Winterfell.
The third day after the betrothal feast ended.
One by one, the great lords of the North took their leave. Domeric figured it was about time he headed back to the Lonely Hills as well.
After being away this long, he'd actually started to miss home.
Over the past few days, he'd used the same method he'd used on Benfred Tallhart on Robert Glover:
Masked men. A club to the back of the head. A sack over the face. Dragged away. "Interrogation" with full enthusiasm…
And once again, he got nothing useful.
With those two houses—both openly at odds with him—crossed off the list, the pool of suspects only shrank.
Could it be the attack at the Smoky Log Inn wasn't the work of any Northern lord at all?
Thinking about it… maybe that made sense. Compared to the southern nobles' schemes and court games, most Northern lords were about as subtle as single-celled creatures. Their favorite pastime was sitting in a castle and hunting.
A "kill two birds with one stone" plot like the one at the inn? It was hard to imagine any of them pulling that off.
So—someone outside the North?
At once, a single name surfaced in Domeric's mind:
That chaos-loving mastermind who lived by "Chaos is a ladder"—
Littlefinger. Petyr Baelish.
Catelyn had mentioned him. After delivering the crown's decree raising trade taxes at the Lonely Hills, the man had made a special trip to Winterfell and said a few… questionable things. Stirring trouble, no doubt.
And with Littlefinger, if one scheme failed, he'd simply spin up another. Entirely plausible.
With the War of the Five Kings looming, Domeric could only shelve the matter—for now.
There was another amusing rumor spreading among the nobles.
Apparently Benfred Tallhart, after visiting a brothel without enough coin, got beaten by some local thugs. After they let him go, Benfred flew into a rage and led his household guards to go "settle the score."
Only to find the place already empty.
Revenge denied, humiliation doubled—until the story spread so widely that someone had given him a new nickname:
"Ser Not-Enough-Coin."
"Lord Eddard… you sent for me."
They were in a wood.
At its heart stood an ancient weirwood, shading a pool of black, cold water. Northerners called it the heart tree.
A face had been carved into the trunk—long and sorrowful.
They said such faces had been cut in the Dawn Age, before the First Men crossed the Narrow Sea, carved by the Children of the Forest.
This was Winterfell's godswood. Last time Domeric had been here, Eddard Stark had personally executed a Night's Watch deserter.
Now, House Stark was gathered.
Lady Catelyn stood with Robb, Sansa, Arya—and little Rickon, only three—praying beneath the weirwood.
Lord Eddard sat beneath the tree on a moss-covered boulder, his ancestral Valyrian greatsword Ice resting across his knees. He was washing rust from the blade in the pool, the water black as endless night.
His expression was heavy—like he'd just lost his own father.
What happened?
Don't tell me—
"Domeric… the raven brought a sorrowful message," Catelyn said as she approached. She handed him a letter sealed with King Robert's stamp.
"I did not wish to trouble you… but you are Stark family now…"
Domeric opened the letter. Though he'd already expected it, his heart still gave a hard, cold thud.
As suspected—
Jon Arryn, Hand of the King, Warden of the East, Lord of the Eyrie—one of the realm's pillars—
was dead.
There was no doubt in Domeric's mind: Littlefinger had murdered him.
In the original story, Petyr had manipulated his first love—Lady Lysa Tully, the same woman who once ended a pregnancy for him—into using the poison known as "the Tears of Lys" to kill her husband, Lord Arryn.
Arryn had just uncovered proof of Queen Cersei's infidelity from a massive tome titled The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms.
But Littlefinger wasn't killing Arryn to "help" Cersei cover it up.
He killed Arryn because Arryn himself was the keystone.
As Hand of the King, Warden of the East, and Lord of the Eyrie, Jon Arryn was the key stabilizer of King's Landing—and of the Seven Kingdoms as a whole.
He was the architect of the Baratheon regime's core alliance—the unified "fish-wolf-stag-falcon" bloc.
To secure Robert's claim to the Iron Throne, Arryn had pushed the king's marriage to Cersei, neutralizing the largest security threat to the realm: Tywin Lannister.
The next year he personally went to Sunspear to return Prince Lewyn's bones, easing Dorne's fury and steering Prince Doran away from raising banners for Viserys.
Even on the question of Jaime Lannister—Eddard had argued fiercely for sending the Kingslayer to the Wall—Arryn still chose the broader balance and persuaded Robert to keep the man, despite his crimes.
Now fifteen years had passed since Robert's Rebellion.
And the foundation of the stag dynasty—the "fish-wolf-stag-falcon" bloc—had already rotted half to pieces.
Lord Hoster Tully was dying. His children were a mess—some of the worst "noble upbringing" imaginable:
Catelyn Tully: a doting mother and household manager, but nothing like a true political lady.
Lysa Tully: a husband-killer, an extreme romantic fool.
Edmure Tully: the "Rivermen's archery god."
The only truly capable one, Brynden "Blackfish" Tully, had been pushed aside to serve as a gate knight in the Vale.
Robert Baratheon ignored governance. Stannis and Renly were divided, each hungry for power.
Eddard Stark stayed in the North and cared little for anything south of the Neck—his favorite phrase always "Winter is coming."
In truth, only Jon Arryn had been exhausting himself to keep the Seven Kingdoms from flying apart.
The rest either lay flat or drifted along.
Now Arryn was dead—and the realm snapped. The chaos Littlefinger wanted had finally arrived.
Still, Domeric believed: even if Arryn hadn't died, the fragile peace wouldn't have held for long.
Months ago, when Littlefinger came to the Lonely Hills to impose new trade taxes, Domeric had seriously considered having him "disappear"—bag over the head, dumped in the river, no witnesses, no proof.
Even if King's Landing suspected him, they couldn't act without evidence.
In the end, he hadn't done it.
Because even if Littlefinger died and Arryn lived, it wouldn't truly prevent the War of the Five Kings.
It might delay it—but not stop it.
Like the assassination of the Archduke in another world: killing the assassin wouldn't have prevented the war, because the contradictions that made war inevitable were already there.
Westeros was the same.
Tywin Lannister always wanted to return to King's Landing.
Doran Martell dreamed of restoring the Targaryens and avenging Elia.
The Reach was the strongest region, yet had little say after backing the wrong side—its lords were hungry to seize political power equal to their strength.
Stannis on Dragonstone and Renly in the Stormlands both coveted the Iron Throne.
So the war was coming no matter what.
Jon Arryn was only the fuse.
Domeric sighed. The coming war would drown armies in blood and scatter smallfolk across the roads.
The storm was close.
Eddard Stark was still sitting under the weirwood, polishing Ice. He looked truly grieved.
As a boy, Ned had lived in the Eyrie as Jon Arryn's ward. Childless then, Arryn had treated Ned and his other ward—Robert Baratheon—like sons.
When the Mad King demanded the heads of those two wards, Arryn chose rebellion. He raised the falcon banner of the Vale rather than betray the people he'd sworn to protect.
…
"Lady Catelyn…" Domeric said, forcing surprise. "Is this confirmed?"
"The letter bears the king's seal—and it's in Robert's own hand," she replied. "He says Lord Arryn went quickly. Even Grand Maester Pycelle was helpless… but they gave him milk of the poppy, so he didn't suffer overmuch."
"And…" Catelyn hesitated, then continued, "the letter says King Robert is already on the road to Winterfell. He wants to speak with Ned about affairs of the realm."
"How many are coming?" Domeric asked.
"At least two hundred knights," she said, "plus their squires, the king's servants and guards… seven or eight hundred men, at minimum. Perhaps more."
So Robert was bringing half his court.
"We'll need a feast," Catelyn was already counting aloud. "And musicians—singers. The food can't be stingy. It has to match the level of the betrothal feast, or the king will think we're slighting him…"
"I understand," Domeric said with a small nod.
He could see it clearly: Winterfell had just hosted a three-day celebration. Even if Domeric paid the lion's share, the Starks would still have burned through a lot of stores.
Now their granaries were probably so empty you could hear mice jogging laps.
Catelyn was worried Winterfell couldn't feed the king's entourage—so she'd pulled in her new son-by-law.
A thousand mouths for a few meals—so what?
Was Winterfell truly so poor it could be eaten into ruin?
Domeric couldn't help the thought: either the Lonely Hills were too rich… or Northern lords were far too broke.
So many of them looked like penny-pinching clansmen pretending to be great lords.
Then again, Ned Stark wasn't a man of coin, and Catelyn—whatever her virtues—was the sort of "good mother" who wasn't built to run a domain's finances.
And Winterfell had few industries worth speaking of.
So yes. Being poor was… normal.
"Domeric," Eddard rose and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder. "This will be a burden. Thank you."
At first, Ned hadn't truly wanted to marry Sansa to him.
Now, he found himself liking this future son-by-law more by the day. Catelyn's decision was starting to look perfectly correct.
"When will the king arrive?" Domeric asked.
"They've already made good progress," Ned said. "About twenty days, give or take."
"Then I'll return to my lands tomorrow and prepare," Domeric replied.
After that, he followed the Starks and finished the prayer beneath the heart tree.
…
The next day, Domeric departed with Ser Wendell, his bodyguard Benita, the newly knighted Ser Jon Snow, and a strong escort.
House Stark saw them off as he began the road back to the Lonely Hills.
His betrothed—Sansa Stark—remained in Winterfell.
She was only thirteen. By noble custom, it would be two more years before she would wed Domeric.
And by then…
What would Westeros look like?
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GAME OF THRONES: SECRETS BENEATH THE DREADFORT
🏰🩸 GAME OF THRONES: SECRETS BENEATH THE DREADFORT 🩸🏰
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📢 DARK SECRETS RISE IN THE NORTH! 📢
Game of Thrones: Secrets Beneath the Dreadfort has 30 chapters ahead available on Patreon! 🐺🩸
Beneath the Dreadfort, old horrors stir.
Power, bloodlines, betrayal, northern cruelty, and buried secrets wait beneath one of the most feared castles in Westeros.
❄️ The North remembers.🏰 The Dreadfort hides.🩸 And some secrets should have stayed buried.
Uncover what lies beneath before anyone else does.
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