Chapter 5: Wolf Dreams
Winterfell at night was a symphony of scent.
I moved through it on four legs, Grey Wind's powerful body responding to intentions I barely understood. Every breath brought information—guard posts by their leather and sweat, the kitchen by old grease and fresh bread, the stables by horse and hay. The world was sharper here. Clearer. Every shadow held detail my human eyes would have missed.
This is warging.
The knowledge surfaced from Robb's memories and my meta-knowledge, merging into certainty. The blood of the First Men ran in Stark veins, and with it came gifts the Andals had long forgotten. Warging—the ability to slip into animal minds, to see through their eyes and run on their legs.
My body lay unconscious somewhere in the keep. I could feel it dimly, like a tooth ache in a distant room. Pain waited there. But here, in Grey Wind's fur, I was whole. Strong. Free.
Not a dream. This is real.
Grey Wind's instincts mingled with my thoughts, creating something neither fully wolf nor fully human. I wanted to investigate the broken tower. He wanted to hunt. We compromised—investigation first, then perhaps a rabbit in the godswood.
The tower loomed against stars.
I circled its base, nose working overtime. Human scent layered here—Bran's blood, still drying on stone. Maester Luwin's herbs. Guard boots, multiple pairs. But beneath those fresh marks, something else.
Lannister.
The scent was distinctive. Expensive perfume—Cersei's, cloying and southern. Beneath it, sword oil and leather—Jaime's, sharp with arrogance. Both scents concentrated near a window thirty feet up, where stone had been disturbed recently.
Grey Wind growled. The sound vibrated through my borrowed chest.
Evidence. They were here. I can prove—
Prove what? To whom? A wolf's testimony wouldn't stand in any court. But I knew now, with certainty beyond meta-knowledge. Jaime Lannister had pushed my brother from that window. The Kingslayer had added attempted child-murder to his list of crimes.
Not yet. Not yet. Store this. Plan.
I guided Grey Wind away from the tower, toward the keep proper. Through servant entrances he'd learned to navigate, past sleeping guardsmen who knew better than to challenge the direwolf. The bond between us hummed with mutual purpose.
Bran's room first.
The door stood ajar—Catelyn must have stepped out. Inside, my brother lay motionless on clean sheets, head wrapped in bandages. His chest rose and fell with mechanical regularity. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting dancing shadows across his pale face.
Grey Wind padded to the bedside. I pressed his cold nose against Bran's hand.
Wake up. Please wake up.
No response. But through the wolf's senses, I could hear Bran's heartbeat—steady, strong. Whatever damage the fall had caused, his body was fighting.
He'll live. The fall was different. Maybe the damage is different too.
Summer—Bran's direwolf—lay at the foot of the bed, eyes tracking Grey Wind's movements. The two wolves exchanged a look loaded with meaning I couldn't fully parse. Pack. Protection. Promise.
Watch him, I pushed toward Summer, not knowing if it would work. Guard.
Summer's tail thumped once against the mattress.
Next: my own room.
Grey Wind navigated Winterfell's corridors with practiced ease. We passed servants who pressed against walls, guards who gripped sword hilts before recognizing the direwolf. Fear and respect mingled in equal measure. The wolves were tolerated, not loved.
That will change. It has to.
My body waited in the lord's chambers they'd moved me to—Robb's old room wouldn't accommodate the maester's equipment. Grey Wind pushed through the door and settled beside the bed.
The sight was... unsettling.
I lay there, pale and still, right arm bound to my chest in complicated bandaging. Bruises mottled the visible skin. My breathing was shallow, pained even in unconsciousness. Maester Luwin dozed in a chair nearby, ready to respond if anything changed.
That's me. That's my body. And I'm here, in the wolf, watching myself sleep.
The duality made my head—Grey Wind's head—ache. Two places at once. Two sets of senses. The wolf's heartbeat steady and strong, my human body's labored and weak.
I need to go back.
But I didn't know how. The warging had happened without conscious choice, triggered by trauma and unconsciousness. Returning required something I hadn't learned yet.
Grey Wind whined. The sound echoed in the quiet room.
Think. Feel. The body is there. The mind needs to follow.
I focused on sensation. The distant pain in my shoulder. The weight of bandages. The smell of healing herbs, filtered through human nostrils rather than wolf ones. Piece by piece, I reassembled awareness of my own flesh.
The transition was violent.
One moment I ran on four legs. The next I was drowning in agony, lungs gasping, shoulder screaming, everything wrong and broken and too small. My eyes snapped open to firelight and stone walls and Maester Luwin's startled face.
"My lord! You're awake!"
I tried to speak. My throat was sandpaper. "How... how long?"
"Two days, my lord. You've been unconscious since the fall." Luwin pressed a cup of water to my lips. I drank greedily, each swallow a small miracle. "Easy. Easy now."
Grey Wind pressed against the bedside, muzzle finding my hand. Through the bond—weaker now, muted by flesh and distance—I felt his relief. We were whole again. Separate but together.
"Bran," I managed. "Is he—"
"Alive." Catelyn's voice came from the doorway. She stood silhouetted against corridor torchlight, face ravaged by two days of vigil. "Because of you."
She crossed to my bedside and took my good hand in hers. Her fingers were cold, trembling slightly. Tears tracked down cheeks that had forgotten how to smile.
"Maester Luwin says you broke his fall. If you hadn't been there—" Her voice cracked. "He would have died. You saved my son, Robb. You saved your brother."
Did I?
"How bad is he?"
Catelyn's grip tightened. "The maester says... he may never walk again. The fall damaged his spine. But he breathes. He lives." She squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt. "Because of you."
Never walk. But alive. Different, not prevented.
I closed my eyes. The wolf dreams hadn't been dreams at all. They'd been something more—a power awakening, triggered by trauma and need. Warging. The blood of the First Men, expressing itself in ways I was only beginning to understand.
And somewhere in this castle, Jaime Lannister slept soundly, not knowing that a wolf had found his scent on murder stone.
"What of the king?" I asked. "What's happened while I slept?"
Catelyn's face tightened. "Much and more. Rest now. There will be time—"
"Tell me."
She hesitated. Then: "Robert asked your father to be his Hand. Ned accepted."
My good hand clenched on the blanket.
Too late. Three days unconscious. Three days too many.
"When do they leave?"
"Four days hence. Perhaps five, depending on..." She glanced toward the door, toward some distant room where Bran lay still and silent. "Depending."
Four days. Ned would ride south with a death sentence waiting at the end of the Kingsroad. And I'd been dreaming of wolves while the trap closed around us.
"I need to speak with Father."
"You need to rest—"
"Mother." The word came out harder than intended. "Please."
Catelyn studied my face. Whatever she saw there made her aged features soften with something like recognition. "You've changed. Since waking. Something's different."
Everything's different. Everything has been different since I opened eyes that weren't mine in a body that wasn't mine in a world that wasn't mine.
"The fall," I said. "Changes things."
She nodded slowly, accepting the non-answer. "I'll send for him. Rest until then."
She left. Grey Wind remained, solid and warm against my broken body. Through the bond, I sent him wordless gratitude. He'd carried me when I couldn't carry myself. He'd shown me Winterfell through eyes that saw more than human sight could manage.
Warging: 4.5/10. Room to grow.
The numbers surfaced from some analytical part of my mind that refused to stop quantifying. Powers needed understanding. Understanding required measurement. And measurement demanded practice.
First: heal. Second: learn. Third: save everyone I can.
Outside the window, dawn was breaking over Winterfell. A new day in a timeline I'd already bent out of shape. Bran alive but broken. My shoulder shattered but mending. The Lannisters unpunished but not forgotten.
The game had taken its first casualties.
Time to learn the rules.
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