates close. If he’s not in the hall, you’ll find him where he shouldn’t be.

Jon hadn’t needed to ask where that was. He only nodded, as he always did when his father spoke, and went.

He had seen that look in Lord Stark’s eyes earlier that evening, the one that meant something weighed on him beyond the usual burdens of duty. His father had spoken quietly to Maester Luwin during supper, saying he wished to speak with Robb and Theon before the royal party departed. Separately, he had said, and soon.

The message had gone out before the tables were cleared. Robb had gone straight to his father’s solar, eager and steady as ever. But Theon had vanished before the steward could find him. No one was surprised.

Jon hadn’t needed to ask where he’d gone. Theon always slipped away when talk of duty grew too near, seeking laughter, drink, or softer company instead. Still, Lord Stark had only sighed when Jon offered to bring him back. “Find him, then,” he’d said, his tone weary but even. “And make sure he walks on his own feet.”

So Jon went.

The wind caught his cloak and pulled it close around him, the wolf’s fur collar brushing his jaw. The air smelled of smoke and tallow, of spilled ale and the faint sweetness of melting snow. Laughter and rough song drifted from the taverns, voices thick with drink, dulled by the steady fall of flakes. Somewhere to his left, a woman’s voice rose in a lilting tune, thin and practiced, meant to lure rather than comfort.

He quickened his pace. Ghost moved ahead soundlessly, little more than a pale shimmer against the dark, his red eyes gleaming where the torchlight caught them. The brothel wasn’t far now. Jon could already see the glow of its lanterns through the curtain of snow. Golden, constant, and far too bright for a place so low.

Jon hesitated at the corner, unwilling to step closer, then caught sight of movement just beyond the lamplight.

Two figures stood in the snow.

For a heartbeat he thought the cold had tricked his eyes. Theon was there, cloak half-open, posture tense. But the girl facing him – small, cloaked, with her hood falling back enough for the firelight to catch her hair – could not be who he thought it was.

Sansa.

The thought struck him like a blow.

He stopped in the shadow of the adjoining wall, breath caught, eyes narrowing as he tried to make sense of what he saw. The two of them were close enough that their words didn’t carry, but their faces told enough. Theon looked cornered, his mouth set hard. Sansa’s hands were clasped before her, white against the dark wool of her cloak.

Jon took a step forward before he realized what it would mean. If anyone else saw a Stark daughter, standing outside a brothel at night with a man her father kept as a hostage, it would ruin her. And Theon would be lucky to see dawn.

Ghost’s breath misted near his knee, soundless. Jon’s pulse quickened with a sharp, cold dread that had nothing to do with the snow. He needed to end this before anyone else saw.

“Jon – Seven hells, I didn’t –” Theon’s voice cracked in the cold as he stumbled back, both hands raised. His breath steamed in ragged bursts, and his eyes darted between Jon and the pale shimmer of Ghost in the snow. “I didn’t touch her. I swear it.”

Sansa flinched when he released her. The sudden space between them seemed colder than the air. Her cloak had slipped from one shoulder, catching flakes that melted against her skin. She looked stunned, the color gone from her lips, her gaze unfocused as if she were still trying to understand what had just happened.

Jon stepped forward, slow and deliberate. The torchlight caught on the fur of his cloak and the pale gleam of Ghost’s eyes as the direwolf moved to his side, silent as falling snow. The wind pressed at Jon’s back, carrying the faint sound of laughter from the tavern down the street. None of it reached here.

“You expect me to believe that?” His voice was quiet, the kind of quiet that cut more sharply than a shout.

Theon’s usual grin never formed. Panic took its place, a trembling thing that hollowed his words. “I don’t care what you believe. Ask her,” he took a half step toward Sansa, then stopped when Ghost’s head lowered. “I found her here, not the other way round. She shouldn’t be out at all, you know that as well as I do. I was only –” his breath hitched, the lie or truth choking him in the same breath. “I was only trying to send her home before someone else saw.”

Sansa’s eyes flicked to him, then to Jon. The firelight caught in her lashes, trembling. Her hands were clasped together so tightly the knuckles showed white. She looked young…too young for the hour, for the place, for the fear that quivered just beneath her skin.

Jon’s hand tightened at his side. The silence between them pressed heavy, filled with the sound of falling snow.

Theon turned to her, voice breaking with the strain. “Tell him,” he said, desperate now, the words rushing out before she could move. “Tell him I didn’t do anything.”

Sansa stood between them, the snow swirling like ash around her, still pale from shock. Her lips parted once, then closed again. No sound came. Jon’s eyes were flint, cold and sure in their judgment as he turned on Theon.

“You brought her here?” he said, his voice low and even. “Seven gods, Theon. Outside a brothel?”

Theon’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t –”

“She should never have set foot near this place.” Jon’s anger flared sharp enough to warm the air between them. “You were sent to Winterfell to learn honor. Was this your lesson for her?”

Theon took a step forward, snow crunching beneath his boots. “You think I’d dare? I found her here, Jon. You think I’d risk my head for a jest?”

Sansa stirred then, breath trembling as if dragged from somewhere deep. “He didn’t bring me,” she said, her voice thin at first, then steadier. “He’s telling the truth.”

Jon turned to her, the wind whipping her hair loose from its braid. “Then tell me why,” he said quietly. “Why you’d be out here, of all places.”

Her hands clenched around her cloak. For a moment, she looked as though she might cry. But she lifted her chin instead, her blue eyes bright with defiance. “I was visiting Ros,” she said. “She’s teaching me. My Courtier path…I need to reach Tier Two.”

“Ros,” Jon repeated, disbelief roughening his tone. “Ros, of all people?”

“She knows how to speak to men,” Sansa said quickly, words tumbling now that she’d begun. “How to read them. How to listen without yielding. A Courtier’s training isn’t just curtseys and flattery. She can help me…she already has.”

Jon’s face darkened, caught between fury and something like pity. “You could’ve learned in Winterfell,” he said. “From your mother, from anyone. You risk your name, your place, everything, for this?”

“With who? With who should I have learned from?” Sansa’s voice cracked, sharp and sudden. “Mother has her duties, Septa Mordane has her lessons, Arya runs wild, and Father –” she stopped herself, breath shuddering out. “No one has time for me.”

Her words hung there, trembling in the cold. “And you,” she said, her voice rising, eyes darting between them. “You, Robb, and Theon…you’ve all told me often enough that you’ve no patience for my courtly dreams. You laugh when I speak of the south. You roll your eyes when I practice my courtesies. What choice did I have but to seek someone who would take me seriously?”

Theon gave a humorless laugh, though it faltered halfway. “You’ve lost your wits, girl. Sneaking to a brothel because no one looked your way? You could have ruined yourself.”

Sansa’s eyes flashed. “I was careful. No one saw me.”

“We did,” Jon’s reply came soft but heavy with meaning.

That silenced her. For a moment, the three of them only stood there, the night pressing close.

Theon broke it first, rubbing a hand through his hair. “You don’t understand, Sansa. Reaching Tier Two isn’t worth this. You’re not one of us. You don’t need to claw your way toward danger to prove your worth.”

Her gaze flicked toward him, uncertain, then fell. “I do,” she said quietly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then tell us,” Jon said. “Tell me why you need it so badly.”

Sansa hesitated, her gloved hands twisting together. “Because if I don’t advance soon,” she said finally, “Father will see what’s wrong. He already suspects something. I can’t let him look too closely.”

Theon’s brow furrowed, confusion softening into concern. “Why are you so afraid of him, Sansa?” he asked, his voice dropping low. “What are you hiding from Lord Stark?”

Sansa stood motionless beneath the falling snow. Her lashes were wet, her breath coming thin and fast. For a moment she said nothing, as if the world might swallow the question whole before she had to answer it. Then she lifted her hands, the movement hesitant, her fingers trembling.

“I will show you,” Sansa said.

The street seemed to hush. Snow drifted in slow spirals through the torchlight, and the sound from the distant tavern faded to a smear of warmth far away. Light gathered in her cupped hands, soft at first, then a fuller glow that thickened into leather and weight. The Book formed cleanly, no ripple, no smoke, only presence.

“What’s wrong with it?” Jon asked, voice low as he stepped near.

The Book was a dark purple that drank the lantern light, deeper than the plum colored Books of any Arbiter in Winterfell. It held the eye the way night water held stars, not gleaming so much as containing the light it found. Along the side of the spine ran the sigil that marked her title. A white weirwood branch with small red leaves lay there like frost captured in leather.

“It was never this dark,” Sansa said softly. “Not at first.”

“When did it change?” Jon asked.

“It began soon after the Awakening,” Sansa said. Her eyes stayed fixed on the Book, its surface dimly reflecting the wavering torchlight. “At first it was bright purple, the right color. But then it began to darken, a little more each moon. It deepened whenever the other path pulled me forward,” her voice dropped lower, almost to a whisper. “I never wanted it, but the ink would not stop. It wrote when I did nothing at all.”

Theon bent nearer, the snow gathering along his shoulders. “They are meant to change,” he said, watching the Book’s faint pulse of color. “Mine has shifted as I’ve grown, and Jon’s too. But not like this.”

“This one changes on its own, for the smallest of reasons,” Sansa said. Her gloved hand brushed the spine where the white weirwood branch gleamed faintly against the much darker purple leather. “Each time it grew darker, I could feel it happening, as if the words were still writing somewhere deep inside. It has stopped now, for a while at least.”

Jon’s gaze flicked to the Book again. “You think it will begin again.”

Sansa’s fingers tightened around the cover. Her voice came soft, barely stirring the air between them. “Only if I let it,” she said. “Only if I stop fighting. It’s quiet now because I won’t take the next step. As long as I hold still, it holds still too.”

Jon stared at her for a long moment, the meaning settling in his mind like frost. His breath rose in a thin cloud as understanding dawned. “You have a Second Class,” he said slowly, as if naming it aloud made it real. The words hung between them, colder than the air. “That is why it darkens.”

Sansa did not look up. Her thumb traced the white weirwood branch embossed along the spine, following its curve with trembling care. “I do,” she said at last. “It came the same day the Courtier did.”

Theon let out a sharp breath that steamed and vanished into the falling snow. “Gods,” he said, a thread of admiration slipping through before fear caught up to it. “Two Classes before you’re grown. That’s never happened before. You have to earn it.”

Jon’s eyes lingered on the Book, its dark hue catching the light like wine gone black. “But what sort of Class could do this?” he murmured. “Courtier colors shift, yes, but they never turn this deep.”

Theon frowned, his gaze flicking between them. “I’ve never heard of any path that could pull purple into shadow.”

The color along the spine seemed to pulse once beneath her touch, the white of the weirwood branch standing out starker against the dark, as though it resisted being swallowed entirely. None of them spoke again for a long moment. The snow fell softly, muffling the world until the three of them stood alone with the quiet weight of what they could not name.

Jon watched her, the torchlight drawing sharp light across his jaw. “What is it then?” he asked. “What is your Second Class?”

Sansa’s breath caught. Her fingers tightened around the Book until the leather creaked. For a heartbeat, she said nothing, her gaze fixed on the snow beneath her boots. When she finally spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. “I cannot give it voice,” she said. “If I name it, it will become real. And something like this should never be spoken allowed.”

The wind moved between them, slow and cold. She looked up at last, eyes wide and wet with the effort of holding herself steady. “Please,” she said, her words shaking. “I only need someone else to see it. I can’t bear it alone anymore.”

She extended the Book toward them, her hands trembling so violently the light along its spine wavered. The dark purple leather seemed to breathe with its own faint pulse, the white weirwood branch catching the torchlight like bone.

Theon flinched backward as if she had drawn a blade on him. “No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “No, Sansa. If anyone found me touching your Book, I’d be executed before dawn,” his voice cracked at the end, the fear plain. “It’s bound to you. No one’s meant to see another’s ink unless they are bound to each other.”

Sansa’s hands trembled harder, the weight of the Book dragging her arms down as though it wished to fall. Her eyes found Jon’s, pleading, wordless.

Jon hesitated. Every part of him warned against it, but the look in her face – pale, desperate, terrified – broke through the caution. Slowly, he reached out, his hand brushing hers. The Book was cold, far colder than the air, its surface smooth beneath the thin frost that had begun to gather.

Sansa let out a shaky breath when he took it, as if some unbearable pressure had lifted from her chest. Jon felt the pulse of it beneath his fingers, faint but steady, like the echo of a heartbeat long buried under stone.

Jon opened the Book.

It felt heavier than it should have, the weight of it pulling against his hands as though the pages resisted being seen. The leather was smooth and cold, the dark purple deep as wine at night.

Jon faltered for only moment, then he turned the first page. The parchment glowed faintly, the ink fine and elegant. His sister’s name was crowned at the top in silver, and beneath it her Courtier Class was written clear and proud. The color there was brighter than he expected, a living violet that shimmered softly when the light touched it. Lines of script detailed her learned graces, the small gifts that had already begun to shape her speech and bearing.

“You’re close to Tier Two,” Jon said. His brow furrowed as he turned another page. “That’s impressive. You’ve done this without guidance?”

“I have tried, and Ros has helped,” Sansa said. Her hands clasped before her, fingers pale where the skin pressed tight. “If I could grow that side quickly enough, I thought perhaps the other might fade.”

Jon nodded slightly, his eyes still on the Courtier pages. But when he turned the next, the light changed. The parchment beneath his fingers dulled, the glow dimming as though the ink drank it away. The script thickened, the color deepening from violet to plum, then darker still, until the edges of the letters bled into the page. He turned another, and another.

“What is this?” Jon said quietly.

The paper here was no longer bright but shadowed, the purple darkened completely to black. The writing shimmered faintly and the air around the Book grew colder, the torchlight near them flickered as if uneasy.

Sansa’s voice came barely above a whisper. “That is what I cannot speak of. It keeps writing, even when I will it to stop.”

Jon brushed the edge of one of the darker pages. The parchment felt wrong beneath his gloves, as if it were made from something older than paper, something that remembered. He turned back to the beginning, to the bright script that seemed a different Book entirely. The contrast was stark. Light to dark, warmth to shadow, beauty to unease.

Jon turned another page, and the color of the parchment deepened until the violet was nearly black. He finally read the words, and his heart stilled.

═════════════
Secondary Class Confirmed:
NECROMANCER
You are marked by the veil. Where others hear silence, you hear the echoes of death.

Subclass:
SHADOW WEAVER
The veil bends at your touch; the shadows beyond death answer when you call.
═════════════

His breath caught, the sound loud in the stillness. He looked up at Sansa, his pulse quickening, the torchlight flickering between them. “You’ve chosen a Sub-Class,” he said. The words left his mouth like an accusation.

Sansa’s head lifted slightly, her lips parting, but no sound came at first. The snow gathered in her hair, melting against the heat of her skin. “I had no choice,” she whispered at last. “The Book wouldn’t close until I did.”

“It forced you?” Jon’s grip on the page tightened.

“It wouldn’t stop,” she said, her voice trembling now. “It kept turning on its own, writing and writing, and I couldn’t make it end. It wouldn’t seal until I accepted what it offered.”

The torch sputtered in the wind, casting shifting shadows across her face. She looked small beneath the weight of the night, her breath thin in the cold, her words barely audible. “I didn’t want it,” she said. “But the Book decided for me.”

Jon turned back to the book, flipping another page, and beneath the darkened title he saw her first tier of abilities written in fine, deliberate script. They were not spells or commands but quiet, unsettling gifts. She could hear the faint echoes of the dead, sense their presence where loss had taken root. She could cloak herself in shadow so that even the light forgot her, and she could conjure a dim, cold lantern that revealed what lingered unseen.

It was power built for silence, not spectacle, and reading it left his skin cold.

Beneath the list, one line gleamed brighter than the rest – Title Bestowed: Lady of Ashen Boughs. The words pulsed softly, the white of the weirwood branch along her Book’s spine answering in kind, as if the title itself breathed.

Jon turned another page and found a long column of black script filling the parchment from top to bottom. The ink shimmered faintly as though still wet, the entries scrolling down in careful order beneath the heading. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of notations, a record of every quiet act since her Awakening.

He scanned the list, his eyes catching on a few near the top.

═════════════
Progress Log
+2 XP — Practiced stillness at dusk
+4 XP — Held composure under scrutiny
+3 XP — Observed silence beneath the weirwood
+5 XP — Endured cold without retreat
═════════════

The entries continued far down the page, an unbroken ledger of small, deliberate moments that together formed something vast. Each line marked a quiet victory or act of discipline, deeds so simple they might have passed unnoticed by anyone else.

Yet the Book had seen them all.

The older notations gleamed softly, written in a steady black ink, but as Jon’s eyes traced downward, the script grew heavier. The strokes deepened and darkened, pressed into the parchment as though the quill had borne the weight of her will. It was a record not only of what she had done but of how much effort it had cost her.

The closer he came to the present, the more the ink seemed alive beneath the surface. The newer entries gathered tightly, crowding the margins, the letters curling with an almost human precision. Jon stilled when he reached the bottom. The parchment quivered faintly in his hands, and he realized he was watching a new line form in real time.

The words bled slowly into view, graceful and deliberate, the strokes carving themselves into the page until the last mark gleamed bright and new.

═════════════

+10 XP — Stood in shadows for ten minutes

═════════════

Jon’s breath stilled. The ink glowed for a heartbeat before fading to the same muted black as the others, another secret quietly recorded by a Book that never slept. He could almost feel the pulse of the Book through the leather binding, like a heartbeat marking her every secret.

He turned the next page. It was darker still, the borders rimmed in faint darkness like ash that bled inward toward the text. At the top, the letters gleamed with the same cold authority as a commandment.

═════════════
SHADOW WEAVER
Tier II Advancement Available

To proceed, you must choose. One path cannot be walked without the sacrifice of the other.
═════════════

Active Ability Achieved on Advancement
Veil of Ash
Your presence is cloaked beneath a false measure. To every eye your Measure gleams White, harmless and untested. When the veil is lifted, the truth will be revealed.

Passive Ability Achieved on Advancement
Shadow’s Refuge
Bound shades and doubles retreat into your own shadow when dismissed. None may see them until you call.

═════════════

Choose One Active Ability:

Shadow Summon
Bind the shadow of a creature or person that has just passed. The tether is intimate and fragile, yet the shade retains fragments of what it was in life.

Umbral Echo
Call forth a double made of your own shadow. Insubstantial, convincing at a glance, it may mislead, distract, or cover your escape.

═════════════

Jon stared at the final lines until the torchlight wavered. The page pulsed faintly beneath his fingers, patient, waiting for the choice it demanded. He could not bring himself to look at Sansa. The snow fell softer now, but each flake seemed to echo in the silence between them. The world felt thinner, quieter, as though even Wintertown itself was listening.

He closed the Book slowly, the sound of the pages meeting gentle yet final, like a door closing on something vast. The faint light along the spine dimmed until only the pale gleam of the weirwood branch remained, its carved red leaves stark against the dark purple leather. Jon held it a moment longer, his thumb brushing the edge where warmth should have been but was not.

“You must never speak of this,” he said. His voice was low, even, but carried a weight that filled the empty street. “Not to Father, not to Mother, not to anyone.”

Sansa nodded, her eyes bright with tears that did not fall. The lamplight caught in them, reflecting the deep violet of the Book. “I know,” she whispered. “If I do, I know what will become of me.”

Jon glanced down at the Book again, then back to her. “You must never advance,” he said. “Do you understand? Never reach for Tier Two. Whatever waits in those pages cannot be allowed to grow.”

Her breath trembled, clouding in the cold. “I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”

The words sounded too small for the weight they carried. Jon handed the Book back to her, his hand steady despite the chill that crept into his bones. Sansa took it with both hands, clutching it as though afraid it might fall open again. The moment she touched it, the Book began to fade, its edges dissolving into a faint shimmer until nothing was left but air and the memory of its presence.

Jon reached forward before she could step back. He pulled her into his arms, the movement surprising even him. For a moment, she stiffened, then melted against him, her forehead pressed against the fur at his collar.

He could not remember the last time he had held her like this, not since she was small enough to hide her face in his shoulder and whisper her fears before sleep. Somewhere along the years, she had stopped seeking comfort from him. Now, it was she who trembled while he stood firm.

“It’s all right,” he murmured. “No one will ever know. Your secret dies with me.”

Sansa nodded against his chest, her breath shaking. “And Theon?” she asked, her voice muffled by his cloak.

Jon looked past her to where Theon stood, pale beneath the wavering torchlight, his usual smirk gone. “He won’t speak of it,” Jon said. “Not ever.”

Theon met his gaze and gave a single nod, the gesture sharp and solemn. “You have my word,” he said quietly. “I’ll carry it to the grave.”

Jon released Sansa and brushed a strand of hair from her face, the gesture gentle but firm. Then he bent and pressed his lips to her forehead, a promise sealed in silence and snow.

“Go home,” he said. “Go now. No one must see you here.”

Sansa hesitated, her eyes searching his face, then turned toward the road that led back to Winterfell. The snow swallowed the sound of her steps until only her pale cloak showed between the drifting flakes, and then that too disappeared.

Jon watched her go as the wind shifted, carrying the faint sound of the brothel’s laughter from nearby, hollow and distant. He turned at last to Theon, his face unreadable in the half-light.

The direwolf at his side stood still, red eyes gleaming through the snow.

Theon shifted beside him, rubbing his hands together for warmth. “So,” he said after a moment, his voice rough but uncertain. “What exactly did I just swear to keep secret until I die?” He forced a laugh, light and hollow, but it broke quickly in the quiet. “I mean, I saw your face, Jon. It cannot be that bad. Can it?”

Jon watched him, the torchlight carving a pale line down his cheek. He did not answer at first, only studied Theon’s expression as though deciding how much of the truth to let through. When he finally spoke, his tone was quiet, stripped of warmth.

“It is worse than bad,” he said. “It is something that should never have been written.”

“You mean her Book?” Theon blinked, his grin fading entirely.

“Yes,” Jon nodded once. “It is a Class that shouldn’t belong to anyone. It isn’t meant for the living to carry. It can only change the one who bears it. And if Father ever saw what was written there, she would face his sword before she had a chance to explain.”

“You mean Lord Stark would actually kill her? Like she feared…his own daughter?” Theon’s brow furrowed.

Jon’s gaze drifted toward the keep’s dark outline through the falling snow. “She is in more danger from his justice than you ever were from his mercy,” he said. “He would see it as corruption of the soul, and he would not be wrong.”

Theon shifted again, the faint crunch of his boots loud in the silence. “Then she’s doomed either way,” he said softly. “If not by him, then by whatever that Book is.”

“Not if she hides it well.” Jon’s jaw tightened, his breath misting in the cold. “The Class is still for now, and as long as she never accepts the Tier Two advancement, she can bury it beneath her Courtier path. The faster she advances Courtier and gets her Sub-Class, the safer she’ll be. If that part of her grows stronger, it might dull whatever darkness the other left behind.”

Theon exhaled slowly, his breath a thin plume against the falling snow. “So we help her climb,” he said. “Keep her talking, smiling, bowing, curtsying…all the things she loves anyway,” he tried for a grin, but it faltered before it could form. “Seems simple enough.”

“Every step closer to Tier Two brings her further away from what she’s hiding,” Jon said. His breath misted in the cold, drifting past the torchlight. “We have to make sure she never accepts the advancement. Once she does, there will be no turning back.”

“What is it?” Theon asked. His voice was softer than before, the usual edge stripped away. “What kind of Class turns a Courtier’s Book that dark?”

Jon looked past him toward the looming shadow of Winterfell, its towers faint beneath the falling snow. “Sansa is right,” he said at last. “It must never be spoken aloud. That is all I will say.”

“You mean to make me swear to a secret I do not understand?” Theon’s tone was wary now, uncertain.

“You will swear it,” Jon said. His voice was low, the command quiet but firm. “If even a whisper of this reaches Father’s ears, it will destroy her. And her death will be on us.”

Theon’s shoulders dropped, his usual arrogance gone. “Then I swear it,” he said. “I’ll say nothing. Not to anyone. And I’ll help where I can.”

“She will need us both,” Jon said. The wind tugged at his cloak, scattering snow around them in slow, white arcs. “The only way to protect her is to help her rise. The faster she reaches Tier Two as a Courtier, the safer she’ll be. The more light she learns to wear, the less anyone will see of the shadow beneath.”

“Then we will help while there is still time,” Theon said quietly.

Jon nodded, the faint light from the torch glinting in his eyes.

“Father was looking for you,” Jon said after a long moment of silence. “We’ve lingered too long, we must hurry.”

He turned toward the road leading back to Winterfell, Theon following silently as the night pressing close around them. Ghost trailed after them, pale and soundless, the crimson gleam of his eyes the last light in the storm.

Chapter Text

Sansa felt lighter, yet fear lingered beneath the calm.

The burden that had once sat heavy in her chest had shifted, its edges softened by the simple act of being known. It was strange to think that a secret could feel both safer and more perilous once shared. The air seemed easier to breathe now, but every breath carried a tremor of unease. The world itself had not changed, only the weight of what she carried within it.

The secret no longer pressed against her ribs as tightly as before, yet its shadow clung to her like a second skin. It followed her through every glance, every silence, every measured word. Freedom and danger seemed to walk together, step for step, and she could not tell which led the way.

Jon and Theon knew now. One more than the other.

That knowledge was a comfort and a terror all at once. Their promises had steadied her, but she still woke in the quiet hours of night thinking of what might happen if their silence slipped. Her father’s face rose often in her thoughts, the calm severity of his eyes, the steady weight of his judgment.

If he ever looked too closely, if he ever saw the truth of her Book’s deepening hue, he would not hesitate. There would be no hiding, and no mercy in what came after.

The thought followed her, sharp as a blade, even as she tried to quiet it beneath the memory of her goodbyes.

Her mother’s absence lingered in her mind, an ache that would not fade no matter how many times she told herself that this was what she had always wanted. Her mother had hugged her in Bran’s room the morning they departed but refused to come to the gate. Even as she spoke, her eyes never strayed far from the still figure on the bed, her hand resting on Bran’s arm as though her touch alone could call him back.

The maester had said that Bran was no longer on the brink of death, but he might never wake, and the words had settled in Sansa’s chest like ice.

When her mother finally turned to her, her smile was thin and her lips trembled. She told her to be strong, to look after her sister, and to write often. But Sansa could see she was not really looking at her at all. Her gaze kept drifting back to Bran, as though she could not bear to let him out of sight.

She had said her other goodbyes in the courtyard that morning. Robb had tried to act like the lord he was meant to become, his face solemn as he checked the harnesses and gave last-minute orders to the guards. When she went to him, he laughed in spite of himself and reached out to muss her hair, a gesture she swatted at too late. Jeyne had later helped her straighten herself behind a supply wagon while she giggled. Sansa wanted to smile but couldn’t find it in herself to try.

Rickon had thrown his arms around her legs, clinging tight until Sansa lifted him up and hugged him so hard he squealed and kicked.

Jon stood a little apart, his face unreadable, as though holding himself back. When she went to him, he embraced her quickly, fiercely, and whispered that he would keep her secret no matter what. He would be traveling with them for the first hour before the road split, he to go north to Castle Black and she south to the capital. But she would be in the queen’s carriage, far from the place where she might be able to see him off properly. The thought hollowed her chest.

Even Theon she had hugged, surprising him so much he laughed aloud, his hand awkward against her shoulder. Lord Stark’s frown had deepened, but she ignored it. It had felt right to do it, to leave no words unsaid, no gesture withheld.

She had already taken her leave of Winterfell’s people the day before. The cook had pressed a sweetcake into her hands and pretended not to see her tears. The baker’s wife had given her a small loaf for the road. Mikken the blacksmith had bowed clumsily and told her that her wolf was the finest creature he had ever seen. Even old Nan had kissed her cheek and whispered a story’s ending in her ear, it sounded final, as if she knew they would not meet again.

When the hour came, she had turned once at the gate and looked back. The towers rose through the gray morning, the Godswood misted and still.

She had gone there earlier, before dawn, while the rest of the castle still slept. The air had been cold enough to bite, the silence deep enough that every step across the frost-frozen grass had felt like an intrusion. The heart tree waited for her at the center, its pale trunk streaked with dark red, its face calm and solemn. She had stood before it a long while without speaking.

These were her father’s gods, the old gods of the North. They had watched over her family for generations, and though she had never truly understood them, they had always been hers. She had prayed there as a child, kneeling beside her father with her hands folded tight, trying to feel the same peace she saw in him.

But the peace had never come. Not even now.

She touched the bark, cold beneath her palm. The sap that bled from the carved eyes looked darker in the half-light, almost black. A tremor passed through her. These gods had answered her once, though she had never asked for what they gave. Shadow Weaver had come through them, a gift that was no gift at all. The power that followed her now had been shaped in their silence, bound to her by their will. Cursed, some would call it. She could not bring herself to deny that word.

She wanted to hate them for it, yet she couldn’t. These were her gods now, and if Sansa Stark was anything, she was dutiful. So she bowed her head, whispered her farewell, and thanked them despite her conflicted feelings on their interference in her life.

Sansa stood a moment longer before the heart tree, her hand still pressed against its bark and a thought came to her then, quiet and unwelcome.

She was going to a place where her gods could not follow. South of the Neck, the weirwoods had all been cut down long ago. Their faces no longer watched the world, and their roots no longer reached the soil of those lands.

If her mother’s gods had chosen her instead, she might have found comfort in their temples and their songs, for their presence would be strong in King’s Landing. But the old gods had no trees there, no eyes to see, no ears to hear.

How could they protect her if they could not see her?

The thought settled deep inside her, heavy and cold. Yet she knew she had to go south. There was no other choice. The longer she remained beneath the eyes of her gods, the harder it became to hide what she had become. The mark of her Second Class lingered like frost beneath her skin, faint but ever present.

She needed distance from the cold North full of silence and the dead, a place where the darkness inside of her could be smothered beneath the blossoming grace of her Courtier’s path.

That could not happen here, not in Winterfell, not beneath the watchful eyes carved into the heart tree’s face. The old gods saw too much, and their silence was never the same as blindness. In truth, they saw far too much.

Still, even with her resolve set, she found herself lingering before she left the clearing. The red leaves stirred faintly in the wind, as if offering a final wordless farewell.

She had told herself she would not look back, but now, standing at the gate, she could not help it. She had wanted nothing more than to be gone since the day she had Awoken, since everything had gone wrong, yet the sight of those walls filled her with something she could not name.

Even after the gates closed behind them, that feeling lingered, heavy and unshakable. The sound of the portcullis lifting, the clatter of hooves on stone, the first breath of open road. Each moment carried her farther from home, and yet part of her remained within those walls.

The wheelhouse creaked beneath her as it rolled over the uneven road, the sound steady and rhythmic. The horses’ hooves thudded in uneven time outside, muffled by earth and dust. Every sway of the carriage pulled against the velvet curtains, stirring the faint scent of lavender that clung to their folds.

The air inside was heavy, close, touched by warmth and the quiet rustle of silk as the Queen shifted in her seat. Cersei Lannister’s presence filled the small space as surely as the sunlight filtering through the seams of the curtains, yet she spoke little, her eyes distant and cold, following a world only she could see.

Sansa sat opposite her, hands poised neatly in her lap, her back straight despite the rocking motion. The journey south had been something she once dreamed of. The first step toward a life of elegance and courtly grace, where her words would matter and her bearing would shape her place among queens.

But the dream felt changed now, pale at the edges, its warmth gone to ash. The air smelled not of promise but of dust and travel, and the sound of the wheels no longer carried the rhythm of excitement, only the dull weight of miles passing beneath them.

When the road smoothed, she reached for her embroidery. Her fingers moved with practiced care, the silver needle rising and falling with the gentle motion of the carriage. The thread caught faint light with each pull, weaving the image of a pale gray wolf tangled among slender thorns. It was delicate work, soothing in its quiet repetition, though her thoughts often wandered beyond the fabric in her lap.

From time to time, she lifted her gaze, searching for a glance, a word, any sign of notice from the Queen. But Cersei never looked her way. Her beauty was remote and untouchable, the faint curve of her lips fixed somewhere between thought and disdain.

When the wheels struck stone or rut, Sansa folded her work neatly into her lap and sat still. Jeyne sat beside her, hands clasped tightly over her own work, a stunning delicate pink flower with a thin green stem on white satin. Like Sansa, her gaze fixed on nothing when it wasn’t on her work.

The two of them had spoken often in Winterfell, their chatter filling every corridor and courtyard, but here their words seemed to fade before they ever reached the air. The silence between them thickened until even the sound of the horses seemed to recede.

It was easier to hold her tongue, to vanish within composure, than to speak and risk indifference.

On kinder days, when the wheelhouse stopped for rest and the court spilled into the sunlight, she found relief in Princess Myrcella’s company. The girl’s laughter carried warmth into the cool spring air, and her words flowed easily, free of the caution that shadowed every breath near the Queen.

They spoke of ribbons and songs, of the taste of candied lemons and the softness of silks from the Free Cities.

Myrcella’s cheerfulness drew smiles from Sansa even when her heart felt too heavy to lift. The talk was harmless and fleeting, yet each exchange eased the tightness in her chest. Beneath the shade of the Lannister banners, for a few moments at a time, Sansa could almost believe she was only a girl again, untouched by the shadow waiting beneath her calm.

Outside, the kingsroad wound through pale grass and shadowed hills. The air no longer smelled of snow but of dust and pine. When no one watched, Sansa sometimes closed her eyes and reached inward, listening for the faint pulse of her Book. It remained quiet now, sealed and still, but she could sense it beneath her thoughts, patient and aware, as though it waited for her to move first.

She told herself that Courtier Tier Two was close. She could almost feel the shift gathering around her, the sense of something half formed and waiting. The thought steadied her.

If she could reach it soon, if she could prove herself among the Queen’s company and play her part without flaw, then no one would see what she carried. No one would think to look beyond the perfect poise and soft-spoken grace. And perhaps then, the shadow within her would fade to nothing at all.

The King’s train reached the Crossroads by late afternoon, the light thinning beneath clouds that threatened rain. The air was thick with the smell of horses, tar, and dust and Sansa missed the countryside before she even stepped out of the wheelhouse.

The royal escort slowed as the road opened into a wide yard, crowded with wagons, travelers, and curious onlookers who pressed aside for the Queen’s party. When the wheelhouse stopped, Sansa stepped down carefully, her slippers sinking slightly into the packed dirt. The ground felt unsteady beneath her after so many hours of motion.

Lady followed close, her fur brushing the hem of Sansa’s gown as they crossed the yard. The direwolf moved with quiet grace, her presence enough to make servants glance twice before stepping out of their path. Sansa felt safer with her there, the calm weight of the creature’s nearness keeping the world from pressing too close.

Jeyne had slipped away not long after they stopped, murmuring something about finding water or a place to stretch her legs. Sansa had thought of going with her, but the crowd scattered quickly, and when she glanced back up, her friend was nowhere in sight. She wondered where she had gone, and whether she should have followed instead of lingering here alone.

She turned toward the yard outside the inn, meaning to find Princess Myrcella or perhaps a quiet place to rest, but her attention caught on a small cluster of the Queen’s handmaidens near the wagons. They were sitting together, laughing softly as they braided one another’s hair, their ribbons glinting in the afternoon light.

The sight of them captivated her. Their ease, their poise, the way they moved as though the world itself bent to their grace made her forget where she was for a moment. They glanced over at her with an expression less than kind and Sansa felt her face flush. She wondered what they thought of her, some Northern wild girl betrothed to their prince. Sansa lifted her chin, refusing to be cowed. She’d show them, she thought quietly to herself. She would be the perfect Courtier, the perfect Queen, and they would love her. She swore it.

So fixed was she on them that Sansa did not see the man standing in her path until she nearly walked straight into him. She drew back at once, her breath catching.

The figure before her was tall and silent, his face pale and waxen, his eyes dull as old glass. Ser Ilyn Payne. The King’s Justice. His sword hung heavy across his back, the hilt worn and dark with use. He did not move or speak, only watched her with that flat, lifeless stare.

Her stomach twisted. The longer she looked, the colder the air seemed to grow, as if something unseen pressed close around him. He left her with a deep and wordless feeling of unease

A faint sound reached her then, so soft she almost thought she imagined it. It rose and fell beneath the murmur of the yard, thin and distant, like voices carried on a cold wind. They were not clear enough to understand, but their tone was unmistakable. Pleading and frightened, ending in sharp, broken gasps. She could not tell if they came from him or from the air itself, only that they did not belong to the living.

Lady gave a faint whine, her ears flattening. Sansa reached for her, brushing the thick fur at her neck to steady her own trembling hands. She had never stood this close to the King’s Justice before, and she wanted to turn away, but her body would not move.

“Best keep your eyes off that one, little bird,” the voice came from behind her, rough and low.

Sandor Clegane stepped into view, his armor streaked with dust, the right side of his face swallowed in scars. She had never met him before, only heard of the burned knight who rode at the prince’s side. Now that he stood near, she understood why people lowered their eyes when he passed. His scarred face caught the light in uneven patches, and his presence filled the space beside her, heavy and cold.

“The mute’s a grim sight,” he said. “And he doesn’t care for staring.”

“I meant no harm,” she said as she turned her eyes to the ground.

“No one ever does,” the Hound said. His voice was quiet and without kindness as he moved to stand fully behind her, only inches away. Sansa could feel the heat of him and suppressed a shiver. “He frightens me too. Look at that face.”

“Forgive me, ser,” Sansa gathered herself and dipped into a shallow curtsey toward Ser Ilyn. He gave no sign he had heard her and moved away. “Why will he not speak to me?” Sansa asked.

“He has not been very talkative these last twenty years,” the Hound said. “Since the Mad King had his tongue ripped out with hot pincers.”

Footsteps approached. Joffrey came smiling through the light. “He speaks damn well with his sword though,” he said. “Ser Ilyn Payne, the King’s Justice. The royal executioner.”

He introduced the man as if Sansa didn’t know who he was. The entire realm knew who he was, and feared him for it. Sansa’s throat tightened. A cat’s faint crying echoed through the wind.

“What is it, sweet lady?” Joffrey asked. “Did he frighten you?”

“No, my prince,” she said.

Joffrey glared at the Hound despite her words. “Away with you, dog. You are scaring my lady,” he said, a gleam in his eyes that almost made Sansa step back, but courtesy kept her in place. The Hound laughed under his breath but stepped back. “I do not like to see you upset. The sun is shining. Walk with me.”

“As you wish, your highness,” Sansa said hesitantly because there was no proper way to refuse him.

Her voice was steady, though her heart gave a sharp, uneven beat. The cries she had heard before still lingered at the edges of her hearing, faint but certain now. They came from him. She did not know how or why, only that the sound clung to him like a shadow. The thin, broken wails of a cat rose and fell with each step he took, the echo of something small and dying. It made her skin prickle, and she found she could not meet his eyes for long.

Lady’s ears flattened, the low vibration of a growl building in her throat. Sansa felt it through her skirts, a warning as clear as day. She did not want Lady near him. The direwolf’s instincts had always been sharp, and in that moment Sansa trusted them more than her own.

She knelt and smoothed her hand along the thick fur of Lady’s neck. “Stay,” she whispered. “Wait for me.” Lady pressed her head into Sansa’s palm, unwilling to move, but Sansa gave a small shake of her head. “It’s all right,” she murmured. “Stay here.”

Lady obeyed at last, though her eyes never left the prince. Sansa rose and turned toward him, her hand still tingling from the feel of her wolf’s warmth as she stepped into the light beside him. She felt her direwolf’s steady gaze as she took the prince’s arm and let him lead her away.

The yard’s noise swallowed them, but the thin echo of a cat’s cry lingered in Sansa’s mind.

Joffrey’s smile widened as they began to walk, the gold of his hair catching what little light remained. She fixed her gaze on him, on his easy confidence, and forced herself not to hear the faint sounds that still trailed behind him. He spoke lightly, filling the silence with talk of court and tournaments, of the knights sworn to his father and the great houses who would soon bend knee before the crown when he would be coronated.

He carried a skin of wine at his belt and offered it to her as they passed beneath the trees that lined the riverbank.

“You look cold, my lady. A sip of wine will warm you.”

“Thank you, my prince,” she said, accepting it with both hands though she was far from cold. The southern climate was warmer than she had ever experienced on a mild day, and she was already overheating beneath her thicker northern dress.

The skin was finely made, and the scent of the wine was sharp and heavy. She lifted it to her lips and took the smallest possible sip before lowering it again. It burned at the back of her throat, far stronger than any she had ever tasted.

Joffrey watched her with satisfaction.

“You like it?”

“It is very good,” she said, and pretended to drink again, hoping he would not notice how little she had taken. Each time he offered the wineskin, she only feigned a sip, smiling when he looked her way.

The path curved toward the sound of running water, and Sansa’s heart eased a little at the sight of the river. It glimmered faintly in the late light, a thread of silver winding through the green. Then she saw movement ahead. Two figures splashed near the bank, laughing as they traded blows with wooden sticks.

One was Arya, hair wild, skirts muddied, her face flushed with delight. The other was a small boy in an apron, his name surfacing in Sansa’s memory. Mycah, the butcher’s boy who sometimes ran errands in the kitchens. She’d seen him about when Barra was in a kind mood to teach her how to bake. If Sansa did well, Barra would even sneak her a few sweets before they cooled.

The two circled each other, their sticks clattering together like swords, their laughter rising above the rush of the water.

Sansa’s breath caught. She felt Joffrey tense beside her before he spoke.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, the warmth gone from his voice.

Arya froze, her stick still raised. Mycah lowered his own and looked uncertainly between them. Joffrey stepped forward, his hand already moving toward the hilt of his sword.

“Swordplay,” Arya said quickly. “We were only playing.”

“Playing,” Joffrey repeated, his tone laced with contempt. “With a butcher’s boy?”

Sansa’s pulse quickened. She knew that tone, had heard it before at feasts when lords and ladies whispered about those beneath them. She wanted to speak, to calm him, but her throat felt tight.

“That was my lady’s sister you were hitting. Go on,” Joffrey said to Mycah, his eyes cold and sharp. “Pick up your sword.”

“It’s only a stick, my prince,” Mycah stammered.

“Your sword,” Joffrey said again, drawing his blade. The steel caught the light, bright and thin as a shard of ice. “Now.”

“Stop it,” Arya said, stepping in front of Mycah. Her face was fierce, her stick raised in warning. “He didn’t do anything.”

“My prince, please,” Sansa said, her hand brushing his arm. “They were only playing. He’s just a boy.”

Joffrey’s mouth curved faintly. “A butcher’s boy who thinks he can spar with a lady’s sister. Shouldn’t he learn the difference between his place and hers?”

Before Sansa could speak again, he slashed out suddenly. The blade opened a line of red on Mycah’s arm. The boy cried out and stumbled back, clutching his wound.

Arya screamed. “Leave him alone!” She swung her stick and struck Joffrey’s hand hard enough to make him drop his sword. His face twisted with fury as he turned on her.

“You hit me,” he said, his voice sharp with disbelief. “You hit me.”

“Please, stop!” Sansa begged, her heart pounding. Her words sounded small against the rush of the river.

Joffrey’s eyes burned with anger as he reached for the sword he had dropped. The steel glinted where it lay half-buried in the mud. He snatched it up, mud streaking the fine leather of his gloves, and rose to his feet with a sharp, angry motion. His face was pale with fury, lips drawn tight as he turned on Arya.

“You hit me,” he said again, his voice shaking with anger. “You’ll pay for that.”

He swung, the blade whistling through the air. Arya jumped back, the tip missing her by inches as it sliced through her sleeve. She stumbled in the mud, scrambling for footing. Joffrey followed, the sword raised again, its point glinting as he drew closer.

Sansa screamed his name, but he did not stop. His next swing came fast, a hard, practiced motion that could have split her sister from shoulder to hip.

A growl tore through the clearing, low and deep, cutting through every other sound. It came from the trees behind them. The hairs on Sansa’s arms lifted just before Nymeria burst from the brush. The direwolf’s eyes flashed, her teeth gleaming white as she lunged.

She struck Joffrey’s arm before he could swing again. Her jaws clamped down hard around his wrist, the sword falling from his hand as he screamed. The sound was sharp and high, echoing against the water and through the trees.

“Nymeria, no!” Arya shouted. She rushed forward, grabbing fistfuls of the wolf’s ruff, pulling with all her strength. “Let go! Please, let go!”

Nymeria growled once more, her teeth still buried in his arm, before she released him. Blood streaked down Joffrey’s sleeve, bright against the pale silk. He fell backward, clutching his arm and gasping in pain.

Nymeria growled again, panting, blood dark on her teeth. She backed away, hackles high, watching as Arya pointed toward the trees. “Go,” Arya said again, voice breaking. “Go!”

The direwolf hesitated, then turned and vanished into the undergrowth.

Joffrey crumpled to his knees, clutching his arm. Blood ran between his fingers, bright against his fine clothes. “She attacked me,” he gasped. “She set her wolf on me. You saw it! You saw what she did to me!”

“You were hurting Mycah!” Arya shouted, her face pale.

Sansa stood frozen, her hands trembling. The screams of the dying cat filled her ears again, rising and falling with the same desperate pitch she had heard before. The sound clung to Joffrey, echoing around him like a curse. She pressed her palms to her ears, but the cries only grew louder, until all she could hear was the tiny desperate yowling, the broken wail that would not end.

When the noise finally faded and she opened her eyes, Mycah and Arya were gone, the sword that almost gutted her sister was missing and Joffrey lay alone on the ground, bleeding and whimpering softly, his fine clothes streaked with mud.

His face was tight with rage, the sound of his uneven breaths breaking the stillness. The river kept its steady murmur beside them.

Chapter Text

Sansa sat by the window, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. The shutters were drawn, though faint firelight still slipped through the cracks. From beyond the door came the sounds of shouting, boots on stone and the clatter of armor as her father’s men argued with the king’s guard. They had been searching since sunset.

Arya and the butcher’s boy were gone, and no one seemed to know where.

The room felt smaller with every hour that passed. The air had grown close and heavy, thick with the scent of smoke from the torches outside. The absence of her family pressed against her like a weight. They had even taken Lady from her.

Lady was in the courtyard, chained like some rabid beast though she had done nothing to deserve such treatment.

Sansa had begged them not to, but the guards would not listen. She had followed them to the doors, tears running hot down her cheeks, and pleaded that Lady had done nothing wrong. Her father’s men had looked away in silence, and the king’s men would not meet her eyes at all.

Lady had not struggled when they dragged her out. She had turned her head once toward Sansa, calm and unafraid, as if to promise she understood. The chain had clinked softly as they fastened it to the post, the iron bright and cruel against her pale fur.

Sansa had wanted to run to her, to throw herself between them and beg again, but one of the guards had held her back. The sound of the chain settling echoed in her ears still, louder than the shouts outside or the stamping of hooves in the yard.

Now, in the stillness of her room, she could almost hear Lady breathing beyond the walls. She imagined the direwolf lying quietly on the cold stones, head on her paws, waiting. The thought made her chest ache. Every creak of the inn, every raised voice in the hall, made her flinch. It felt as though the whole world beyond that door was turning against her.

When the door opened at last, it was not her father who entered but the queen. Cersei moved into the room with slow, graceful steps, her golden gown whispering across the floor. Two of her ladies followed, silent and watchful. The air seemed to grow cold as they entered.

“Little dove,” the queen said softly. “What a dreadful day this has been. You must be frightened.”

“Your Grace.” Sansa stood quickly and curtsied, her head bowed low.

“Such lovely manners. The North has raised you well,” Cersei’s smile was faint, her eyes calm and bright. She stepped closer, her perfume heavy with myrrh and rose. Her hand lifted a stray strand of Sansa’s hair, tucking it neatly behind her ear. “It grieves me that you had to see something so awful. Boys and their tempers, girls and their foolish games. It all seems so needless, does it not?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Sansa’s throat felt tight, and her voice came out small.

“The king will want to hear what happened,” Cersei said, crossing the room with slow, measured grace. She stopped by the window, the firelight glinting off her golden rings. “He values honesty above all things, but he has so little patience when he feels deceived. You remember what you saw, don’t you, little dove? You were there.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Sansa’s fingers twisted in the fabric of her gown.

“Good,” Cersei’s gaze lingered on the dark glass of the window. “Then you must tell the king the truth. He will need to hear it clearly, without confusion. It would be such a tragedy if someone were to mistake what they saw and bring him grief over something that was not true.”

“I only want to tell what truly happened,” Sansa said. Her voice trembled despite her effort to steady it. Her palms were damp, her heart thudding unevenly.

“Of course you do,” Cersei said, turning to her, her eyes sharp and still. “You are a good girl, Sansa Stark. I can see that,” she said, smiling slow and deliberate. “You would never wish to say anything that might make a prince look cruel. The king would not take kindly to such accusations, and it would wound the prince deeply to know that his betrothed had spoken unfairly of him.”

Cersei took a slow step closer, her skirts brushing softly against the floor. “And of course, your father’s name carries great weight with the king. Lord Eddard has only just come into His Grace’s service. I would hate to see any misunderstanding reach his ears that might trouble their friendship.”

Sansa’s breath caught. The words were gentle, but she felt the warning within them. The queen’s tone was kind, her voice quiet and careful, yet the shape beneath it was clear. Cersei was telling her what she must say. She was telling her what the truth ought to be.

“No, Your Grace,” Sansa said quietly. “I would never.”

“Good,” Cersei said, her voice soft as silk. “I knew I could trust you.”

The queen smiled, but her eyes held no warmth. The firelight flickered against her face, gold and red, and for a moment the shadows behind her seemed to shift. A small, wet sound brushed Sansa’s ear, so faint she almost thought she imagined it. Then came a whisper, a child’s voice, trembling and thin.

“Please, Cersei! Don’t leave me here. Please let me out. I can’t swim.”

Sansa’s hands went cold. Cersei continued to speak, her tone low and coaxing, her words blurring into the voice that filled the room. Sansa heard none of it. Only the young girl begging Cersei for her life.

“Please, Cersei. Please!”

The fire popped. Sansa pressed her hands to her lap to keep them still. The cries were gone as quickly as it came, leaving her heart hammering in the quiet.

“Rest now, little dove,” Cersei said, her smile returning as if nothing had changed. “The king will speak with you soon, and I know you will tell him what truly happened.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Sansa whispered.

Cersei gave a small nod, turned, and swept from the room, her ladies following in perfect silence. The door closed behind them with a soft click.

Sansa stayed where she was, her fingers digging into the fabric of her skirts. The quiet pressed in around her until she could hear her own heartbeat. The air still carried the echo of that small voice, lingering faintly between the crackle of the fire and the silence beyond.

Time passed slowly. The fire sank low in the hearth, and the shadows stretched long across the floor. Sansa stared into the embers, her thoughts turning restlessly between Lady chained outside, Arya missing, and the queen’s careful words. Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the voice again, soft, pleading, and far too close.

The sound of raised voices broke through the stillness. They came from below, muffled at first, then rising and falling in quick, heated bursts. She rose and moved to the door, her heart quickening. Though the words were muffled, she could hear the rhythm of them clearly. Her father’s deep voice was steady and commanding, the queen’s sharper tone cut through his, and other voices murmured beneath them in confusion.

The tension climbed until another voice rose above them all, booming and final. It shook the walls like thunder and brought the argument to an abrupt end. The king.

Sansa stumbled back from the door, her hands cold. Footsteps pounded up the stairs, the sound of armor and chain growing louder. When the door opened, two Lannister guards stood waiting.

“Lady Sansa,” one said. “The king commands your presence.”

Her mouth went dry. She wanted to ask for her father, for someone from Winterfell, but the words caught in her throat. The guards waited, unmoving.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Of course.”

They escorted her down the narrow staircase, the air thick with smoke from the torches. The hall below was crowded. Her father stood in the center of the crowd, Arya’s shoulder under his tight grip, jaw set, his eyes dark with anger. Cersei stood across from him, one hand resting on her own son’s shoulder. The prince’s arm was bound in linen, his face pale and proud.

All eyes turned to her when Sansa entered.

The air in the hall felt heavy, thick with heat from the torches and the press of bodies. She froze at the threshold, the sound of her heartbeat roaring in her ears. The hush that followed her arrival was suffocating. Her father stood rigid and silent in the middle of the room, surrounded by both his men and the kings. His hand was heavy on Arya’s shoulder, and she looked rough in a way Sansa had never seen before.

Arya’s hair was tangled, her face streaked with dirt, and her clothes torn and damp with mud. Her cheeks were flushed from crying, though her eyes were dry now, wide and defiant beneath the tangle of hair that fell across them.

She looked smaller than Sansa remembered, and wilder, as if the woods themselves had claimed her for their own. A long scrape ran along her arm, and the hem of her tunic was ripped where brambles had caught it. She stood stiffly under their father’s hand, her jaw set, refusing to look at anyone.

Sansa’s throat tightened. Whatever had happened after the river, it had stripped Arya of all her usual boldness and laughter. There was something in her sister’s stillness that made Sansa uneasy, as though she carried some secret the rest of them could not see.

Arya glared at her from beneath her loose and muddy hair when Sansa came to stand beside her. When she looked up from the floor, she saw the king sitting in a chair, his wife standing beside him with a hand placed almost delicately on their son’s shoulder. Prince Joffrey had his wrist wrapped and a sling holding it in place.

Sansa hadn’t thought the wound deep enough to require so much bandaging, it had barely bled at all when she had gone to get help. But she was not a maester.

“Your Grace,” she said, lowering her head and curtsying low. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she addressed the king.

“Come here, girl,” the king said. He sat in a heavy chair at the far end of the room, half reclined as if the weight of the day pressed down on him. His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward, his broad shoulders filling the chair’s frame. The smell of wine and sweat hung thick in the air, mingling with the smoke from the torches that burned in iron sconces along the walls. “Tell us what happened by the river.”

Sansa’s hands trembled as she stepped forward. The sound of her slippers against the stone floor seemed too loud in the silence that followed. Every pair of eyes in the room followed her. Her father’s were grim and unyielding, the queen’s bright and watchful, and Joffrey’s narrowed and gleaming with wounded pride.

Even the king’s men, standing in their golden armor, seemed to stare as if waiting for her to choose a side.

She dared a glance at her father, hoping for comfort, but his face gave her none. His eyes were cold and unreadable, and the small shake of his head sent the message she already knew. Speak carefully.

“I don’t remember everything,” she said, her voice catching. Her throat felt dry. “It all happened so fast.”

Joffrey’s head turned sharply toward her. The linen wrapped around his arm was spotted faintly with blood, and his jaw tightened in displeasure. Cersei’s gaze flicked between them, her lips curving just enough to show she was listening closely. The flicker of firelight played across her green eyes, turning them sharp as glass.

“What do you mean, you don’t remember?” The queen asked. Her tone was smooth, but the words carried an edge. “You were there, were you not?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Sansa said quickly. “I only meant that everyone was shouting. Arya and the butcher’s boy were playing, and then they and the prince were fighting. It all happened so fast. I don’t remember.”

The words came slowly, shaped with care between truth and what the queen would want to hear.

Sansa chose each one with precision, testing them in her mind before speaking, softening every edge that might wound. She never said anything false, and yet never told the full truth either. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest as she tried to balance what the king must hear with what the queen had warned her.

Her father’s stare pressed against her like a weight, but she did not meet it. She could not bear to. Somewhere deep inside, she told herself that she was not lying. She was only choosing the right pieces to share, the ones that would cause the least harm. If she spoke carefully enough, no one would be angered…no one would suffer.

She could sense the queen’s approval in the silence that followed, faint but unmistakable, and Joffrey’s quiet satisfaction as he lifted his chin. Yet her stomach twisted, heavy with dread.

“Liar! Liar!” Arya screamed, her voice breaking with fury. She lunged across the space between them, her hands tangling in Sansa’s hair, pulling so hard that Sansa’s cry echoed through the hall. The unexpected pain shocked her, and Sansa struggled to get her sister’s fingers untangled from her hair. It had been a long time since Arya had hit her, and she had never before done so as violently as she did now.

“Enough!” Ned’s voice cut through the chaos. His hand seizing Arya’s arm as Jory pulled Sansa back. Both girls were shaking, one from anger, the other from shock. Sansa touched her aching scalp, her breath coming fast, her eyes wide and wet.

“She’s lying!” Arya shouted again, trying to twist free. “She’s lying, Father, she’s lying about everything!”

“Hold your tongue,” Ned said sharply. His voice was steady, but his face was carved from stone. “This is not the place for this.”

“Not the place?” Cersei’s laughter was soft but cold. “She’s as wild as the animal she keeps. I warned you what would happen if that beast was left to roam free.”

“She’s just a child,” Ned said, his jaw tightening. “Both of them are.”

Cersei’s lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. “A child who attacks princes and sets her wolf on the heir to the throne.”

“That’s enough,” Robert said. His voice was low, but it filled the room, cutting through every other sound. He rose slowly from his chair, rubbing at his temple as if weary of the entire affair. “Gods, I’ve heard enough of this squabbling. Children fight. It’s done.”

“It’s not done,” Cersei said as her head turned sharply toward him. “The prince was attacked. He’s bleeding,” she gestured toward Joffrey, who held his bandaged arm close, his eyes glistening with outrage. “One of those wolves savaged him. The beast is no doubt out there still.”

Robert’s face hardened, his patience thinning. “Fine. Then the wolf dies.”

“No!” Arya shouted, trying to pull away from her father’s grasp. “It wasn’t Nymeria’s fault! She was only protecting me!”

“Where is the girl’s wolf now?” Cersei’s eyes gleamed, cold and satisfied.

“Well?” Robert turned toward the guards, his voice rising. “Where is it?”

A man in red armor stepped forward, his gilded lion helm tucked beneath his arm. “The wolf has not been found, Your Grace,” he said. “The men searched the woods, but there was no sign of it.”

“So it’s still out there then,” Robert said, his expression darkening.

“She’s gone,” Arya said, her voice small but steady. Her chin trembled as she looked up at the king. “She ran away.”

“There is another wolf,” Cersei said smoothly, turning her gaze toward Sansa. “One is as good as the other.”

The words didn’t make sense at first. Sansa blinked, her breath catching as she looked between the queen and her father. Around her, the hall had gone still. Even the guards seemed to have stopped moving, waiting.

Another wolf.

Her mind tried to catch up, to piece together what Cersei had meant. Nymeria was gone. Arya had let her go. Everyone knew that. So why was the queen looking at her like that…like she was choosing?

Then it struck her. The cold seemed to drain the color from the room.

“Please,” Sansa said, the word breaking in her throat as she stepped forward. “Please, not Lady,” her hands lifted helplessly, trembling in the air between them. “She didn’t do anything! She wasn’t even there! Lady is good, she’s gentle!”

Her voice cracked on the last word, echoing through the silent hall.

“A wolf is a wolf,” Cersei said. Her tone was cool and final, as if she were stating something that had always been true. She folded her hands before her and waited, her expression calm.

“Gods be good,” Robert muttered. “Fine then. The beast dies.”

Sansa felt the floor tilt beneath her. The torches hissed and spat, smoke curled in the air like pale fingers. Light caught the gold of the Lannister armor and the polished steel of a sword and made the hall look like it belonged to some other, harder world. The sound of her own pulse thudded loud in her ears.

“Is this your command?” Her father yelled over the sudden burst of sound as people began to talk in hushed whispers. “Your Grace?” He added, almost in afterthought. As if he forgot he was speaking to a king and had only been speaking to his friend. But Robert Baratheon was no friend of her father’s, not anymore.

Once he had taken the crown, all that was left was the king.

“Get her a dog, she’ll be happier for it,” the king replied, his tone surprisingly soft despite the words. The great man rose, awkward and heavy, and left the room with a handful of curt words and the scrape of his chair. The rush of his passage faded down the corridor until it was only an echo in the wood.

“Ser Ilyn,” Cersei said, turning her head toward the silent executioner. “See that the beast is killed. Take care that the pelt comes to me. I want it sent to the tanners at once.”

Ser Ilyn Payne stepped forward, expressionless as always. He inclined his head once, a small grave motion, and moved to the nearest door with a direction to be carried out.

“No. I’ll do it myself,” Ned said. His voice was steady and low, bringing the room back to a halt.

“Is this some trick?” Queen Cersei asked as she turned, her smile thin and composed. Her green eyes were sharp and cold.

“The wolf is of the North. She deserves better than a butcher,” Ned replied, his tone final.

Sansa could not breathe. The world seemed to close in, every sound sharper, every shadow deeper. She wanted to speak, to beg again, but the words caught in her throat. The queen was already turning away, her silken skirts whispering against the floor as if the matter were settled. All that remained was the quiet hiss of the torches and the hollow ache of what her father’s words meant.

Her body felt too light, her heart too heavy. Her words had been meant to protect, not to destroy. She had tried to speak carefully, to please the queen and the king, to keep her family safe. But the balance she had built in her mind crumbled with each passing breath.

Images of Lady filled her thoughts, the soft fur beneath her fingers, the sound of her breathing when they slept. She thought of the chain in the courtyard, of how Lady had turned her head to look at her with quiet, patient eyes as they dragged her away. There had been no fear in her, no anger, only trust.

The weight of that trust crushed her now. She had thought that careful words could keep everyone safe, that if she spoke with grace and gentleness, the world would stay kind. But the hall was full of lions, and none of them cared for wolves or careful words.

Her hands trembled at her sides as she tried to breathe, the air thick with smoke and grief. Somewhere in that haze she thought she heard it again, faint and pleading, the same child’s voice that haunted her since she met the queen.

Please, Cersei! Please!

Sansa shut her eyes, but the whisper lingered, curling around her heart until she thought she might never be rid of it.

“Take the girls to their room,” Ned said. His voice was quiet, but it carried across the hall, leaving no space for protest. “Keep them there until I return.”

“Yes, my lord,” Jory replied. He stepped forward at once, his expression hard in the torchlight. “Come, my lady,” he said softly. His hand was steady on Sansa’s arm, but she hardly felt it. The air around her thickened, heavy with smoke and the scent of burning pitch. The room blurred at the edges, colors muted and bleeding together. Her father’s voice still hung in the air, low and final, echoing inside her head.

She tried to move, but her feet felt numb. A creeping coldness spread through her chest, sinking deeper with every breath. It was as if all warmth had drained from her, leaving only the hollow ache of fear. Jory’s words came to her from far away, and she let him lead her because she did not know what else to do.

The hall grew quieter behind them. The sharp ring of boots on stone faded to a dull rhythm. Shadows bent long across the walls, each one seeming to reach for her as they passed. Sansa’s thoughts tangled in the silence. She tried to remember the feel of Lady’s fur, the sound of her contented rumbles and sighs, anything that could hold her together. But all of it slipped away, soft and weightless as snow.

When the haze lifted, she was standing in the room. Jory was leaving, closing the door behind him. The click of the lock seemed to echo in her bones.

Arya was pacing near the window. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears, her small fists clenched at her sides. Her eyes were swollen and red, but they burned with anger, not weakness.

“Father’s going to kill Lady,” Arya said. Her voice cracked, rough with tears. She turned toward Sansa, her face blotched red with anger and grief. “If you had just told the truth, this wouldn’t be happening. You could have stopped it.”

Sansa flinched. The words struck her like a blow, sharp and cruel in their certainty. Her mouth opened, but nothing came. The room felt too close, too bright. The air pressed in around her until she could barely breathe.

Arya’s fists trembled at her sides. “You stood there and said nothing,” she said bitterly. “You let them think it was all my fault.”

Sansa stared at her sister, unable to find her voice. Her throat felt raw, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst. She wanted to tell Arya she had tried, that she had said what she could, that she hadn’t known what words were safe to speak with the queen’s eyes fixed on her.

But Arya couldn’t understand. She hadn’t been there when the queen came to her room, all soft smiles and quiet threats. She hadn’t heard the warning hidden beneath the sweetness of Cersei’s voice.

“You were supposed to be brave,” Arya said, her voice rising. “You’re always talking about being a lady. Then be one!”

Sansa took a step back until her knees hit the bed and she lowered herself to sit with shaking legs. Her hands were trembling, her fingers twisting in her skirts. The words she wanted to say tangled in her throat until they turned to ash. She dropped her gaze, unable to meet Arya’s eyes.

Arya turned away first. Her shoulders were shaking, and her breath came out in broken sobs. She moved toward the window, wiping angrily at her tears. The sound of her crying filled the room, uneven and aching.

Sansa rose to stand by the window, still shuttered closed, and she dare not open them. The boards creaked beneath her weight, and the air felt too still, too quiet. Below, she could hear the faint clamor of men’s voices, the heavy steps of boots, the muffled thud of a door closing.

Then silence.

The stillness stretched until it became unbearable. Sansa’s fingers dug into her skirts. Her chest ached with something she could not name.

Then a chill swept through her so sudden and sharp it stole her breath and almost forced her to the ground.

It started in her chest and spread outward in a slow steady wave, sinking deep into her bones. It was not the ordinary cold of a northern winter but something purer and more absolute, like standing barefoot in the first snow of summer after a long heat wave. For an instant she felt weightless, suspended between warmth and frost.

The air itself seemed to still. Her vision blurred, and she thought she could hear a sound that did not belong to the room at all, a soft exhale, a heartbeat fading. It passed through her like a breath over ice, leaving her hollow and trembling in its wake.

Then the sound came.

From far beyond the walls, a wolf’s howl rose into the night. It began low and deep, swelling into a long, mournful cry that carried through the air until it seemed to fill the entire keep. The sound curled around her heart, heavy and sharp, and when it faded, the silence that followed felt endless.

Sansa pressed her hands to her chest, her fingers numb. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew. Lady was gone.

Chapter Text

The room was quiet except for the soft, uneven sound of Arya crying.

It came from the bed, muffled by the pillow, small and broken, like the sound of a bird with a broken wing. Sansa sat by the window, her hands folded tightly in her lap, shutters opened, her gaze fixed on the dark yard beyond the glass. The torches outside flickered in the wind, their light wavering against the panes in long, ghostly strokes.

Smoke from the dying hearth drifted through the air, faint and acrid, and the cold wooden walls seemed to breathe with it. There was a chill inside of her, colder than any frost in the North that no fire could chase away.

The bed sheets were rumpled where Arya had curled herself into the smallest shape she could manage. Her hair was tangled and wet with tears, and her fists clutched the blanket as if she could strangle her grief into silence. The only other sound was the soft scrape of the shutters as they shifted from the wind.

A small draft leaked from the window, chilling her to the bone. Sansa didn’t move, she hardly felt it at all. She sat perfectly still, watching the torchlight outside gutter and recover, over and over again. She told herself she would cry later when the room was empty, when Arya wasn’t there to hear. But no tears came. Only the creeping numbness.

It began as a whisper at the base of her spine, then crept upward, slow and certain. The cold spread through her body in measured silence, like frost crawling across the ground before dawn. It filled her lungs, her chest, the tips of her fingers. She could feel it settling inside her, quiet and absolute.

Somewhere deep within her, the faint hum of her Book stirred. It was not a sound, not truly, but a sensation, a pull she had learned to recognize. It called to her like a heartbeat beneath ice, steady and patient. She knew what it meant. Something had changed.

Her breath caught. The air in the room grew heavier, pressing down on her shoulders until she could hardly draw air. She understood then, with a certainty that left her hollow, that a thread between her and Lady had been severed. The bond that had always thrummed faintly in the back of her mind, warm and sure, was gone. What remained was a silence too vast to name.

Her Loyal Companion was dead.

Sansa’s fingers dug into her skirts, the fabric bunching beneath her trembling hands. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to move with the flicker of the fire, reaching for her, then recoiling again. The air shimmered faintly, heavy with something unseen.

The Book’s presence pulsed within her like a heartbeat, its call growing stronger, louder, until it was all she could feel. It whispered of loss and balance, of something fundamental shifting within her. The cold was not only grief now but transformation, subtle and slow, wrapping its tendrils around her heart and tightening.

The latch of the door turned, pulling her attention to the door as it opened, and the world, so still only a moment ago, drew breath again.

“You need to stop this fighting,” their father said. His voice was calm, but the weight behind it filled every corner of the room. The torchlight followed him as he stepped inside, glinting across the worn edges of his armor and catching in the strands of his beard.

His face looked older than Sansa remembered, the lines around his eyes deepened by sorrow and the dull orange light.

“You are sisters. You have to look after each other. We are going to a place very different from home. You’ll find no friends in the south, not like the ones you left behind.”

Arya lifted her head from the bed, her face streaked with tears and red with anger. “If she had just told the truth,” she said. Her voice cracked as she spoke, but she didn’t care. “If she had told them what really happened, Lady and Mycah wouldn’t be dead.”

“Arya,” Ned said. His tone was soft but steady, carrying a quiet command. “It was not Sansa’s fault. None of this was.”

Sansa rose from her chair before she even realized she had moved. The room seemed to sway faintly around her. “Please,” she said. The word slipped out like a breath she had been holding too long. Her hands trembled, twisting in the folds of her skirt. “Please take me to see her. I want to see Lady.”

“You cannot,” her father said quietly. His voice was low, heavy, and final. “It’s done.”

“Please,” she said again. This time it came out louder, sharper. “I just want to see her.”

The air seemed to shift. Her father looked at her, and for a brief moment something flickered behind his eyes, pity perhaps, or grief, she couldn’t tell. He said nothing, but in that silence, Sansa felt something else stir.

The smell of tallow and smoke filled her lungs, thick and clinging, but beneath it came another scent, faint and cold, like fresh snow pressed underfoot. Her breath caught. She could feel it around him, lingering like a shadow just out of reach.

It was not her imagination. It was Lady.

The sound came next, so soft she almost thought it was memory. The faint echo of a yelp, sharp and despairing, loud and desperate and cutting off abruptly right at the end. It clung to her father as if carried in the folds of his cloak, fragile and wrong. The weight of it pressed against her chest, aching, familiar.

Beneath that echo was something older, colder, a whisper that did not belong to this world. It slid through her thoughts like a blade across ice. The awful horrible thought…

Her eyes burned, but she could not cry. The silence that followed felt endless, stretching until it filled her lungs. She could not stop staring at her father, at the heaviness in his face, at the invisible burden she could somehow feel resting on his shoulders.

Lady was gone, and yet part of her lingered. And Sansa could feel it, feel her, woven into the quiet, trapped between the living and the dead.

Lord Stark had her. Her father had a piece of her direwolf. Lady’s death cry.

The thought left her feeling cold and betrayed in a way that she couldn’t begin to understand.

“Please,” she begged, hands fisting in her skirt to hide how badly they shook.

“Sansa,” Ned said, his brow furrowed. “You need to rest.”

“You killed her!” She shouted. The words tore from her throat before she could stop them. “You killed her and you won’t even let me say goodbye!”

He opened his mouth to speak, but the anger in her chest had already taken hold. It rose sharp and wild, burning away the numbness that had gripped her since the courtyard. The air grew heavy, the sound of the fire dulling until only the faint hiss of the torches remained. The light wavered, stretching the shadows long across the walls.

Something inside her shifted. It was as if the world had paused, waiting.

Then it came again. Lady’s dying cry, sharp and heartbroken, cut through the silence. The sound did not come from the outside or from memory, but from him, from her father, where it clung like a ghost that refused to leave. Sansa reached for it without thought. Not with her hands, but with something deeper, something that stirred beneath her skin and in the marrow of her bones.

Her shadow moved.

She saw it slip forward across the floor, its edges deepening as it reached toward the light, toward the torches by the door. It stretched towards her father’s feet, black against the orange glow of the torchlight, until for an instant the two shadows touched. The room shuddered. The torches flickered and hissed, and the cold pressed closer, sharp and clean as winter air.

Lady’s death cry broke free from where it lingered around her father and rushed into her. The sound struck like ice through her veins, searing and hollow all at once. For a heartbeat, she could feel Lady’s final breath, the soft tremor before stillness. Then it was gone.

Sansa gasped. Her knees wavered, her breath catching in her throat. The room seemed to tilt, the edges of the world softening and fading. The cold inside her deepened, but the ache in her chest eased, if only a little.

Her father’s expression changed. The tension that had held his face rigid softened, the faintest trace of relief passing through his features. His shoulders lowered, as if a weight had been lifted from them.

He studied her for a long moment, his eyes searching hers. Whatever he saw there, he did not understand, but he did not look away. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and careful.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll take you.”

Sansa nodded, her heart still pounding. The echo of Lady’s cry lingered faintly inside her, not as pain now, but as presence. It was enough to move her forward when he placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the door.

Relief flooded her briefly when she realized that neither her father nor sister noticed the strangeness of what had just happened. Then that cold, numbing sensation flooded her again and the relief she had just felt was lost, as if it had happened a long time ago, or to someone else entirely.

Behind them, Arya sat motionless on the bed, her red-rimmed eyes fixed on them as they stepped into the hall.

The air outside was colder than she expected. It bit at her skin and caught in her throat, sharp and dry. The torches along the courtyard walls flickered in the wind, their light throwing long, unsteady shadows across the stone. The smell of blood and smoke lingered faintly, mingling with the scent of horses and damp hay.

Sansa followed her father across the stone, her slippered feet moving without thought. She should have worn boots, but she had not been thinking when she had left the room. Each step echoed in the silence, heavy and slow. At the far end of the yard, Jory stood beside a gray shape on the ground. Two northmen waited a short distance away, readying saddled horses for travel. Their breath rose in pale clouds against the night air.

When they reached the courtyard’s center, Sansa stopped and her heart clenched. Lady lay on the stone ground, still chained to the post, her silver-gray fur dulled by blood and dust. The sight hollowed her.

She looked smaller now, as if the life had taken more than breath from her, as if death itself had folded her inward.

“Those men are to take her home,” her father said from beside her, gesturing to the men standing near the horses across the yard by the stables. “The queen will not have her coat. Lady will rest in Winterfell, with our kin.”

The words sank into her slowly, their meaning heavy and distant. Home. The thought of Winterfell felt both too far and too close. She could not speak.

Sansa stood there for a long time, staring, the world narrowing until there was nothing but her and the still body at her feet. Her father said her name once, quietly, but she did not move. The wind hissed through the courtyard, stirring the ends of her loose hair.

“Unchain her,” Ned said.

Jory stepped forward without hesitation. The sound of metal against metal rang out, the links clattering as he worked at the collar. When it came free, Lady’s body slumped forward, her head tilting gently toward Sansa’s feet. The movement broke something inside her.

Sansa dropped to her knees. Her fingers sank into Lady’s fur, still soft despite the blood. She pulled her into her lap, cradling her like a child. The blood smeared red across her gown, across her wrists, across the pale curve of Lady’s muzzle. The warmth was gone, but Sansa could still imagine it there, fading just beyond her reach.

“Sansa, stop. You will ruin your dress,” she heard her father say. His voice was low, steady in the way he always tried to be for them. His hand touched her shoulder. The words splintered something inside her.

For a heartbeat she almost remembered who she was supposed to be. A future Courtier. A Lady of the North. Possibly the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms in time. Someone who minded her posture, her hair, the lay of her skirts, who kept her sleeves clean and her chin lifted, who followed every lesson of grace she had been taught.

A lady did not kneel in the dirt. A lady did not let her hair fall wild around her face. A lady did not claw at bloodstained fur.

But none of that mattered now. Not when Lady was dead.

The rules felt like glass in her hands, shattering one by one. What good was being a Courtier when she had not been able to save the one creature who loved her without question. What good were manners or proper speech or spotless sleeves when Lady’s body lay cold against her lap.

“Go away!” Sansa screamed. The sound tore out of her, raw and wild, nothing like the girl she had been. “Leave me!”

Her voice scraped her throat as it rose, breaking into something she did not recognize. She felt her father flinch rather than saw it. His hand slipped from her shoulder. He stepped back slowly, as if he feared any wrong movement might break her completely.

Jory shifted behind him. The horses snorted softly nearby. The night air moved around them, cool and indifferent, while she knelt in the dirt with her ruined dress and her ruined heart, shaking with grief she could no longer contain.

She turned on her father, her face streaked with tears and blood, her eyes burning. “Leave me!” Sansa screamed again, louder this time, the sound thick with grief. “Leave me alone!”

Her father froze. For a heartbeat, he only stared at her, and she saw something flicker in his expression. Not anger, not pity, but surprise.

“Let’s see to the horses,” he said finally, his voice low and uneven.

He turned to Jory, and together they moved away toward the stables, their boots scraping softly across the cobbles.

Sansa didn’t watch them go. She bent over Lady again, her breath coming fast and shallow, her fingers buried in the wolf’s fur. The grief pulsed through her like a second heartbeat, fierce and consuming, until the world around her blurred and narrowed to the weight of the body in her arms and the taste of salt on her lips.

“I am sorry,” Sansa whispered as she bent over Lady, her tears falling freely now. “I am so sorry. I should have stopped them. I should have been braver. I should have told the truth,” her words dissolved into sobs. “Forgive me, Lady. Please forgive me.”

Her tears soaked into Lady’s fur. The world around her dimmed, and the cold deepened until she could no longer tell where her body ended and the cold began. All she could feel was the weight in her arms and the silence where Lady’s heart should have been.

The torches guttered in the wind, their flames straining against the cold. Somewhere beyond the walls, another wolf cried. The sound rose slow and sorrowful, echoing through the courtyard until it seemed to bleed into the stone itself. Sansa pressed her face into Lady’s fur and wept until there were no tears left, her throat raw, and her breath came in shuddering gasps.

The night pressed closer. The air grew heavy, still, and she could feel the faint hum beneath her skin again. It began as a whisper, deep in her chest, then spread outward until her whole body seemed to tremble with it. The Book was calling.

Sansa lifted her head, her vision blurred and her face streaked with tears. The sound of the wind filled her ears, carrying the faint smell of blood and smoke. She looked toward the stables. Her father stood near the entrance, his back turned, his shoulders bent. Jory was beside him, speaking softly, their voices too low to reach her. The other two guards were busying themselves with their packs.

They could not see her…they mustn’t see her.

Her heart pounded as she looked down at Lady one last time. The wolf’s fur gleamed faintly under the torchlight, a dull silver-gray marked by streaks of red. The cold around her deepened until it felt alive, creeping over her skin like frost across stone.

Sansa’s trembling hands slipped from Lady’s body. The weight of her grief threatened to pull her back down, but she forced herself to stand. She turned slightly, angling her body away from the light, where her father and his men could not see what she was doing. Then she exhaled and let the pull of the Book take hold.

It came to her in a rush of stillness.

The air rippled, the world darkening at the edges. She reached into that space that was both within and beyond herself and called it forth. The Book appeared in her hands, its cover dark and unreflective, the faintest shimmer of the brighter purple Courtier tracing its edges. It pulsed once, as though in recognition.

Her fingers trembled as she opened it.

The pages fluttered as though caught by an unseen wind, whispering softly in the stillness, until they stilled. The familiar parchment gleamed faintly in the torchlight. For a moment, she thought it was waiting for her to turn the page, but then new words began to appear across the surface, ink rising slowly from the paper like breath on glass.

═════════════
Achievement Updated

Trait Removed:
LOYAL COMPANION
A bond formed in trust and tenderness.
The beast’s loyalty strengthens your own heart.
While near, serenity endures and fear retreats.

Bound Companion Removed — Lady

New Trait Acquired:
ABSENT HEART
A bond once rooted in loyalty and warmth now lies silent.
Where devotion once steadied you, only echoes remain.
The emptiness left behind yearns to be filled.

Deceased Companion — Lady
═════════════

The glow lingered for a heartbeat before fading, the ink settling into the parchment. Sansa’s vision blurred as she traced Lady’s name.

Then, as if sensing her intent, the Book stirred again. The pages turned themselves, whispering softly, until they settled on the darker section near the back. The script that bloomed across the page glowed faintly in the torchlight, alive in a way no ink should be.

═════════════
SHADOW WEAVER
Tier 2 Advancement Available
To proceed, you must choose. One path cannot be walked without the sacrifice of the other.
═════════════

Sansa’s breath trembled as she stared down at the Book. The ink on the page shimmered faintly, shifting like smoke caught in water. Torchlight flickered across the surface, but the page seemed to swallow it, drinking the light before it could settle.

Her hands shook as she turned another page. The parchment was cold, slick beneath her fingers, and each movement made the faintest sound, like the crack of thin ice. She glanced once toward the stables. Nobody looked her way.

The air around her thickened, the shadows deepening until the world felt smaller, quieter. She traced the edge of the page, her fingertips brushing faintly over indented markings that seemed to hum in answer. The chill of the Book seeped into her skin, and for the first time since Lady’s death, the numbness began to break.

Her pulse quickened.

Sansa’s breath caught. She brushed her fingers along the edge of the page, tracing the faint indentation of the words. Her pulse thrummed in her ears as two options were inked before her.

═════════════
Choose One Active Ability:

Shadow Summon
Bind the shadow of a creature or person that has just passed. The tether is intimate and fragile, yet the Shade retains fragments of what it was in life.

Umbral Echo
Call forth a Double made of your own shadow. Insubstantial, convincing at a glance, it may mislead, distract, or cover your escape.
═════════════

The words glowed faintly, the light shifting like moonlight across water. Her hands hovered over the page, the tremor in her fingers barely contained. The air itself felt suspended, the courtyard frozen in silence.

Her eyes lingered on Shadow Summon. The ink pulsed faintly, a heartbeat that wasn’t hers, as if it already knew she would choose it. Her breath came uneven, shallow and sharp.

She thought of Jon’s face the night he and Theon had caught her leaving the brothel. He had made her promise, made her look him in the eyes and say she would not go further, that she would never advance to Tier Two.

She had meant it when she swore, when she promised to never advance…but that was before.

Her throat tightened. She looked down at her companion’s still form, at the silver fur now darkened with blood. The thought of a world without that quiet presence beside her felt impossible. Lady had been more than a direwolf. She was warmth, steadiness, the only thing that had made Sansa feel truly safe since her Awakening.

And now she was gone.

Sansa’s chest ached with the weight of it. She knew what this meant. She knew that pressing her fingers to the page would change something inside her forever. She would be breaking her word. Breaking faith with those who trusted her.

But it was Lady.

Her hand trembled as she lifted it. The page seemed to wait, breathing with her, the words pulsing brighter with every heartbeat.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, to the still body beside her or to the broken promise she didn’t know.

Her fingertip pressed against the page.

The ink flared beneath her touch, a burst of cold light that did not warm but hollowed. The air drew in around her, sound falling away until even the wind seemed to hold its breath. A low hum filled her ears, steady and deep, vibrating through her bones.

The torchlight dimmed. Shadows gathered thick around her feet, rising like mist. They coiled up her arms, brushing her skin with something that felt like frost and memory. The cold she had carried since Lady’s death sank deeper, threading through her veins until she could no longer tell where it ended and she began.

The Book pulsed once.

Her breath caught. For a moment she thought she might collapse beneath the weight of it. Her heart beat slow and heavy, echoing the rhythm that seemed to rise from the pages.

Sansa exhaled. Her tears had gone cold on her cheeks. She could feel the power settling into her, silent and sure, reshaping the space where grief had lived. The world sharpened. The shadows leaned closer, waiting.

The Book shivered in her hands. Its pages turned of their own accord, and new words etched themselves into the darkness.

═════════════
Tier Advancement Achieved

SHADOW WEAVER — Tier Two

The veil no longer bends only at your touch.
It knows you now, and it answers of its own accord.
The dead will answer when you call.

═════════════
New Abilities Unlocked

Active — Veil of Ash
Your presence is cloaked beneath a false measure.
To every eye, your Measure gleams White, harmless and untested.
When the veil is lifted, the truth will be revealed.

Passive — Shadow’s Refuge
Bound Shades and Doubles retreat into your own shadow when dismissed.
None may see them until you call.

═════════════
Chosen Path: Shadow Summon
Bind the shadow of a creature or person that has just passed.
The tether is intimate and fragile, yet the Shade retains fragments of what it was in life.

Activation Command: ARISE

═════════════

The words on the page pulsed faintly, the shadows in the ink shifting like breath. Beneath Activation Command, another line appeared, dim and blurred, as if written beneath the surface of the parchment.

Hold to Reveal Additional Details.

Sansa hesitated. Her fingertip hovered over the faint text, and when she pressed down, the page rippled under her touch before it turned. A new section unfurled across the parchment, letters carving themselves in silver light that dimmed as she read.

═════════════
Additional Details — Shadow Summon

Shadows respond most strongly to grief and proximity.
A Shade drawn from the recently deceased will manifest with greater strength and retain clearer fragments of what it was in life. When both the body and place of death are present, the tether deepens, resulting in a more complete and stable form.

Fragments of the dead may linger beyond the corpse, scattered among those connected to the death itself. Pieces may cling to the killer, the place, or to the loved ones bound to the memory of the loss. Such remnants can be gathered, one by one, to restore the Shade toward wholeness.

A Weaver’s capacity is limited. Each bound Shade occupies space within the soul.
The more complete a Shade, the greater the weight it bears upon its master.
Only the strongest Weavers may sustain many. Lesser ones risk collapse.

Caution: A tether stretched too far risks fracturing. Should it break, both Weaver and Shade may suffer.
═════════════

The glow faded slowly, leaving the ink dry and still. Sansa let her hand fall away, her pulse quick and uneven. The page no longer seemed like parchment but something alive, something waiting.

She stared at it for a long moment, her breath shallow, then turned the page back to where the command waited. The words glimmered faintly against the dark paper, soft and patient, as though the Book itself was holding its breath. Arise.

Her eyes flicked toward the stables. Her father still stood beside Jory, speaking low, his shoulders hunched with exhaustion. The other two men waited near the horses, murmuring quietly to each other, their faces turned toward the road. None of them looked her way.

The courtyard felt too still. The air had grown cold enough that she could see her breath.

Sansa closed the Book and pressed it against her chest, her fingers white around the edges. The word echoed in her mind, steady and insistent, a whisper rising from the darkness beneath her thoughts.

She turned her head once more toward Lady’s still form. The body was already cooling, the silver of her fur dulled by blood and dirt. It looked wrong. Lady had always been so clean, her coat brushed smooth every morning, her paws wiped after rain, every burr or leaf carefully picked free. Sansa had tended her the way any careful girl tended a beloved companion, patient and gentle, proud of how beautiful she was.

Lady should have gleamed like fresh snow…not like this.

The sight struck her like a physical blow. Lady had never been meant to look broken or soiled or small. Sansa’s gaze stayed fixed on her fur, unable to bear how wrong it looked under the torchlight, how unlike herself she seemed. The wrongness hollowed her out, leaving a cold ache that spread until she could feel nothing else.

That ache tugged her back toward the Book in her hands. The words she had read lingered in her mind, the choice she had made moments earlier pulling at her like a tide. If Lady could not rise as she had been, perhaps her shadow still could. Perhaps the bond between them was not finished.

Her throat tightened. She could barely force the word out, her voice thin and trembling.

“Arise,” the word slipped into the cold air and was swallowed by it.

Nothing answered.

The sound of her own breathing was the only reply. The torches sputtered faintly, their flames bowing to the wind, and the shadows at her feet lay still and thin. Even the Book gave no sign of life, its surface dull beneath the trembling of her fingers.

Sansa’s heart hammered. The silence pressed close, thick and heavy. She tried to speak again, but the word caught in her throat and broke apart before it could form. The ache in her chest deepened until it felt as if something inside her was being torn loose, slow and deliberate.

Her gaze fell on Lady’s body. The sight was unbearable. The weight of it pressed down on her until her breath came uneven and sharp. She hated it. The stillness, the emptiness, the cruel quiet of the world that had taken what she loved and left nothing behind.

Her hands shook as she clutched the Book tighter against her chest, the leather cold against her skin. Her breath came shallow and uneven. The chill that had lived inside her since Lady’s death began to stir, swelling until it felt too large for her body. It was calling to her, faint and steady, from somewhere deep within. A place dark and silent, as familiar as her own heartbeat, waiting to be touched.

Her palms were slick with blood, dark and half-dried, and it smeared across the Book as she gripped it tighter. The crimson streaks sank into the cover as if drawn in, disappearing into the dark leather without a trace. There was no stain left behind where she touched it. The surface gleamed smooth again, as if the Book had drunk its fill.

The sight made her stomach twist, but her fingers would not let go. The Book felt alive beneath her hands, the pulse of it faint but certain, and for the first time since Lady’s death, the cold inside her began to answer back.

Sansa shut her eyes. The tears slid down her face, but she did not lift a hand to stop them. She reached inward, past the grief, past the trembling, past the hollow ache that had become her center. What she found there was not warmth but something sharper, something colder…an ache honed into purpose.

Her lips parted. The word rose again, low and unsteady at first, then stronger, shaped by that dark pulse that moved beneath her ribs.

“ A̷͕͊͗͜  R̴̞̪̈́͝  I̶̡͕̒̐  S̷̜͚̾̎  E̸̛̳̤̟̼̩͂͠͝ͅ ”

Chapter Text

The road stretched endlessly before them, all dust and sunlight and the smell of horses. The world felt too bright, too wide. It made Arya’s eyes ache when she tried to look at it for too long.

The rhythm of hooves and wagon wheels filled the days, dull and steady, until every morning bled into every night. Sometimes Arya forgot what day it was or where they were even going. All she knew was that they were heading somewhere she didn’t want to be, and that they were leaving everything that mattered behind.

They had buried Mycah by the river nearly a week ago. Still, Arya saw him when she closed her eyes, his hands limp, his face pale as clay. Sometimes she dreamed he got up again and started walking beside her, smiling the way he used to when they stole bread crusts from the kitchens. When she woke alone without her friend, the world felt colder.

The King’s party had left them the morning after Lady and Micah were killed. The King had given the order before the sun was fully up, his voice rough and impatient. He had not looked at her father when he spoke, not really. The King’s words came sharp and quick, and her father’s quiet and cold, the way they did when he was angry and trying not to show it.

The Lannister’s mounted at once, the golden lions on their cloaks catching the light as they rode out ahead, leaving dust and silence behind them. There were so many of them that she struggled to find the King’s crowned stag amongst them.

Arya had stood in the yard, watching from beside the wagons. Her father had been still as stone, his hands fisted at his sides, his eyes unreadable. When the King passed him, there was no greeting, no parting word. The King’s face was drawn, his eyes bloodshot, and for an instant Arya thought he looked ashamed. But then he barked an order to his men, mounted his horse with several attendants assisting him, and didn’t spare a glance to her father.

Sansa had walked by soon after, pale and hollow, her eyes unfocused as though she could not see anything around her. She didn’t even flinch when one of the Lannister horses stamped too close, or when Cersei’s sharp gaze lingered on her. She moved like someone sleepwalking, her skirts brushing against the dust, her hands clasped neatly in front of her.

Arya had looked at the King again then, expecting him to say something, to look at Sansa, to apologize maybe for what he had allowed. But he didn’t. His jaw tightened, and he turned away sharply, calling for the road to be cleared. The sound of his voice had cracked through the morning air like a whip.

After that, no one spoke much. The King’s party disappeared down the Kingsroad, their banners growing smaller until they were only specks of color on the horizon. The clatter of hooves faded, leaving only the wind and the creak of wagons behind. What was left of them, the Starks and their few guards, stayed an additional night to handle the mess that the King and his family had left behind.

The inn’s yard still smelled faintly of blood. Her father spoke quietly with Jory and the men, giving orders that Arya couldn’t quite hear. Lady’s body had been wrapped in linen and laid carefully on the back of a horse bound for the long road north the night before. When Arya asked where she went, her father said the wolf would be buried in the Winterfell lichyard, where she belonged.

Arya had nodded at the time, but later, when they buried Mycah by the river, the ache in her chest grew sharper.

He had been her friend, and it didn’t feel right to leave him there. The sound of the river had been soft that day, the reeds whispering while the men dug the grave. She remembered the dirt clinging to her boots and the smell of the wet earth when they covered him.

She had asked her father why Mycah couldn’t go home too. Her voice had shaken, though she tried to make it sound angry. “Lady gets to go back,” she’d said. “Why not Mycah?”

He had been silent for a long moment before answering. “We haven’t the men to spare,” he’d told her. “The road is long, and he’s already begun to change. His mother shouldn’t have to see him like that.”

Arya had bitten her lip hard enough to taste blood. She had known he was right, but it hadn’t helped. It wasn’t fair. Mycah had been kind and alive only days ago, and now he was being left behind in a place that wasn’t his home.

“He’ll rest here,” he’d said with his hand rested on her shoulder, firm but gentle. “Where he laughed. Where he was happy.”

Now, as the wagons rolled onward, Arya stared at the passing trees and thought of the river. She tried to picture the spot where they had buried him, but it all blurred together in her mind. The sound of the water, the smell of the earth, the weight in her chest that had never gone away.

Lady was taken north. Mycah was buried by the water. And the innkeeper’s family had stood at a distance, whispering among themselves, until her father pressed a heavy pouch of coins into their hands for their trouble.

When they left the next morning, the sun had just begun to rise, pale and cold. The air hung heavy with mist, and every sound seemed to echo.

It felt to Arya as though the world itself had shifted in those few days. The sun had risen, the road lay the same as it always had, but something in the air had changed. Everything seemed colder, quieter, and heavier, as if Lady had taken the last bit of warmth with her on the long road back North, and what remained had been buried beside Mycah by the river.

Nymeria was gone too.

Arya could still feel the ache in her throat from shouting, the sting of her palms from the rocks she had thrown at her wolf to make her run. Some nights she thought she heard her howling somewhere far off, low and mournful, and she would sit up listening until the sound faded into the dark. The last of it had vanished when they crossed into the Crownlands. The silence that followed was worse.

And then there was Sansa’s silence.

Her sister sat in the wagon most days with the curtains drawn, pale as milk and still as carved stone. Even Jeyne Poole had stopped trying to talk to her. Arya had peeked inside once, hoping Sansa would scold her or say something sharp, anything to make things feel the same as before. But Sansa hadn’t even looked up. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, and her hands rested neatly in her lap, folded the way Septa Mordane always told them to.

She was different now. Thinner…quieter. Like something inside her had been scraped away and left empty. She barely spoke, barely ate, and when she did, she only picked at the food until it went cold. Even Septa Mordane’s fussing trailed off after a few days.

Arya thought about the night after Lady was killed. Sansa had come back late, long after the torches were snuffed and the camp had gone still. Her dress and hands were streaked with drying blood, her hair tangled, and her face pale as snow. She even had a streak of dirt on her cheek but she didn’t bother to clean it. Sansa was always so careful and clean, that the sight of her was shocking.

She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t spoken. She just walked through the door and sat down on the edge of the bed, staring straight ahead like she couldn’t see what was in front of her.

Arya had wanted to yell at her then, to tell her she was stupid and cruel and that she should be sorry, but the words had died in her throat. There was something in Sansa’s eyes that made her stop. They looked different, clearer somehow, brighter…and not in a way that felt right.

They were too blue, too still, like the color of lake ice in deep winter. For a moment, as she turned away from the torchlight and curled into the darker shadows of her bed, Arya could have almost sworn that they had glowed.

When Arya looked away, down to the ground, she thought she saw Sansa’s shadow shift against the floor, not following the firelight the way shadows were meant to. It moved slower, heavier, like it was dragging itself after her. The sight made Arya’s heart beat faster, though she told herself she was imagining it.

By morning, she had convinced herself it had only been the fire, or her own tired eyes, or maybe the tears she hadn’t finished crying. She told herself she’d been sad, that the world had looked strange because everything hurt. But even then, when Sansa stirred in her sleep beside her, Arya had rolled over and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. She didn’t want to see her sister’s eyes open in the dark again.

Arya hated it. She hated the quiet, the heat, the slow rhythm of the horses’ hooves, and the way her father’s face had turned older since the inn. Mostly, she hated that she couldn’t make Sansa look at her.

Once, she had reached for her hand after they had gone to bed, hoping that maybe if she held on, Sansa would talk to her, or cry, or say something. But her sister’s skin had been cold. So cold that Arya had flinched and pulled away, thinking she had touched marble. Sansa hadn’t moved. She just lay there with her eyes half open, staring at the ceiling.

Her sister hadn’t cried once. Not when Lady died. Not when Father came back from the courtyard looking worn and upset and took her to see Lady’s corpse. Not even when she returned covered in drying blood.

Arya had cried enough for both of them, but Sansa had only stood there, white-faced and silent, her hands clenched together like she was holding something fragile that she refused to let go.

Now, even in sleep, her face looked the same, peaceful but wrong somehow. Like a statue pretending to breathe.

Arya didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand how Sansa could just sit there, quiet and still, when everything inside Arya felt like it was breaking apart. Sometimes she wanted to shake her, to yell until she laughed or screamed or said something, but the words always stuck in her throat.

Arya could never bring herself to speak when the air around Sansa felt so strange and heavy…and cold.

She had seen Jeyne try too. The girl whispered to Sansa about home, about the castle, about how pretty King’s Landing would be. Sansa nodded once or twice, but her eyes never changed. They stayed dull and distant, as if she were listening to something else. Something Arya couldn’t hear.

Once, when the moon was high and everyone else had fallen asleep, Arya woke to find Sansa whispering. It sounded like same kind of whispers that she used to share with Lady late at night, pressing her face into her fur, but the sound of it made her skin prickle.

She told herself it was nothing, just grief, the kind that made people strange for a while. But when Arya rolled over and looked again, Sansa’s eyes were open, and they seemed to almost glow blue in the darkness. When they caught the faint shimmer of the firelight, for a heartbeat they didn’t look empty anymore. They looked alive, focused, watching something just beyond the edge of the world.

Something Arya couldn’t see.

Arya blinked against the sunlight, but the memory of that night clung to her. She sat on her horse, watching the wagon that carried her sister ahead on the road. The curtains were drawn tight again, hiding Sansa from sight. Arya felt a small twist in her stomach. It was strange to think of her sister sleeping through the day, when at night she barely seemed to rest at all.

Sometimes Arya thought Sansa was pretending to sleep, just lying there and staring into the dark with those cold eyes that didn’t look like hers anymore.

She tried to shake the thought away and looked to her father instead. He rode a little ahead, his back straight, his face unreadable beneath his beard. His hair caught the light, showing more grey than she remembered. There was something about the way he sat in the saddle that looked heavy, as if the air itself pressed down on him.

He had barely spoken since they left the inn. When he did, it was to give orders, quiet and short, his voice rough from disuse. He didn’t smile much anymore, not even at her.

Arya wanted to ride up beside him and ask what he was thinking, or if he missed Winterfell the way she did, but the words stuck in her throat. Her father seemed farther away than he ever had before, even though he was only a few paces ahead.

So she stayed where she was, watching the dust rise from the horses’ hooves and drift in the sunlight. The road went on and on, stretching ahead until it vanished into heat and haze, and Arya wondered if the world would ever feel warm again.