(a/n: hey in this chapter i messed up with the cardinal directions of things mostly because the map of beyond the wall i keep looking at was inverted so i apologize for that also i haven't watch the show in a minute and thought castle black was north of the wall or at least had some fortress on the other side. also i want it made clear that the eating humans and other stuff was jinx uncouniously choosing to eat it then draining the goddamn planet but becuase of that he bascily has to eat about twice the amount the moutain eats on a regualur bases with the fresher or more magiacal the target the longer he can go without eating. )
Winterfell had not known quiet since word arrived that Prince Rhaegar Targaryen intended to visit the North with his newly betrothed, Princess Elia Martell.
Servants crossed the inner yard carrying folded banners, polished silver, fresh rushes, and enough firewood to keep every hearth in the ancient castle burning through the royal party's stay. Stableboys scrubbed stalls that had already been scrubbed twice. Cooks shouted over one another in the kitchens while Lord Rickard Stark moved through it all like a commander preparing for siege, finding fault with details no one else would have noticed.
"That direwolf is hanging crooked," Rickard said as he stopped beneath the entrance to the great hall, his grey eyes narrowing at the enormous Stark banner suspended above the doors.
The steward standing beside him looked up at it, then cautiously tilted his head. "My lord, I believe it may be the wall behind it. The stones are uneven."
"The stones have been uneven for thousands of years. The banner has been hanging there since yesterday." Rickard folded his arms over his chest, somehow managing to look personally offended by both the banner and the ancient masonry. "Straighten it."
The steward opened his mouth, thought better of whatever he had intended to say, and hurried away to find a ladder.
Lady Xuehara Stark watched her husband from several paces away, one dark brow rising as another group of servants nearly collided while trying to obey three different instructions he had given them in the space of a minute.
Her name had been chosen to honor both halves of her blood. Xue came from her mother's homeland in Yi Ti, while Hara belonged to the old northern tongue of her father's family, though few outside Winterfell pronounced either portion correctly. Most settled for Lady Stark and quietly thanked the gods that she permitted them to.
Even wrapped in northern black leather and heavy fur, Xuehara carried herself with the effortless authority of the imperial court in which she had spent part of her childhood. Long black hair spilled freely across her shoulders, untouched by the grey that should have accompanied her age, while her pale, striking face remained beautiful enough to make visiting lords forget their intended words. There was softness in her when she looked at her children and steel in her whenever anyone threatened them.
Rickard received both more frequently than anyone else.
"The banner will still bear the direwolf whether it leans half an inch to the left or not," Xuehara told him as she stepped beside him, slipping her gloved hand around his forearm before he could discover another harmless imperfection. Her lips curved faintly when she felt the tension beneath his sleeve. "Prince Rhaegar is coming to meet the North, husband. He is not arriving to judge whether your servants have conquered the laws of stone and gravity."
"He is the heir to the Iron Throne," Rickard replied, though his gaze remained fixed upon the servants struggling to raise the ladder without striking the wall. "He will be accompanied by half the royal court, and Elia Martell will notice more than the prince does."
"Because she is a woman?"
"Because she is a Martell."
Xuehara's smile deepened. "A distinction I will be certain to share with her."
Rickard finally looked at his wife and immediately recognized the trap he had stepped into. "That was not what I meant."
"I know what you meant." She leaned closer, lowering her voice as a passing servant bowed and hurried by. "I also know that if you continue terrorizing the household, there will be no one left standing when the royal party arrives."
"I am not terrorizing anyone."
A crash echoed from the other side of the yard, followed by a muffled curse and the clatter of several shields falling from a rack.
Rickard closed his eyes.
Xuehara gave his arm a sympathetic squeeze that carried far too much amusement to be sincere. "Not intentionally."
Near the edge of the yard, Lyanna Stark watched her parents with her arms folded tightly across her chest.
She had been dressed for presentation rather than comfort, which meant her dark wool gown was embroidered, fitted, and completely unsuitable for climbing walls, riding horses, or doing anything remotely interesting. A serving woman had spent nearly an hour taming her hair only for the northern wind to pull several dark strands loose within minutes.
Lyanna had not complained aloud.
Her silence was considerably louder.
"You are scowling again," Benjen observed from beside her, his attention shifting between his sister and the three older boys occupying the training yard.
"I am not scowling." Lyanna's eyes remained fixed upon the wooden sword in Eddard's hands as he circled Brandon across the packed earth. "My face naturally looks this way when people insist on wasting my time."
Benjen glanced at her expression, then wisely returned his attention to the spar. "Mother said you were supposed to help prepare the guest chambers."
"I did help. I told them the chamber meant for Princess Elia smelled like dust."
"And then?"
"They told me to leave."
Benjen's mouth twitched, though he pressed his lips together before she caught him smiling.
Across the yard, Brandon attacked without warning.
His wooden sword swept low toward Eddard's knee before reversing midway through the strike and rising toward his ribs. Eddard turned just quickly enough to catch the blow, but Brandon used the impact to shove him backward, following with the aggressive confidence of someone larger, older, and entirely comfortable forcing his brother to react.
"Your feet are too slow," Brandon said as he drove Eddard across the yard, his grin widening when the younger twin barely deflected another blow. "The Vale made you soft."
"The Vale taught me not to charge at everything headfirst," Eddard replied through clenched teeth, lowering his shoulder when Brandon's next strike came from above. Their wooden blades cracked together hard enough to sting both their hands, but Eddard held his ground this time. "A lesson you appear determined to avoid."
Brandon laughed and stepped in close, trying to overpower him with raw strength. "Why learn caution when being better works just as well?"
Eddard's mouth tightened.
He released one hand from his sword, caught Brandon by the wrist, and twisted sharply while stepping behind his brother's lead leg. Brandon's confidence vanished one heartbeat before Eddard drove his shoulder into his chest and sent them both crashing into the dirt.
Benjen shouted in delight.
Lyanna forgot her silent protest entirely and surged forward until the serving woman standing behind her caught the back of her gown.
"Let go of me," Lyanna snapped, twisting sharply enough to pull the fabric taut across her shoulders. "They are finished. I am allowed to go now."
"You are allowed to remain clean, my lady," the woman replied with the exhausted patience of someone who had been assigned to Lyanna too often. "Your mother was quite clear."
"I can remain clean while holding a sword."
"That has never once happened."
In the yard, Brandon rolled Eddard onto his back, trapped one arm beneath his knee, and pressed the edge of his wooden blade against his younger brother thoat.
Yield," he said, breathing hard as sweat darkened the hair along his forehead.
Eddard stared up at him, equally breathless and considerably less amused. "You were thrown first."
"And yet I am the one holding the sword."
"You used your knee."
"I have two of them. It would be foolish not to."
Eddard's gaze shifted toward the training master, who pretended to be deeply interested in adjusting a leather glove.
"Yield," Brandon repeated, leaning more weight upon his brother's trapped arm while his grin became unbearable.
Eddard released a resigned breath. "I yield."
Brandon rose and offered him a hand, nearly pulling Eddard from the ground with one hard tug. Whatever rivalry lived between them vanished almost immediately once the spar ended. Brandon clapped him against the shoulder, laughing when Eddard rubbed the arm he had twisted during the fall.
"You have improved," Brandon admitted, though his tone made the compliment sound painfully reluctant. "Jon Arryn has not completely wasted Father's coin."
Eddard brushed dirt from his tunic, his eyes moving automatically across the yard.
Brandon noticed the shift. "What?"
"Where is Jinx?"
The question was spoken casually, but something beneath it caught Xuehara's attention even from across the courtyard.
She turned her head.
Brandon followed Eddard's gaze, searching among the servants, guards, and gathered household men. "Probably asleep somewhere."
"He was not in our chamber this morning," Eddard said, looking toward the covered walkway leading into the keep. "Nor last night."
That drew Benjen closer despite the serving woman still holding Lyanna back. "He might be in Mother's solar. He sleeps there sometimes when she is reading."
Xuehara had already begun walking toward them.
"He was not," she said, the calmness of her voice making all four children straighten. Her eyes settled on Eddard first. "When did you last see your brother?"
Eddard frowned as he tried to recall. "I returned yesterday afternoon. I thought he was avoiding the preparations."
"Jinx does not avoid you." Xuehara's gaze sharpened. "Not after you have been separated for years."
That was what had troubled Eddard without allowing him to name it.
He and Jinx had been separated by their father's decision, one sent to the Vale and the other to Dorne, but distance had never weakened whatever existed between them. When they were small, Jinx had slept more easily if Eddard remained nearby. Eddard had once broken the nose of a stableboy who mocked Jinx's appearance, and Jinx had responded by convincing the boy's three sisters that Eddard was secretly in love with all of them.
They fought, argued, and occasionally refused to speak for hours at a time.
Yet Eddard could not remember returning to Winterfell without Jinx finding him before the first evening ended.
Being in their ancestral home without his twin felt wrong. The castle was familiar, but one of its sounds had vanished, like a hearth burning without crackling.
"I assumed he was with Brandon," Eddard said, unease settling visibly across his face.
Brandon's earlier amusement disappeared. "I have not seen him."
Rickard had approached during the exchange, irritation from the preparations slowly giving way to concern. "He may be in the library. Luwin gave him access to several older maps last month."
"Jinx has been gone from Winterfell for weeks."
Lyanna's voice stopped them all.
The serving woman finally released her gown.
Xuehara turned toward her daughter with such sudden intensity that Lyanna's defiance faltered. "What did you say?"
Lyanna glanced between her parents, the anger she had carried all morning draining from her face. "I have not seen him since before Ned returned. I thought everyone knew."
"Known what?" Rickard asked, his voice becoming quieter rather than louder.
"That he left."
The yard seemed to continue moving around them, servants carrying banners, guards crossing beneath the towers, wooden practice swords striking in distant corners. Yet within the small circle formed by House Stark, everything became still.
Xuehara's hand slipped from Rickard's arm.
"How long?" she asked.
Lyanna looked toward Brandon, perhaps hoping her eldest brother knew more. He did not.
"I do not remember exactly," Lyanna admitted, her brows drawing together as she counted backward. "Several weeks. He left before the raven came about Prince Rhaegar."
Xuehara stared at her daughter.
Then she turned.
"SEARCH THE CASTLE!"
Her voice tore across the courtyard with enough force to silence every conversation.
Servants froze mid-step. The men struggling with the Stark banner nearly dropped it again. Even the horses tied near the stables lifted their heads.
Xuehara swept her gaze over the household, and whatever courtly elegance had softened her only moments earlier disappeared beneath the terror of a mother realizing one of her children had vanished while everyone around her remained unaware.
"Search every room, tower, cellar, stable, crypt, passage, tunnel, wagon, and abandoned chamber within these walls," she ordered as guards hurried toward her. Her black cloak shifted behind her with every sharp movement, while one hand closed unconsciously around the hilt of the sword at her hip. "Check beneath every bed, inside every chest large enough to hold him, and behind every false wall in this castle. Search the godswood, Winter Town, the glass gardens, and every road leading from the gates."
"My lady," the captain of the guard began, uncertainty tightening his face, "if Prince Jinx left several weeks ago, searching the castle may—"
Xuehara crossed the distance between them so quickly that the man recoiled.
"You will leave nothing unsearched," she said, her voice low enough that he had to lean closer despite every instinct warning him not to. "If my son has spent weeks injured beneath this castle while you stood above him polishing your sword, I will hang every man responsible from the outer walls and allow the crows to choose which of you dies first. Do you understand me?"
The captain swallowed. "Perfectly, my lady."
"Then move."
Winterfell erupted.
Men poured into every corner of the castle. Guards descended into cellars carrying torches, servants searched guest rooms and storage chambers, and stableboys were questioned until most could barely remember their own names. Riders were sent through Winter Town and along the nearest roads. The crypts were opened, though even Rickard hesitated before allowing armed men to disturb the resting place of the Kings of Winter.
Hours passed.
Nothing was found.
No one had seen Jinx leave through the main gates. His favored horse remained in its stall, and most of his clothing still rested inside the chamber he once shared with Eddard. Several books were missing from his shelves, along with a travelling cloak, a pair of boots, and the black leather pouch in which he carried his carving tools.
The absence of disorder frightened Xuehara more than any sign of struggle might have.
Jinx had planned to leave.
He had simply told almost no one.
By late afternoon, the entire Stark family had gathered in Rickard's solar. Xuehara had refused to sit. She paced between the hearth and the window, her hands opening and closing against the sides of her dark trousers while Rickard stood near his desk, enduring the full weight of her fear because he understood that some of it had already become anger.
"You sent him away once," she said, stopping so sharply that the hem of her cloak wrapped around her boots. "You separated him from Eddard, placed him beneath Dorne's sun, and trusted Oberyn Martell to teach him restraint."
Rickard's jaw tightened. "We have already agreed that was a mistake."
"A mistake?" Xuehara's laugh carried no humor as she advanced upon him. "Calling a blizzard rain is also a mistake. What you did was an act of madness performed with a lord's seal."
"This is not the time."
"It became the time the moment I learned my son had been missing beneath your roof for weeks."
"Our roof," Rickard corrected before wisdom reached him.
The room went silent.
Brandon slowly looked away. Benjen became fascinated by the grain of the table. Eddard closed his eyes as though he could already feel the consequences approaching.
Xuehara stepped directly in front of her husband.
Rickard Stark was not a small man, yet his wife somehow made him appear cornered.
"Our son," she whispered, her eyes shining with fury and fear, "is missing. Choose your next words with the care you should have shown when choosing where to send him."
Lyanna sat near the hearth, her knees drawn together beneath her gown as she watched her parents. Guilt had been eating at her since the search began, though she could not understand why. Jinx had spoken to her before leaving. She knew he had.
She pressed both hands against the sides of her head and forced herself to remember.
He had been carving something beside the godswood pool. She had been angry because he refused to let her see it. He had teased her about stealing one of Father's horses. Then he had said something—
Lyanna's head lifted.
"The Wall."
Every face turned toward her.
Xuehara crossed the room before Lyanna could rise, dropping to one knee in front of her daughter. "What about the Wall?"
Lyanna's breath caught at the desperation in her mother's face. "Jinx said he was going there. I thought he was jesting because he was lying beneath the heart tree and did not even have his boots on."
"When?" Rickard demanded as he came around the desk.
"Before he disappeared." Lyanna looked toward him, struggling to recall the exact conversation. "He said he had business beyond the Wall and that he should return within a week. He told me not to tell anyone because Father would object before hearing the reason."
Rickard looked as though he might object even now out of sheer principle.
Xuehara did not.
Her face emptied.
"Beyond the Wall," she repeated.
Eddard rose from his chair, worry sharpening into something colder. "He has been gone far longer than a week."
"I know how long he has been gone."
The words left Xuehara barely above a whisper.
Then she stood and turned toward Rickard so abruptly that he lifted both hands, expecting anger.
Instead, she seized him.
Her arms locked around his torso with enough force to drive the breath from his lungs. Rickard staggered backward against the desk as Xuehara buried her face against his chest, one hand fisting in the back of his tunic while her entire body trembled.
"He went into that frozen waste alone," she said, her voice breaking against him. "He hates walking between rooms, but he went beyond the Wall, and none of us noticed."
Rickard wrapped his arms around her, though his face tightened as her grip continued crushing his ribs. "Xuehara," he managed, one hand moving slowly across her back. "We do not know that he went alone."
"That is meant to comfort me?"
"No," Rickard admitted as she tightened her hold. "I merely need you to loosen your arms before you break something."
She did not appear to hear him.
Rickard exhaled painfully over her head, but he did not try to pull away. His eyes moved toward his children instead, carrying an apology he could not yet shape into words.
Running footsteps sounded beyond the solar.
The door opened without a knock.
Maester Luwin entered with his robes gathered in one hand and a sealed letter clutched tightly in the other. He was breathing harder than any of the Stark children had ever heard, his usually composed face drained of colour beneath the chain around his neck.
"My lord," Luwin said as he crossed the room, looking from Rickard to Xuehara and then toward the children gathered around them. "A raven has arrived from Castle Black."
Xuehara released her husband so suddenly that Rickard had to catch himself against the desk.
Her eyes fixed upon the black wax sealing the parchment.
"Give it to me."
Luwin hesitated.
It was only a heartbeat, but every Stark in the room saw it.
Xuehara's face changed.
"What happened to my son?" she asked, her voice becoming frighteningly quiet as she extended one trembling hand toward the letter. "Maester, do not make me ask you twice."
Maester Luwin's fingers tightened around the letter.
For all the years he had served Winterfell, he had delivered news of failed harvests, border disputes, sickness, broken betrothals, and men who would never return from war. He had stood beside sickbeds and beneath execution scaffolds. He had learned long ago how to speak dreadful truths without allowing fear to shape them into something worse.
None of that prepared him for the woman standing before him now.
Lady Xuehara Stark did not reach for the letter again. She merely watched him, her extended hand slowly lowering as she read the hesitation in his face.
Rickard came to stand beside her, though the faint strain in his breathing remained from the force of her embrace. "Speak plainly, Maester," he ordered, his eyes fixed upon the black seal. "Whatever is written there will not become less true because you delay it."
Luwin looked toward the children.
Brandon stood near the hearth with his shoulders squared, the easy confidence that usually filled his posture gone entirely. Eddard remained beside him, though his attention had narrowed upon the letter with an intensity that made him look far older than he had in the training yard. Benjen had shifted closer to Lyanna without seeming to realize it, while Lyanna clutched the folds of her gown in both fists.
Luwin swallowed.
"The letter was dictated by Maester Aemon and sent under the authority of Lord Commander Rodrik Umber," he began, speaking carefully as he broke the seal. "It confirms that Prince Jinx reached Castle Black several weeks ago. He then travelled beyond the Wall with a ranging party under the command of Harlon Flint."
Xuehara closed her eyes for a single heartbeat.
"He did not go alone," Rickard said quietly, reaching for the thin comfort before it vanished. "At least he had trained men with him."
Luwin did not answer.
The silence drew Xuehara's eyes open again.
"What purpose?" she asked.
"The letter does not say with certainty." Luwin glanced down at the parchment, though he had already read the words enough times to remember them. "The Watch appears not to have understood the full nature of his search when the ranging began. According to the only man who returned, Prince Jinx led them toward the Milkwater in pursuit of something lost beneath the river."
Eddard's brow tightened. "What could be beneath the Milkwater that he would cross the Wall to find?"
Luwin hesitated once more.
"Dark Sister."
The name fell into the room like steel striking stone.
Rickard's expression changed first. Confusion gave way to disbelief, then to the cautious recognition of a man who understood precisely what that name meant but could not accept hearing it in connection with his son.
Brandon looked between them. "The Targaryen sword?"
"Yes," Luwin said, his voice quieter now. "The Valyrian steel blade once carried by Visenya Targaryen, Prince Daemon, and later Brynden Rivers. The survivor claims they recovered it from the bottom of the river."
Rickard took the letter from Luwin's hands and scanned it himself, his gaze moving rapidly over the page. "Dark Sister vanished beyond the Wall with Bloodraven," he muttered, disbelief roughening his voice. "There were stories, but no proof it survived. How did Jinx even learn where to search?"
"The Lord Commander does not know."
Eddard stepped forward. "Who survived?"
"A young brother named Torrhen Woods."
"Then bring him here," Xuehara said immediately, every word sharpened by rising urgency. "Send riders to Castle Black and bring him to Winterfell. I will hear what happened from his own mouth."
"That may not yet be possible, my lady." Luwin's gaze dropped briefly before returning to her. "Torrhen reached the Wall after three days alone in the Haunted Forest. He was suffering from exposure, blood loss, and exhaustion. He remains unconscious under Maester Aemon's care."
Xuehara stared at him.
"Three days alone," she repeated. "Where were the others?"
Luwin felt the letter become impossibly heavy in Rickard's hand.
He could have softened the answer. He could have spoken first of the missing search parties or the reports from Craster's Keep. He might have called the account confused, incomplete, or the result of fever.
Lady Xuehara had already seen his reluctance, however. Anything less than the truth would only turn fear into something larger.
"The rest of the ranging party is believed dead."
Lyanna released a small breath that sounded more like a wounded animal than a child.
Eddard did not move.
For one suspended moment, relief crossed his face before guilt strangled it. Jinx had not been named among the dead. That should have been hope. Instead, something in Luwin's expression made Eddard afraid of what remained unsaid.
Brandon stepped closer to his mother. "Believed dead by whom? They may be scattered or captured."
"The Watch has sent several parties to search for them," Luwin said. "None have returned."
Rickard lowered the parchment slowly.
Xuehara's attention remained entirely upon the maester. "And Jinx?"
No one moved.
Luwin's mouth had gone dry.
"He is missing."
"Missing is not dead."
"No, my lady."
"Then why do you look as though you are about to bury him?"
The question came softly, but the force beneath it struck harder than any shout. Xuehara crossed the small distance between them, her face composed even as one hand trembled at her side.
"Tell me what the survivor said."
Rickard looked down at the letter again. His eyes stopped upon a particular line.
The colour left his face.
"Xuehara," he said, reaching for her arm.
She tore her gaze from Luwin and looked toward her husband. "What?"
Rickard did not answer.
He had faced northern winters that killed entire villages. He had condemned men to death and watched the sentence carried out. Yet the words before him refused to become something he could speak to his wife.
Xuehara's eyes dropped toward the parchment.
Rickard folded it before she could read.
Her expression hardened. "Give me the letter."
"Not in front of the children."
Brandon stiffened. "We are not children."
"You will be silent," Rickard snapped, though the anger was aimed at nothing Brandon had done.
Xuehara held out her hand.
"Give it to me."
Rickard met her eyes. The fear there nearly broke his resolve, but he still closed his fist around the parchment. "Luwin will explain."
"I am not asking Luwin."
"Mother," Eddard said, his voice barely audible, "please."
Xuehara turned toward him.
Eddard's restraint had begun to crack. His hands were clenched at his sides, and the pale uncertainty in his face mirrored something from years earlier, when he and Jinx had been young enough to believe that remaining within Winterfell's walls meant nothing truly terrible could reach them.
Xuehara looked back at Luwin.
"Speak."
Luwin breathed in through his nose.
"The boy's account was fragmented," he said. "He was near death when Lord Commander Umber found him. Maester Aemon believes exhaustion and terror may have affected his memory, and the Watch has not yet been able to question him properly."
"That was not what I asked."
"No, my lady."
Luwin lowered his eyes.
"Torrhen Woods said the party found Dark Sister. Shortly afterward, something happened to Prince Jinx. His eyes changed. He became violent."
Xuehara went still.
Brandon's jaw tightened. "Violent how?"
Luwin could not look at him.
"He attacked the brothers of the Watch."
"Jinx would not do that," Eddard said immediately.
The certainty in his voice was so absolute that no one answered at first.
"He would not," Eddard repeated, stepping forward as though distance from the maester might somehow have caused him to hear incorrectly. "Not without reason. He complains, he lies when it amuses him, and he has threatened to poison Brandon more times than I can count, but he would not slaughter men who followed him beyond the Wall."
Brandon glanced at him, but this was not the time to dispute the poisoning.
Luwin's expression tightened with sympathy. "I can only tell you what was reported."
"Then report all of it," Xuehara said.
Rickard moved closer to her. "Enough."
"No." Her eyes never left Luwin. "I know my son. I know what hunger looks like when it touches him, and I know what he becomes when he hides pain from everyone around him. I will not stand here while the two of you decide which truth I am permitted to survive. Tell me exactly what the boy said."
The room fell silent around her.
Luwin finally raised his eyes.
"He said Prince Jinx killed Harlon Flint and the entire ranging party."
Lyanna's fingers slipped from her gown.
Benjen caught her elbow before she stumbled, but his own face had gone pale.
Brandon shook his head once. "No."
Luwin continued because stopping now would only make it crueler.
"He said Jinx pursued him through the forest. The boy escaped with a wound along his ribs, apparently made by Dark Sister."
Eddard's lips parted, but nothing emerged.
His mind caught upon the image of his twin carrying that sword. Jinx laughing beneath the heart tree. Jinx asleep across the foot of their childhood bed because he claimed his own side had become uncomfortably warm. Jinx threatening to stab Brandon over the final honey cake and then giving half of it to Lyanna.
Those memories would not fit beside Luwin's words.
They refused to belong to the same person.
Xuehara's face remained unnaturally calm. "You said he killed them."
Luwin nodded.
"What else?"
Rickard seized her hand. "You do not need—"
She ripped it free.
"What else did Torrhen say?"
Luwin's throat worked.
"He said Jinx ate them."
Nothing moved after that.
The flames within the hearth cracked, a log splitting beneath its own weight, but even that small sound seemed far away.
Lyanna stared at the maester as though the sentence had been spoken in a language she did not understand. Benjen's hand remained locked around her arm, his fingers digging into the fabric without either of them noticing.
Brandon's face twisted first with horror, then with anger.
"That is a lie," he said, taking one hard step toward Luwin. "Some half-frozen criminal crawls out of the forest raving about monsters, and the Watch decides to place our brother among them?"
"Brandon," Rickard warned.
"No." Brandon struck one fist against the table, rattling the cups resting upon it. "Jinx is a lazy fool with no understanding of shame, but he is still our brother. He does not eat men."
Eddard said nothing.
That frightened Xuehara more than Brandon's shouting.
Her younger twin stood motionless near the hearth, staring at the floor while his breathing became slower and deeper. He knew things about Jinx that the rest of them did not. Not everything—Jinx had always possessed rooms inside himself that even Eddard could not enter—but enough to recognize that the accusation was not entirely impossible.
Jinx's appetite had never been ordinary.
There had been servants' animals found dead near Winterfell during his childhood, untouched except for strange wounds that no wolf or shadowcat had left. Once, when they were eight, Eddard had awakened to find Jinx sitting beside the window with blood across his lips. Jinx claimed he had bitten his tongue.
Eddard had believed him because twins were supposed to believe one another.
Now he could not remember whether there had been feathers caught in Jinx's sleeve.
Xuehara saw something pass across his face.
She crossed the room and seized him by both shoulders. "Eddard."
He lifted his eyes reluctantly.
"What do you know?"
"Nothing."
"You are lying."
Eddard flinched.
She tightened her hands, though the gesture was desperate rather than cruel. "He spoke to you when he would speak to no one else. He slept beside you when the hunger became bad. What do you know?"
Rickard's head turned sharply. "What hunger?"
Xuehara froze.
The question passed through her anger and struck something much older.
She slowly looked toward her husband.
"You truly never noticed."
Rickard stared at her. "Noticed what?"
A bitter sound escaped her, somewhere between laughter and disbelief. "Of course you did not. You were too busy deciding which corner of the world would make him less embarrassing."
"Xuehara."
"Our son has been hungry since the day he was born."
The fury left her voice as quickly as it had arrived. What remained was fear.
"He would nurse until blood came," she continued, her hands falling from Eddard's shoulders. "When he grew older, ordinary food satisfied him for less and less time. He learned to conceal it because it frightened the servants—and because you looked at him as though every strange thing he did proved some failure in him."
Rickard absorbed the accusation without defending himself.
Luwin watched Lady Stark closely. "My lady, are you saying Prince Jinx has consumed human flesh before?"
Xuehara's eyes flashed toward him. "I am saying my son has spent his entire life fighting something none of you cared enough to see."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you will receive while he remains lost beyond the Wall."
She turned away, one hand pressing briefly against her mouth as she struggled to breathe through the panic closing around her chest.
Eddard moved first.
He stepped beside his mother and took her wrist gently, using the same quiet touch Jinx had once used whenever her temper rose high enough to frighten the household. She looked down at his hand, then toward his face, and something in her broke.
"He should have come to me," she whispered.
"He may not have understood what was happening," Eddard said, though his own voice trembled. "He may still not."
"Or he understood and believed I would stop him."
Xuehara glanced toward Lyanna.
Her daughter stood rigid near the hearth, guilt spreading across her young face.
"I should have told you," Lyanna whispered. "When he said he was going to the Wall, I should have—"
Xuehara crossed the room before she finished.
Lyanna braced for anger, but her mother pulled her into her arms instead, holding her so tightly that the girl's face disappeared against black fur.
"No," Xuehara said, pressing one hand protectively against the back of Lyanna's head. "This is not yours to carry. Your brother asked you to keep his confidence because he knew you loved him. The adults in this castle were the ones who failed to notice he was gone."
Rickard closed his eyes at that.
Brandon's anger had not vanished, but it no longer knew where to turn. He stared at the sealed windows, his jaw working as though he wanted to challenge the forest itself.
"What else was in the letter?" he asked.
Rickard unfolded the parchment again, though his hands were no longer entirely steady.
"Hundreds of wildling bodies have been found near Craster's Keep," he said. "Many show evidence of being cut by an extraordinarily sharp blade."
"Dark Sister," Eddard murmured.
Rickard nodded.
"Some were… partially consumed. The Watch has also observed large sections of the Haunted Forest dying. The decay is moving toward the Wall."
Xuehara released Lyanna slowly.
"How close?"
"Close enough to see from the top."
The answer transformed her.
Fear remained, but it no longer ruled her. Her posture straightened, and the imperial steel inherited from her mother settled across her features. She looked less like a frightened wife of Winterfell and more like the elder blood of Yi Ti had stepped forward through her skin.
"Prepare horses," she said.
Rickard stared at her. "No."
"I was not asking."
"You will not ride beyond the Wall after something that has killed dozens of trained men."
"My son is beyond the Wall."
"And if he is responsible for what this letter describes, then you approaching him may place you in more danger than anyone else."
Xuehara crossed the room until only a breath separated them. "You believe that would stop me?"
"I know it will not." Rickard held her gaze, grief and stubbornness meeting between them. "That is why I am refusing before you have time to gather an escort."
"You have refused me before, husband. Our children paid the price."
The words landed cleanly.
Rickard's face tightened, but he did not step away. "Then I will pay it now. I will ride north."
"No," Eddard said.
Both parents turned toward him.
He stood straighter despite the pallor in his face. "I am going."
"You are not," Rickard replied immediately.
"He is my twin."
"You are my son."
"So is Jinx."
The room tightened once more.
Eddard's voice did not rise, but emotion had stripped away the reserved courtesy Jon Arryn had taught him. "He will recognize me. Even if he recognizes no one else, he will know me."
Xuehara stared at him, and the terrible truth was that she believed the same thing.
Brandon stepped beside his brother. "Then you will not go alone."
"Neither of you is leaving Winterfell," Rickard said, his authority hardening in response to the united front forming before him. "A royal party is expected within days, and until we understand what has happened—"
"Fuck the royal party," Xuehara said.
Luwin lowered his eyes.
Benjen stared at his mother in open admiration.
Rickard released a long breath through his nose. "Prince Rhaegar is the heir to the Iron Throne."
"And Jinx is our child."
Xuehara took the letter from his hand. This time, Rickard allowed it.
She read the words herself, her eyes moving across each line without flinching, though her fingers tightened when she reached Torrhen's account. When she finished, she folded the parchment with slow, exact care and pressed it against her chest.
"Send a raven to the Wall," she told Luwin. "Tell Lord Commander Umber that House Stark has received his warning. Tell him to bar the gates, keep every man south of the forest, and make no attempt to kill Jinx unless the Wall itself is breached."
Luwin hesitated. "My lady, the Lord Commander may not accept orders restricting the defence of his own men."
"Then tell him the woman who gave birth to the creature approaching his Wall knows more about it than he does."
The room fell quiet again.
Xuehara looked toward Rickard.
"And send another raven to Prince Rhaegar," she continued. "His visit to Winterfell is delayed."
Rickard's brows drew together. "You cannot delay the Crown Prince."
"Watch me."
Castle Black had not slept properly in six days.
The brothers still went through the motions of ordinary life. Stewards carried meals between the towers, builders inspected the winches, and rangers changed shifts atop the Wall according to schedule, but every task was performed with one ear turned north. Men who had once complained about the monotony of guard duty now flinched at branches snapping beyond the tunnel's northern gate. Those assigned to the top of the Wall stood with bows already strung and quarrels laid within easy reach, though none of them believed ordinary arrows would matter against whatever was moving through the Haunted Forest.
Lord Commander Rodrik Umber stood upon the Wall beneath a sky the colour of old iron, one gloved hand resting against the ice battlement as he stared north.
From seven hundred feet above the ground, he should have seen an endless sea of green and white. The Haunted Forest had stretched beyond sight for longer than the Watch possessed written memory, ancient pines packed together beneath heavy snow, broken only by frozen streams, hills, and the narrow trails used by wildlings and ranging parties.
Now most of what Rodrik could see was grey.
The death had spread across the forest in great uneven swaths. Trees stood stripped of needles, their bark blackened and split from root to crown. Snow had melted around some of them despite the cold, revealing dark earth carpeted in dead moss, shrivelled grass, and the pale bodies of animals too slow to escape. The path did not move in a straight line toward the Wall. It wandered, doubled back, widened, and narrowed as though the thing creating it followed whatever living presence caught its attention.
At times, the forest itself seemed to breathe.
A flock of birds would burst from the canopy miles away, scattering into the sky in a black cloud. Moments later, screams would rise from beneath the trees.
Men screamed differently from beasts. Rodrik had heard enough of both to know the distinction.
The animals cried sharply and briefly. A horse might shriek until the sound ended with brutal suddenness. Wolves snarled, yelped, then went silent. Men lasted longer. Their voices broke around prayers, pleas, warnings, and the names of people who would never hear them.
Sometimes there was laughter among the screams.
Sometimes there was only howling.
The howl had changed over the past several nights. It had once carried the recognizable shape of a human throat twisted into something animalistic. Now it rolled through the forest with enough weight to tremble through the Wall's upper platforms. It began low, almost beneath hearing, then rose into a long, fractured cry filled with hunger, anguish, and something so ancient that men found themselves looking toward the sky rather than the trees.
Rodrik had watched seasoned rangers weep after hearing it.
Two days earlier, the spreading decay had come within sight of the tunnel's northern entrance.
Castle Black itself stood safely south of the Wall, but the tunnel bored through the ancient ice and opened onto the Haunted Forest. That northern gate was the only direct path beneath the Wall into the castle's yard. If whatever hunted beyond the ice reached it and understood what it had found, there would be nothing between it and the Seven Kingdoms except layers of iron, timber, and frightened men.
Rodrik had spent most of his life believing the tunnel could hold against anything short of an army.
He no longer believed that.
The dead stretch of forest had drawn closer throughout that morning. By midday, grey branches were visible from the men stationed at the northern gate. The horses stabled south of the Wall became impossible to calm, kicking through stall doors and biting anyone who approached. Then the brothers guarding the tunnel heard something moving beyond the outer bars.
Not footsteps.
Breathing.
Slow, wet breaths drifting from somewhere between the dead trees, followed by the scrape of steel against frozen ground.
No one saw Jinx Stark.
That had somehow made it worse.
Rodrik had stood within the tunnel with thirty armed brothers behind him, staring through the layered gates toward the northern light. He could smell decay rolling in from the forest. Frost along the outer iron bars softened and ran in thin streams despite the air being cold enough to freeze exposed skin.
Then a growl had echoed from beyond the trees.
The men behind Rodrik tightened their grips upon their weapons.
One whispered the old gods' names.
Another began praying to the Seven.
Rodrik had understood in that moment that the gates would not hold. Perhaps they would slow the thing down. Perhaps enough arrows, dragonglass, burning pitch, and ordinary steel might injure it. Yet every report suggested that whatever remained of Jinx Stark had killed scores of wildlings, dozens of black brothers, and entire hunting parties without suffering enough harm to stop moving.
So Rodrik Umber made the most shameful decision of his long service to the Watch.
He offered four men to the forest.
They volunteered only after he explained what he required, though the distinction brought him little comfort. The four brothers were given the healthiest horses in Castle Black, dried meat, full waterskins, two ravens, and every weapon they could carry without slowing themselves. Their orders were simple: ride through the tunnel, draw whatever was approaching away from the northern gate, and survive long enough to lead it west.
Rodrik had not lied to them.
He had only failed to tell them that he did not expect any of them to return.
The eldest was Martyn Slate, a ranger with twenty-three years at the Wall and two daughters somewhere near Barrowton who believed their father had died long ago. The others were Olyvar Pyne, Donnel Lake, and a quiet young poacher called Cregan Marsh who had joined the Watch rather than lose a hand.
They waited before the inner gate mounted and armed while the mechanisms groaned overhead.
Martyn looked down at Rodrik from his saddle, his grey beard moving in the cold wind pouring through the tunnel. "When this works," he said, forcing a crooked smile as his horse trembled beneath him, "you are putting my name somewhere respectable."
Rodrik kept one hand against the horse's neck, feeling the animal's pulse hammer beneath its skin. "I will have it carved above the privy."
Martyn's laugh came rougher than usual, but it was real. He leaned down and clasped Rodrik's forearm, gripping hard enough that neither man could pretend the gesture was casual.
"You always were a sentimental bastard," Martyn murmured, keeping his eyes locked on the Lord Commander as the outer machinery began to move. "Try not to waste the time we buy."
Rodrik squeezed his arm once before releasing him. "Ride west until it follows. Then ride south if you can find a path. Send a raven the moment you gain enough distance."
"And if it does not follow?"
Rodrik looked past him toward the pale light spilling through the opening gates.
"Make it angry."
Martyn studied his face, then nodded.
The northern gate opened.
All four riders charged into the Haunted Forest while the men inside the tunnel slammed the bars closed behind them.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
Then shouts rose from the riders somewhere among the trees. Steel rang against steel. One of the men began screaming insults so obscene that even the brothers listening from the tunnel looked at one another in disbelief.
A howl answered.
The sound struck the Wall hard enough to shake loose fragments of ice from the tunnel ceiling.
The decay stopped moving toward the gate.
Then, slowly, it turned west.
From atop the Wall, Rodrik watched the grey path bend after the riders. Trees began dying in a new direction, the darkness pushing sideways through the Haunted Forest rather than south toward the tunnel. The brothers stationed around him shouted in relief when it became clear the diversion had worked.
Rodrik did not join them.
He watched the path of death follow his four men until distance and gathering snow concealed it.
For the next two days, the forest continued dying westward.
No horses returned, but neither did the decay turn back toward the Wall. Once, on the first evening, a raven arrived with blood across one wing and a strip of parchment tied to its leg.
Still following. Olyvar wounded. Heading west.
The message contained no signature. Rodrik recognized Martyn's ugly handwriting anyway.
A second raven arrived near dawn the following day.
It carried only four words.
Three remain. Still alive.
Rodrik read the message twice before folding it carefully and placing it inside his coat.
No third raven came.
Yet the withering continued moving away, and for every hour it travelled west, Castle Black remained untouched. The four men had stayed alive long enough to drag the horror behind them, whether through speed, skill, or sheer refusal to die before their brothers were safe.
Rodrik spent the second evening atop the Wall, watching the distant decay crawl beneath the fading light. He had not slept since sending them out. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Martyn waiting before the northern gate and heard him ask not to waste the time they bought.
Near midnight, footsteps approached along the icy platform.
Maester Aemon came slowly with a steward guiding him by the arm. The old man's black robes snapped in the wind, his face composed despite the cold, while the young steward beside him clutched a rolled parchment protected beneath his cloak.
Rodrik did not turn immediately. "You should not be up here."
"Neither should you, judging by the exhaustion in your voice," Aemon replied as the steward guided him nearer the battlement. One pale hand reached forward until it found the ice. "Yet here we both are, behaving unwisely for reasons that seem important."
Rodrik grunted, but some of the tension in his shoulders eased at the familiar dryness in the maester's tone. "Has Torrhen woken?"
"No." Aemon angled his face toward the north, listening to a distant scream rising from somewhere beyond the dead forest. His expression tightened almost imperceptibly. "His body continues to strengthen. His mind remains beyond my reach."
"Then why climb seven hundred feet in the middle of the night?"
The steward stepped forward and offered the rolled parchment.
"A raven arrived from Winterfell," Aemon said, his voice becoming quieter beneath the wind. "Lord Rickard has received our warning."
Rodrik took the letter.
For a moment, he merely stared at the direwolf seal pressed into the dark wax. He had spent the past week awaiting this response, yet now that it rested in his hand, he found himself reluctant to open it. Jinx Stark might be a monster stalking the Haunted Forest, but he was also Rickard Stark's son. Whatever order had been written within the parchment would carry the weight of a father deciding what must be done to his own blood.
Rodrik broke the seal with his thumb.
The letter had been composed by Maester Luwin but bore additions in more than one hand. Rickard Stark's words were formal, measured, and painfully restrained. House Stark acknowledged the deaths, the vanished ranging parties, and the threat approaching the Wall. Men, horses, healers, food, lamp oil, dragonglass, and weapons were being prepared at Winterfell.
Rodrik read further.
His brow drew together.
"What does it say?" Aemon asked when the silence stretched too long.
Rodrik looked up from the parchment. "Lord Stark orders us to bar the tunnel and keep all men south of the forest."
"That seems reasonable."
"He also commands that no further hunting parties be sent after Jinx."
Aemon's fingers tightened faintly against the ice battlement. "I suspected Lady Stark would insist upon that."
"She did more than insist." Rodrik turned the parchment, reading the section again. The handwriting changed halfway down the page, becoming elegant but pressed so deeply into the parchment that the quill had nearly torn through it. "This portion is hers."
The Lord Commander read aloud, his voice roughened by cold and disbelief.
"'Whatever walks beneath my son's face is driven by hunger, not conquest. Do not feed it frightened men one group at a time and call their deaths a defence. Close the northern gate, remove every living animal from the tunnel, and make no attempt to surround him. If Jinx reaches the Wall, no one is to touch him unless he attacks first.'"
Rodrik paused and glanced toward the distant path of death.
Aemon waited.
"There is more," Rodrik muttered before continuing. "'Should any man raise steel against my son before I arrive, I will regard his death as the consequence of his own stupidity rather than an offence against the Watch.'"
The steward beside Aemon stared at the ice beneath his boots, wisely concealing any reaction.
Rodrik released a low, humourless sound. "She has a tender way with words."
"She is frightened," Aemon said softly. "Fear often wears anger when a person believes tenderness will make them helpless."
Rodrik folded the letter once, though he did not return it to the steward. "Rickard says he is riding north with men from Winterfell. Eddard and Brandon intend to accompany him."
"Both sons?"
"Apparently Lady Stark intends to come as well."
Aemon's brows rose. "I doubt Lord Rickard agreed to that willingly."
"The letter contains a sentence stating that he has accepted the futility of arguing with his wife. I suspect Maester Luwin included it for our benefit."
Aemon's mouth almost curved before the distant howl returned.
The sound rolled in from the west, weaker with distance but no less terrible. It rose through the forest and lingered against the Wall, carrying something beneath its rage that Rodrik had begun to recognize.
Pain.
The Lord Commander stared toward the dying trees until the sound faded.
"There is something else in the letter," he said.
Aemon turned his head toward him.
"Lady Stark claims Jinx has suffered from an unnatural hunger since infancy. She believes whatever happened at the Milkwater stripped away his control." Rodrik unfolded the parchment again, his eyes narrowing over the final lines. "She says ordinary food will not stop him once he reaches this state."
"What will?"
"She does not say clearly." Rodrik's jaw hardened. "Only that we must not allow him near large groups of men."
The steward shifted uneasily. "There are hundreds of men at Castle Black."
Rodrik looked down toward the dark collection of towers, stables, barracks, kitchens, and courtyards south of the Wall.
Hundreds of heartbeats. Hundreds of warm bodies gathered beneath the ice.
"I am aware."
Aemon remained silent for a time, listening to the wind.
"Lord Commander," he eventually said, his voice careful, "the four men you sent west—have they drawn Jinx away?"
"For now."
"And when he catches them?"
Rodrik's hand tightened around the letter until the parchment crackled.
The question had haunted him since the northern gate closed.
"The path may turn back," he admitted. "Or he may continue west in search of something else alive."
"Then we must prepare for both."
Rodrik looked toward him. "I already ordered pitch and dragonglass moved to the tunnel."
"I did not mean only weapons."
Aemon's pale, sightless eyes remained fixed toward the forest.
"If Lady Stark is correct, aggression may worsen his condition. The boy who found Dark Sister survived despite being pursued for three days. That suggests some portion of Jinx remained capable of restraint."
Rodrik remembered Torrhen's shallow wound. Dark Sister could have opened the boy from spine to belly. Instead, it had barely cut through flesh.
"He spared one," Rodrik said.
"Perhaps." Aemon's fingers moved slowly over the battlement. "Or fought himself long enough for one to escape."
Another scream rose in the distance.
This one ended quickly.
Rodrik stared west as a cluster of trees darkened beneath the moonlight, their branches curling inward while the decay moved around them. For the first time in hours, the path stopped.
The Lord Commander's breathing slowed.
"Aemon."
The old maester heard the change in his voice. "What is it?"
"It has stopped moving west."
The steward looked north, his face draining of colour.
For several heartbeats, nothing changed. The dead path remained distant, a black wound spread across the Haunted Forest beneath the night sky.
Then the trees began dying toward the south.
Back toward the Wall.
Rodrik unfolded the letter in his fist and read the final line written in Lady Xuehara Stark's hand.
Keep him away from the tunnel until I reach my son.
The first horn sounded from the western watchtower.
Men below began shouting.
Rodrik watched the decay turn fully toward Castle Black as the howl came again, closer than it had been moments before.
Martyn Slate and the others had bought them two days.
Their time had run out.