[Detection: High-Destiny Event in Progress.]
[Event: The Fall of the Young Wolf.]
[Location: The Broken Tower.]
Alaric's hands went still on Sansa's waist.
[Mission Triggered: The First Guardian.]
[Objective: Prevent the 'Unwitnessed Secret' from claiming the life of Bran Stark.]
[Context: The boy has climbed where he shouldn't. and is about to be pushed into the abyss.]
[Reward: 250 Monarch Points | Title: 'Protector of the Bloodline' | +10% Influence in Winterfell.]
[Penalty for Failure: Death of Bran Stark. Immediate Hostility from Eddard Stark.]
"Alaric?" Sansa's voice was small, filled with confusion. She felt the sudden coldness in his posture. "What is it? Did you hear someone?"
Alaric's heart hammered, but not from the heat of the bed. The System was screaming at him. If Bran fell, the North would fracture. If he saved the boy, he didn't just gain points—he gained a debt from the Ned Stark that could never be repaid. He looked at Sansa, her hair spilled across the pillows, her gown half-undone.
Alaric's hand went still on the silk sash. The crimson text of the System was a cold blade to his gut, shattering the heat of the moment.
"Alaric?" Sansa's voice was soft, her eyes searching his.
He looked down at her, his expression twisting into one of pure, unadulterated misery.
He could ignore it. He could stay here, in the warmth of this bed, and let the boy fall. If Bran died, the North would eventually fall into chaos, and maybe in that chaos, a man like Alaric could rise. But the "Protector" title and those points... that was real power.
Saving the boy would create a butterfly effect that would shatter the original timeline. It would put Ned Stark in his debt, it would give him a knife to the throat of the Lannisters, and most importantly, it would prove to Sansa that he was more than just a secret shame. It was worth the interruption.
"Alaric?" Sansa's voice was soft, her eyes searching his. She looked so vulnerable, her hair fanned out like fire against the furs.
"I have to go," Alaric rasped, his voice sounding foreign even to his own ears. He pulled his hands back, the sudden loss of contact making the air feel ten degrees colder.
"What?" Sansa sat up, clutching the open edges of her bedgown.
"You're joking. You have to be joking."
"I forgot something," he said, already sliding toward the edge of the mattress. "Something very important. I have to go, Sansa. Now."
"Important?" she hissed, her voice a sharp, low-volume spike that vibrated with indignation. "What is more important than this? Than me?" She looked at her half-undone dress, her face flushing with the sting of rejection. "If you walk out of that window, Alaric... if you leave me like this, don't you dare think—"
Alaric didn't even give her the chance to finish. He was already on the sill, his boots catching the stone. He glanced back once—at the fury and the hurt in her eyes—and then he dropped into the darkness of the ivy.
He hit the frozen ground with a soft thud, his knees absorbing the impact. Just as he straightened his tunic to sprint toward the Broken Tower, a heavy, feathered object came whistling down from above.
Thump.
A silk pillow hit him square in the chest. He caught it instinctively, the scent of lavender and Sansa's hair filling his nose.
SLAM.
The window above him shut with a violent bang, the wooden latch clicking loudly enough to echo in the yard. A second later, the heavy curtains were yanked shut, cutting off the amber glow of the hearth.
Alaric stood there for a heartbeat, clutching the pillow to his chest in the freezing Northern night. He shook his head, a dark, dry chuckle escaping his throat as he tucked the pillow into a niche in the stone wall to retrieve later.
"Little dove," he muttered, turning his eyes toward the jagged silhouette of the Broken Tower.
"Saving your brother is a bit more important than my pride right now. Besides... how else am I going to get your father to owe me his soul?"
He turned and sprinted, the System's countdown ticking away in his peripheral vision.
The countdown in his vision hit zero just as a small, flailing shape broke from the high window of the Broken Tower. Bran didn't scream; the air had been knocked out of him by the push.
Alaric threw himself forward, his boots skidding on the frost. He didn't have time for a clean catch. He lunged, arms outstretched, catching the boy just three feet above the jagged stones. The momentum slammed Alaric into the dirt, his knees taking a brutal impact, but he held tight.
Bran was a statue of terror in his arms, his small face ghostly white and his eyes rolling back in his head.
"Breathe, Bran. Breathe!" Alaric hissed, carrying the boy quickly into the shadow of a nearby weirwood tree, away from any prying eyes in the tower windows.
He set the boy down against the thick roots and pulled a small waterskin from his belt. Bran was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering, not from the cold, but from the shock of the fall—and what he had seen before it. Alaric pressed the skin to the boy's lips.
"Drink. Slowly," Alaric commanded, his voice steadying.
Bran took a frantic gulp, coughing as the water hit his throat. "He... he pushed me," the boy whispered, his voice cracking. "The man with the golden hair. The Queen... they were..."