Chapter 7: The Wild Wolf
The godswood breathed around me—ancient trees exhaling centuries of accumulated silence. Morning light filtered through crimson leaves, dappling the ground in patterns that shifted with the wind. My shoulder ached as I walked, but less than yesterday. Less than the day before. The body healed. The mind sharpened.
Grey Wind padded beside me, nose working the cold air. Through our bond, I caught fragments of his perception: rabbit trails three days old, the musk of deer, something wilder and more familiar.
Wolf.
Nymeria emerged from the undergrowth like gray smoke given form. Smaller than Grey Wind, leaner, with eyes that burned with barely contained ferocity. Behind her came Arya, dirt smudged on her face, hair escaping its braid in a dozen places.
"You're supposed to be at needlework," I said.
"You're supposed to be in bed." She crossed her arms. "Maester Luwin said—"
"Maester Luwin fusses." I stopped near the heart tree, its carved face watching with empty eyes. "I came to find you."
Arya's expression shifted—suspicion replacing defiance. "Why?"
"You know Father's leaving tomorrow."
"Yes." Her voice went flat. "With Sansa. To King's Landing. To meet the stupid prince and have stupid adventures while I stay here and sew."
"You're not going."
"I KNOW I'm not going!" She kicked a root, sending dead leaves scattering. "Mother already told me. It's not fair. Sansa gets—"
"Sansa gets a snake pit."
Arya stopped mid-tirade. "What?"
I reached into my cloak and pulled out the training sword I'd taken from the armory. Wooden, balanced for a smaller frame, wrapped in leather at the grip. I held it out.
"King's Landing is poison wearing silk. The court will smile at Sansa while they plot to use her. The queen despises anyone northern. The prince—" I stopped myself. Careful. Don't reveal too much. "The prince is not what he seems. Sansa goes south to learn hard lessons. You stay north to learn different ones."
Arya stared at the sword. Her hand twitched toward it, then stopped. "You're mocking me."
"I'm offering you real training. Not dancing around with fancy footwork and a needle-thin blade. War training. Combat training. The kind that might keep you alive when everything goes wrong."
Her eyes snapped to mine. Nine years old, and already she understood that everything going wrong wasn't hypothetical. She'd seen Bran fall. She'd seen me broken trying to catch him.
"Every day," I continued. "Before dawn, before anyone's awake to disapprove. You train with me. You learn what I can teach. And when the time comes—and it will come, Arya, I promise you that—you'll be ready."
She grabbed the sword.
The wood settled into her grip like it belonged there. She gave it an experimental swing, feeling the weight, the balance. A smile crept across her face—not the mischievous grin I'd seen at breakfast or the fierce snarl she showed when cornered. Something new. Something hungry.
"When do we start?"
"Tomorrow. After the column leaves." I ruffled her hair, earning a half-hearted glare. "Now go. Practice your forms. I'll find you at dawn."
She vanished into the trees, Nymeria flowing after her. The wolves' minds brushed through Grey Wind's—pack recognition, territorial acknowledgment. They were bonded to different Starks, but they knew each other as family.
Like we should be. Like we will be.
I turned to the heart tree.
The face carved into its trunk was ancient beyond reckoning—eyes like wounds, mouth frozen in eternal utterance. Robb's memories held fragments of communion: hands pressed to bark, whispers in the dark, the Old Gods listening through a thousand trees connected by roots that spanned the continent.
My turn.
I approached slowly. Grey Wind settled at the tree's base, watchful but not alarmed. Whatever lived in the weirwood network, it didn't frighten him.
My palm touched bark.
Cold.
Not the cold of winter air or frozen stone. Deeper cold—the cold of glaciers, of darkness that predated the sun. It seeped through my skin, into my blood, spreading through my chest like ink through water.
Images.
Snow falling. Endless, eternal, burying everything. The Wall—a ribbon of ice stretching across the horizon, impossibly massive. And beyond it, in the lands that had no name, blue eyes burning in the darkness. Thousands of them. Millions. An army that didn't breathe, didn't tire, didn't stop.
Winter's son.
The whisper came from everywhere and nowhere. From the tree. From the ground. From something vast and ancient that had watched the First Men cross the land bridge and would watch whatever came after humanity returned to dust.
Wake.
My hand came away.
Frost clung to my palm—actual ice crystals, forming patterns that might have been words in a language no throat could speak. My breath misted in air that shouldn't have been cold enough.
Grey Wind whined. His nose touched my hand, melting the frost with warm wolf-breath.
I stared at the water running down my wrist.
Ice magic. Dormant, they said. Not anymore.
The sensation lingered—that deep cold, coiled somewhere in my chest, waiting. Not power I could command. Not yet. But power that existed. Power that was mine, if I could learn to reach it.
Winter's son. What does that even mean?
Nymeria's howl echoed through the godswood—Arya must have found something interesting. The moment shattered. I was just Robb again, standing in dappled light with a wet hand and questions multiplying faster than answers.
But the cold remained.
Sleeping. Waiting.
Learning to wake.
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