The hour of the wolf had come.
Inside the Stark family solar, the candles had burned low, drowning in pools of melted wax. Lord Eddard Stark sat in the heavy oak chair, fully dressed in his riding leathers, a heavy fur cloak draped over his shoulders. His hands were clasped tightly together, resting on the pommel of Ice, the ancestral greatsword he had not unsheathed in years.
He was waiting for the castle to sleep.
The image of Serena's face in the Great Hall—humiliated, fearful, yet undeniably proud—had haunted him all day. The memory of Catelyn's cold, brittle smile had haunted him even more.
I must move them tonight, Ned thought, the anxiety gnawing at his gut like a starving rat.
A sharp knock on the door shattered his thoughts.
"Enter," Ned commanded, his voice rough.
Jory Cassel, the Captain of the Household Guard, stepped in. His face was grim, his usually calm demeanor replaced by a tight urgency. Snow was melting on his shoulders.
"My Lord," Jory said, not bothering with pleasantries. "The patrol just returned from the Winter Town."
Ned stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. "What is it?"
"A disturbance, My Lord. On the outskirts. Near the Wolfswood edge." Jory swallowed, hesitating for a fraction of a second. "The patrol heard a scream. A little girl's scream. And the sound of wood splintering."
The blood in Ned's veins turned to ice.
The Winter Town was quiet at night. A scream could mean a drunken brawl, a domestic dispute… or something far worse. And the location Jory described—the edge of the Wolfswood—was exactly where Serena's hut stood.
"Saddle the horses," Ned ordered, his voice low and dangerous. "Now, Jory. And bring the lantern bearers. Quietly."
"Already done, My Lord."
Ned swept past him, grabbing his gloves. A dark premonition, heavy and suffocating, settled over him. He remembered the look in Catelyn's eyes at breakfast. He remembered the whispered conversation with her maid.
No, Ned prayed to the Old Gods as he rushed down the stone spiral of the tower.
Please, no. Not this. I promised to keep them safe.
The ride to the Winter Town was a blur of shadows and wind.
Ned rode hard, his horse's hooves kicking up sprays of slush and mud. Six guards rode with him, their torches flickering violently in the gale. The town was asleep, dark and silent, indifferent to the Lord of Winterfell galloping through its muddy streets.
As they neared the edge of the town, the smell hit them first.
It wasn't the smell of woodsmoke. It was the copper tang of fresh blood.
"There!" Jory shouted, pointing his torch forward.
The small timber hut stood alone against the backdrop of the dark forest. The door was gone—shattered inward. Darkness poured out of the opening like a wound.
"Serena!" Ned roared, vaulting off his horse before it had even come to a full stop.
He drew his sword—not Ice, but a steel longsword—and rushed toward the hut. His heart was hammering against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of terror.
He burst through the broken doorway, Jory and two guards close behind him.
"Serena!"
The torchlight flooded the small room, illuminating a scene from a nightmare.
The furniture was overturned. Crockery lay shattered in the rushes. And in the center of the room, amidst a pool of dark, spreading crimson, lay the bodies.
Two men. Big men. They lay twisted in the unnatural angles of death. One had a kitchen knife buried to the hilt in the soft flesh behind his knee, his throat slit with a precision that spoke of an execution. The other lay with a skinning knife driven upward through his jaw, pinning his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
And there, in the corner, huddled against the wall, was Serena.
She was covered in blood—some hers, mostly theirs. Her beautiful red hair was matted and wild. She was rocking back and forth, clutching a lifeless body in her lap.
"Serena…" Ned breathed, the sword lowering in his hand.
He took a step forward, his boots squelching in the gore.
Serena didn't scream. She didn't look up. She just kept rocking, humming a tuneless, broken melody to the corpse of Torra. The older woman's gut was caved in, a brutal testament to the violence of the spiked mace that lay nearby.
To Serena's left sat the children.
Ned's breath hitched.
Yoriichi sat with his back straight, holding Lyra's hand. The boy's tunic was soaked in blood, his face splattered with red droplets. But he wasn't crying. He wasn't shaking. He was staring at the dead men with those unsettling, crimson eyes, his expression one of calm, detached observation. Lyra was silent, her face buried in Yoriichi's shoulder, trembling slightly but making no sound.
"By the Gods," Jory whispered, lowering his torch. "It looks like a battlefield."
One of the guards, a seasoned veteran named Hullen, knelt by the bodies of the intruders. He checked the man with the knife in his jaw.
"Torra," Hullen muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. "I knew her. She was Bear Island born. Tough as old leather. To take down two armed men with nothing but a skinning knife… she fought like a demon."
The guards murmured in agreement, a grim respect in their voices. They looked at the frail body of the old woman and saw a warrior.
Ned didn't correct them. He looked at Yoriichi. He saw the blood on the boy's hands—too much blood for just being a bystander. He saw the kitchen knife buried in the man's knee. A child couldn't have done that.
Or could he?
The thought was insane, so Ned pushed it away. It didn't matter who killed them. What mattered was that they were dead.
Ned sheathed his sword and walked slowly toward Serena. The floor was slippery. The air tasted of iron and death.
"Serena," he said softly, kneeling beside her.
She stopped rocking.
Slowly, painfully slowly, she turned her head.
Ned felt his heart break. The light was gone from her eyes. The warmth, the hope, the desperate love he had seen just this morning—it was all extinguished. In its place was a hollow, black void.
"My Lord," she whispered. Her voice was chillingly calm. It wasn't the voice of a lover. It was the voice of a stranger.
"I am so sorry," Ned choked out, reaching for her hand, but stopping when she flinched away. "I… I came as fast as I could. I should have been here. I should have protected you."
Serena looked at him. She looked at the Stark sigil on his chest—the Direwolf.
"You have a castle, My Lord," she said, her tone devoid of accusation, stating it like a simple fact. "You have walls. You have guards. Torra had a paring knife."
Ned flinched as if she had struck him. "I will get justice for you, Serena. I swear it. I will find who sent these men—"
"Justice?" Serena cut him off. A ghost of a smile, bitter and sharp as glass, touched her lips. "Is that what you call it? Burying the truth so your lady wife doesn't weep?"
Ned froze. The guards behind him shifted uncomfortably.