The old gods did not seem inclined to grant Winterfell the hour it had asked for.
Far to the north, Lord Commander Rodrik Umber stood atop the Wall and watched the last mile of living forest begin to die.
The Haunted Forest had once stretched almost to the base of the Wall, but the trees nearest Castle Black had been cut back generations ago, leaving a broad stretch of frozen no-man's-land between the forest's edge and the tunnel's northern entrance. Nothing moved across that open ground without being seen from above. Wildling raiders could not cross it unseen, and no army could approach the gate without exposing itself to every bow stationed upon the ice.
Rodrik had always considered that empty mile a comfort.
Now it looked pitifully small.
The line of decay had already reached the outer edge of the forest. Pines blackened one after another beneath the grey daylight, their needles falling in sudden showers as though years of rot passed through them in heartbeats. Bark split down the length of ancient trunks. Snow surrounding the roots turned dark and wet, exposing earth that writhed briefly with dying insects before becoming still.
The corruption did not spread evenly.
It crawled.
At times, one narrow path pushed forward through the trees before stopping as another section withered farther east. The movement reminded Rodrik of a starving animal catching scents upon the wind, wandering between them while deciding which one to pursue.
The northern tunnel stood directly ahead of it.
A mile of open ground.
Then iron gates.
Then the tunnel beneath the Wall.
Then Castle Black and the rest of the Seven Kingdoms beyond it.
Rodrik stared until his eyes began to burn from the wind.
He could hear screams beneath the trees.
Some belonged to men. Others came from animals driven from their dens by the approaching death. A herd of elk burst through the tree line far to the west, scrambling into the open field before several collapsed without any wound Rodrik could see. The survivors continued south until the Wall stopped them, scattering along its base in blind terror.
Something howled from deeper inside the forest.
The sound carried across the dead trees and struck the Wall with enough force to set loose snow sliding from the battlements.
A young ranger standing several paces behind Rodrik crossed himself according to the Faith of the Seven before remembering where he was and lowering his hand in embarrassment. Rodrik said nothing. If the boy believed the southern gods might hear him from atop the Wall, there was no cruelty in allowing him to try.
"How long?" Rodrik asked.
The ranger swallowed, forcing his eyes back toward the forest. "At its current pace, Lord Commander?"
"At the current pace."
"Before nightfall."
Rodrik released a slow breath through his nose.
The cold should have turned it white. It barely showed.
He rested both hands against the ice battlement and bowed his head. Martyn Slate and the other riders had bought them two days. More time than Rodrik had dared hope for, and less than Castle Black needed. The reply from Winterfell had arrived, but House Stark was still leagues away. Even riding hard, they could not reach the Wall before whatever stalked the Haunted Forest reached the tunnel.
He had spent those two days reinforcing the gates.
Every iron bar had been inspected. Timber and stone had been stacked within the tunnel, along with barrels of pitch and carts prepared to be overturned as barricades. Archers had been assigned to firing positions on both sides of the Wall, while builders readied the winches and murder holes.
It would not be enough.
Rodrik knew it.
The men knew it too, no matter how carefully they avoided saying so.
He straightened and looked south, down the sheer face of the Wall toward Castle Black. Brothers moved through the yard in restless clusters, carrying weapons, provisions, and wounded men between towers. From seven hundred feet above, they appeared small enough that Rodrik could cover them beneath one hand.
All of them had sworn the same words.
I am the watcher on the walls.
None had sworn to become food for a starving prince.
Rodrik turned toward the young ranger. "Send word below."
The boy straightened. "What order, Lord Commander?"
"Every bell in Castle Black is to be rung. All brothers assemble in the main yard immediately—rangers, builders, stewards, cooks, stableboys, cripples, old men. Every living man wearing black."
The ranger hesitated, understanding enough to become pale. "Is this the final defence?"
Rodrik looked north one last time.
"No," he said, though the word tasted like blood. "This is the retreat."
The bells began before he reached the lift.
Their iron voices rolled across Castle Black, one after another, summoning men from the armory, the barracks, the kitchens, the stables, the towers, and the Wall itself. Brothers abandoned meals half-eaten and arguments unfinished. Men arrived wearing mail over sleeping clothes, carrying tools instead of weapons because there had been no time to exchange them.
By the time Rodrik entered the yard, nearly the entire Watch had gathered.
They filled the open space between the King's Tower and the armory, dark cloaks pressed shoulder to shoulder beneath the falling snow. Rangers stood beside builders who had spent decades repairing the Wall. Highborn knights crowded among poachers, murderers, rapers, debtors, thieves, unwanted sons, and boys who had been given the choice between black cloth and a noose.
Fear had erased most distinctions between them.
Maester Aemon stood near the front with one hand resting upon a steward's arm. Torrhen Woods remained in the infirmary, still unconscious, while several wounded brothers waited nearby on stretchers and crutches. Those too weak to stand had insisted on being carried outside to hear whatever the Lord Commander intended to say.
Rodrik climbed onto the stone steps before the armory.
He did not bring a parchment.
He did not bring a herald.
His sword hung at his side, and the black cloak of his office moved heavily around his broad body as the wind blew through the yard.
The bells stopped.
Silence followed.
Rodrik looked over the men who had entrusted him with their lives, though many had never liked him enough to admit it.
"I will not lie to you," he began.
His voice carried through the courtyard without needing to become a shout.
"The thing moving through the Haunted Forest is one mile from the northern clearing. It will reach open ground before nightfall, perhaps sooner. We have reinforced the tunnel. We have gathered pitch, steel, dragonglass, and every weapon Castle Black possesses."
He paused, watching men stiffen around one another.
"It may not matter."
A low murmur moved through the gathering.
Rodrik allowed it.
He would not offer false confidence when half the men had already watched entire ranging parties disappear. Hope built upon lies shattered the moment steel met flesh.
"The brothers we sent west are dead," Rodrik continued, and the murmur faded. "Martyn Slate, Olyvar Pyne, Donnel Lake, and Cregan Marsh rode into the forest knowing they would likely never return. They drew the threat away from the Wall for two full days. Every hour we have used to prepare was bought with their courage."
Several older rangers lowered their heads.
Someone near the back muttered a prayer.
"They did not die for a gate," Rodrik said, his voice hardening. "They did not die for stone, ice, or the pride of the man wearing this cloak. They died for the people south of us who do not yet know anything is coming. They died for villages where children still believe the Wall means they are safe."
His gaze moved across the gathered faces.
"We will honor them by making that belief true for as long as we can."
A brother near the center raised his voice. "You said retreat."
Rodrik found him in the crowd—a broad builder named Halder Whitehill, his beard clotted with frost.
"I did."
Unease returned immediately. Men glanced toward the southern gate, toward the stables, and toward those standing beside them.
Rodrik stepped down one stair.
"Every wounded man, every brother weakened by age or sickness, and every boy too young to hold the tunnel will leave Castle Black before sunset. The stewards and builders needed to carry food, medicine, weapons, and messages south will accompany them."
A ranger shouted from the side, "Leave for where?"
"The kingsroad. You will travel south until you meet the force riding from Winterfell."
The mention of House Stark changed the mood by a fraction. Not relief, exactly, but something firmer. The North had ignored many of the Watch's pleas over the years, yet the Stark name still carried weight beneath the Wall.
"Lord Rickard knows what has happened," Rodrik continued. "He is coming north with his sons and whatever strength Winterfell can gather. Those who retreat will place themselves under his command and reinforce him. You will tell him what we have seen. You will bring the wounded, Maester Aemon, every raven we can move, and every scrap of knowledge we possess."
Aemon turned his sightless face toward Rodrik at the inclusion of his name but did not interrupt.
A younger brother looked from the old maester to the Wall. "And the rest of us?"
Rodrik let the silence answer before he did.
"The healthy men capable of fighting will remain."
The courtyard changed.
Some men cursed beneath their breath. Others stared toward the Wall as though they could already see death descending through it. A few moved instinctively away from the men beside them, suddenly afraid that someone would decide whether they belonged among those retreating or those remaining.
Rodrik did not soften his next words.
"We hold the northern tunnel."
"How long?" someone shouted.
"As long as we can."
The answer brought anger this time.
"You mean until we die!"
"Yes."
The force of Rodrik's voice crushed the growing noise.
He descended another stair, bringing himself closer to the gathered men.
"Yes," he repeated, quieter but no less certain. "Some of us will die. Perhaps all of us who stay. I will not tell you otherwise, and I will not stand south of this castle while ordering better men to bleed in my place."
He pulled the Lord Commander's cloak from his shoulders.
The heavy black wool fell across the steps behind him, leaving Rodrik in mail, leather, and the sword he had carried through twenty years of service.
"I remain."
No one spoke.
Rodrik rested one hand upon his sword's pommel. "Not because I believe myself brave. I am afraid. Every man who tells you he is not afraid of what is moving through that forest is either a liar or too stupid to understand it."
A rough, uncertain laugh came from somewhere among the builders.
It died quickly, but it loosened the terror gripping the yard.
Rodrik continued.
"I am afraid of hearing that howl inside the tunnel. I am afraid our arrows will do nothing. I am afraid the gates will break, and when they do, I will see the faces of every man I told to stand beside me."
He looked down briefly, his jaw tightening before he forced himself to meet them again.
"But I am more afraid of what happens if no one stands here."
The wind moved through the black cloaks.
"If we abandon Castle Black together, the threat follows all of us south. It catches the wounded first. Then the wagons. Then the men trying to protect them. We give it a road directly toward Winterfell, the Last Hearth, and every village between."
His voice rose, carrying toward the highest towers.
"If we stand, we choose the ground. We choose the gates it must break. We choose the halls it must cross and the price it pays for every step. We buy the Starks time to gather the North. We buy the retreat time to reach them. We give Lord Rickard a chance to contain this thing."
Rodrik paused.
The word that followed came more reluctantly.
"Or eliminate it."
Several men lowered their heads at that. Whatever hunted them had once been a son of House Stark, a prince recognized across the Narrow Sea, and the boy whose strange beauty and laziness had become the subject of jokes throughout the Watch.
That boy might still exist somewhere inside it.
Perhaps that made killing him more tragic.
It did not make the threat less real.
Rodrik stepped from the final stair into the snow.
"We are the Night's Watch," he said, walking slowly along the front rank. "The realm forgets us until it becomes frightened. Lords send us men they do not want. Kings remember the Wall only when a raven irritates them enough. Half the Seven Kingdoms believes we spend our days chasing wildlings and freezing our balls off."
Another strained laugh moved through the gathering.
"They are not entirely wrong."
The laughter grew slightly, brief but human.
Rodrik stopped before a thin steward whose hands were shaking around a kitchen knife.
"We were not chosen because we were all good men," he continued, looking beyond him toward the rest. "Some of us were sent here because we were thieves. Some because we killed. Some because our fathers had one son too many. Some came for honor and discovered there was damn little of it in scrubbing pots or digging frozen latrines."
The steward's mouth twitched.
"But once we took the vows, the reasons stopped mattering."
Rodrik turned slowly, addressing the whole yard again.
"No wife waits for us. No child carries our name. No lord will sing of most of us when we are gone. That does not mean our lives are empty. It means we belong to something larger than the mistakes that brought us here."
Men began straightening.
"We are the wall between the living and whatever believes the living are only meat."
The fear remained in their faces, but something else appeared beside it.
Anger.
Pride.
Purpose.
"We are not being asked to win," Rodrik said. "We are being asked to hold. One hour may save a hundred men on the road. One closed gate may save a village. One arrow, one torch, one sword thrust may slow the thing enough for the man beside you to strike again."
He drew his sword.
Steel whispered through the yard.
"Every heartbeat we steal from it belongs to the North."
A ranger near the front drew his own blade.
Then another.
The noise spread through the gathering—swords leaving sheaths, spears striking frozen ground, axes lifting onto shoulders.
Rodrik raised his weapon.
"I will not command frightened boys to die while strong men run behind wagons. The officers will choose those who must retreat because their skills are needed south. The wounded and the old will go whether pride approves or not. Any healthy man ordered to remain will stand the tunnel with me."
His gaze hardened.
"But understand this: staying does not make you better than those who leave. The retreat is not cowardice. They carry our warning, our wounded, and our hope. Without them, our stand means nothing."
Maester Aemon inclined his head slightly.
Rodrik looked across the black-clad men one final time.
"We may not stop what is coming."
The line of decay beyond the Wall continued crawling toward the open ground.
"We may not live to see House Stark arrive."
A distant howl rolled through the ice, faint but growing nearer.
Men flinched.
None ran.
"But when that thing reaches our gate, it will not find prey waiting in darkness."
Rodrik lifted his sword higher.
"It will find the Night's Watch."
The answer came first from the rangers.
Swords struck shields. Spear shafts hammered the ground.
Then the builders joined them, followed by stewards still holding cleavers, hammers, and kitchen knives because they had arrived too quickly to collect proper weapons.
The sound built until it rolled across Castle Black and rose against the Wall like thunder.
Rodrik turned toward the ancient ice and shouted the words every man present had spoken at least once before.
"Night gathers, and now my watch begins!"
The response came from hundreds of throats.
"It shall not end until my death!"
Men who had spent the previous week whispering about desertion roared until their voices cracked. The wounded raised fists from their stretchers. Boys stood taller beside old men. Even those who knew they would be ordered south joined the vow, because leaving Castle Black did not end their watch.
It merely changed where they would continue it.
The selection began immediately.
Officers moved through the ranks, separating healers, experienced stewards, wounded men, builders needed to reinforce the Starks, and those responsible for the ravens. Arguments erupted whenever proud brothers were told they were too injured or too valuable to remain. One ranger with a broken hand tried to hide it beneath his cloak until Rodrik personally dragged the arm into the open and ordered him toward the wagons.
By dusk, the division was complete.
Hundreds prepared to travel south with the wounded, supplies, ravens, Maester Aemon, and everything Castle Black could spare without crippling the defence. The southern gates were opened. Wagons formed along the kingsroad while mounted rangers waited to guide them toward the approaching Stark host.
Five hundred men remained within Castle Black.
Five hundred healthy brothers capable of drawing bows, carrying spears, hauling barricades, and standing beneath the Wall when the northern gate broke.
Rodrik watched the retreat begin from the center of the yard.
Maester Aemon stopped beside him before being helped into a covered wagon. "You gave them hope," the old man said, his sightless eyes turned toward the roar of preparations around them.
Rodrik looked up at the Wall as another scream rose from the dying forest.
"I gave them something to do with their fear."
"Often that is what hope is."
Rodrik glanced toward Aemon.
The old maester extended one hand.
Rodrik clasped it firmly.
"If Torrhen wakes," he said, keeping his voice low beneath the clatter of departing wagons, "tell him Harlon's party did not die without warning us. Tell him he brought the truth home."
"I will."
"And tell Rickard Stark that we held as long as men could."
Aemon tightened his grip.
"You will have the opportunity to tell him yourself."
Rodrik gave a tired, crooked smile. "There are the lies you refused to let me tell my men."
"It is not a lie yet."
They released one another.
Aemon was helped into the wagon, and the retreating column began moving south beneath a sky darkening with early evening. Brothers watched their injured friends depart. Some called farewells. Others remained silent, knowing words would make separation harder.
Rodrik turned away before the final wagon passed through the gate.
He faced the five hundred men who had remained.
"Close it."
The southern gates groaned shut.
Far beyond the Wall, the final living trees at the edge of the Haunted Forest began to wither.
The thing stalking within them had reached the last mile.
Rodrik Umber did not return immediately to the tunnel.
For several moments after the southern gates closed behind the retreating column, he remained alone in the courtyard, listening to the last wagons fade down the kingsroad. The scrape of their wheels grew quieter with every passing breath until only the groaning of the Wall and the hurried preparations of the five hundred brothers left behind remained.
Men were already dragging the final barricades toward the tunnel. Barrels of pitch rolled across the frozen yard, archers climbed toward their assigned platforms, and builders shouted measurements while securing chains thick enough to restrain a mammoth. No one waited for Rodrik to tell them what came next. They had heard his speech. They had made their choice.
He had made his.
The Lord Commander turned toward the King's Tower and climbed the steps alone.
His office felt strangely small when he entered it.
For years, the room had been filled with reports, arguments, requests for grain, complaints from builders, demands from southern lords, and the endless quiet burden of deciding which men would patrol roads from which they might never return. Tonight, the desk seemed too orderly. The maps hung untouched upon the walls. A cup of mulled wine remained where a steward had placed it hours earlier, the surface gone cold.
Rodrik closed the door behind him and stood with one hand resting upon the iron latch.
The screams from beyond the Wall were fainter here.
They were still present.
He crossed to the desk, removed his sword belt, and lowered himself into the Lord Commander's chair. The old wood groaned beneath his weight, a familiar sound that had irritated him on countless nights.
This time, it felt almost comforting.
Rodrik sat in silence.
He thought of Martyn Slate laughing before the northern gate opened. He thought of Harlon Flint and the men who had vanished with him. He thought of Torrhen Woods, sixteen years old and crawling south through the forest because too many older men had died to give him the chance.
Then he thought of the five hundred brothers waiting below.
Some were sharpening swords. Some were praying. Some were likely vomiting behind the barracks where no one could see them.
All of them expected him to lead them when the gates began to break.
Rodrik pulled a sheet of parchment toward himself.
His hand hovered above the ink for a long moment before he dipped the quill and began to write.
The first letter was addressed to Lord Rickard Stark.
Rodrik wrote without the formal ornament that usually filled messages between great houses. There was no time for compliments or careful evasions, and he had no desire to leave his final words hidden beneath courtesy.
He told Rickard that the threat had reached the last mile of forest north of the Wall. He explained that the Watch had begun a full retreat of its wounded, elderly, and necessary support personnel, who would travel south until they encountered House Stark's approaching force.
Then he wrote of those who remained.
Five hundred brothers have chosen to hold Castle Black and the northern tunnel. I remain with them.
Rodrik paused, staring at the sentence until the ink began to dry.
He could still remove it. He could order another man to command the defence and ride south with the retreat. No brother would call him a coward for ensuring that the Lord Commander survived to continue leading the Watch.
Rodrik would call himself one.
He dipped the quill again.
We do not believe that Castle Black can destroy the threat with the strength available to us. We intend instead to delay it for as long as men are able. Every hour we hold is an hour purchased for the North, for your household, and for those who do not yet understand what approaches them.
His jaw tightened before he continued.
The brothers who remain know what is expected of them. None were deceived. None were forced to stand through ignorance of the danger. They understand that survival is unlikely, yet they have chosen to honor their vows.
The ink blurred slightly near the next line.
Rodrik frowned and wiped the back of his hand across one eye, blaming smoke that was not present.
I pray that when you meet this thing, you possess what we did not—knowledge enough to restrain it, strength enough to contain it, or the courage to destroy it should neither prove possible. Whether Prince Jinx Stark may yet be recovered is a question the gods have not answered for me. I pray they answer it for his family before more families are made to mourn.
Rodrik's hand slowed.
He had never met Rickard's son before the expedition. Jinx had been an inconvenience at first, another highborn youth crossing the Wall because wealth and blood made dangerous whims possible.
Now the boy's hunger had consumed men Rodrik had known for half a lifetime.
Yet somewhere beneath all that blood remained a son.
Rodrik could not forget Xuehara Stark's letter or the desperate certainty beneath her command that no man strike first. He could not forget that Torrhen had survived when Dark Sister should have cut him in half.
Perhaps there was still something left to save.
Rodrik hoped so.
For the sake of every man who would die if there was not.
It has been an honor to serve the North, even when the North forgot the Watch until it needed us. Whatever is said of the men who remain, let it be known that they stood willingly between the living and the thing that hunted them.
The Wall remembers.
Rodrik Umber, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
He set the quill down.
For several breaths, Rodrik stared at his own name.
Then he rolled the parchment tightly, sealed it with black wax, and pressed the mark of the Night's Watch into it.
The second letter was harder.
He pulled another sheet toward himself and wrote no formal title at the top. There was no need. The raven would fly to the Last Hearth, and those who opened it would recognize his hand before reading the first sentence.
Rodrik began with the truth.
By the time this reaches you, I may already be dead.
His fingers tightened around the quill until the feather bent.
He cursed quietly, released his grip, and forced himself to continue.
He explained that something was approaching Castle Black from beyond the Wall. He wrote that it had killed brothers of the Watch, free folk, animals, and perhaps everything living along its path. He did not describe the eaten bodies. His family did not need those images following them into sleep.
I have ordered those unable to fight to retreat south. Five hundred remain with me. We will hold the tunnel for as long as the old gods permit.
He paused, trying to imagine the great hall of the Last Hearth when the letter arrived.
He saw familiar faces turning toward the maester. He imagined someone reading the words aloud because the oldest among them would insist they could hear well enough even when they could not. He saw his kin trying to decide whether pride or grief should come first.
Rodrik swallowed.
Do not ride north for me.
The command appeared too cold, so he added another line beneath it.
Do not waste Umber lives attempting to rescue a man who has already chosen where he will stand.
His eyes moved toward the narrow window.
The sky beyond it had darkened, though night had not fully fallen. Somewhere in the yard below, men began singing an old northern marching song. Their voices were uneven and rough, but more joined with every verse.
Rodrik returned to the letter.
I pray to the old gods that whatever approaches the Wall never takes another Umber life.
He hesitated.
Then, beneath it, he wrote:
One will be enough.
Rodrik read the words twice.
He did not explain them.
His family would understand.
Tell the children that their uncle did not die in his bed complaining about his knees, though the gods know I expected to. Tell them I stood the Wall with men braver than half the knights whose names fill southern songs.
A breath that might have become laughter escaped him and died in the quiet room.
He wrote more slowly after that.
He wrote that he remembered the smoke rising from the Last Hearth during winter, the taste of meat burned black around the edges, and the sound of his family arguing loudly enough to frighten guests from lesser houses. He wrote that he remembered hunting in the Wolfswood, wrestling cousins in muddy yards, and sleeping near hearths while storms buried the roads outside.
He wrote that he missed them already.
I will miss you until my final breath. That is not a promise made for poetry. It is simply the truth.
Do not mourn me longer than I deserve. Drink, shout, fight among yourselves, and remember that an Umber is rarely quiet in life and should not be granted too much silence in death.
Rodrik stopped when his vision blurred again.
This time, he did not blame smoke.
He rested his forehead against one fist and allowed himself several breaths in which he was not Lord Commander. He was only a tired northern man writing farewell to people he loved because the world had placed something monstrous between them.
Then he straightened.
The North must survive. See that it does.
Rodrik.
He sealed the second letter with the Umber giant rather than the mark of the Watch.
Only two ravens remained in Castle Black.
Rodrik carried both letters to the rookery himself.
The birds were restless before he entered. They hopped along their perches, black wings shifting while they screamed toward the north-facing wall. The decay had affected every animal near the Wall, even those protected behind ice and stone.
Rodrik secured the first message to the raven trained for Winterfell.
"Find Lord Stark," he muttered, his thick fingers surprisingly careful as he fastened the parchment. "And do not get yourself eaten. There has been enough of that."
The raven clicked its beak at him.
Rodrik almost smiled.
He released it through the open hatch.
The bird vanished south beneath the darkening sky, carrying news of five hundred men who had already accepted that they might never see another dawn.
The second raven resisted him.
It beat its wings against his hands, claws catching briefly upon the leather of his gloves as though some instinct warned it not to leave the rookery.
Rodrik held it firmly until it settled.
"The Last Hearth," he whispered, tying his final letter to its leg. "Go home for me."
He opened his hands.
The raven sprang into the wind and followed the first south.
Rodrik remained at the hatch long after both birds disappeared.
Then he returned to his office.
Men were calling to one another in the yard below. The sound of hammers rose from the tunnel. Somewhere along the Wall, a horn gave one short signal to announce movement at the forest's edge.
Rodrik collected his sword belt from the desk and fastened it around his waist.
As he turned toward the door, his gaze settled upon the frame.
Marks covered the wood and surrounding stone.
Some were shallow scratches. Others had been carved deeply enough that years of smoke and dust still had not obscured them. Initials, names, dates, symbols, and crude lines had been left by the Lord Commanders who occupied this room before him. Some had led the Watch for decades. Others held the office only long enough to die badly.
Rodrik had looked at those marks countless times without considering them closely.
Tonight, he recognized what they were.
Proof that no Lord Commander truly owned the room.
He only held it until the Watch demanded everything he possessed.
Rodrik placed his palm against the carvings.
His fingers moved slowly over names worn almost smooth by time. Men who had fought kings, wildlings, mutineers, winters, starvation, and threats the histories had reduced to a few dry lines. He wondered how many had stood in this same doorway knowing they were about to leave it for the final time.
"I cannot promise victory," Rodrik said quietly, speaking to the dead because the living already had enough burdens. "I cannot promise the Wall will hold."
A howl rose from the Haunted Forest.
It sounded closer.
Rodrik kept his hand against the old marks.
"But I swear I will do what I can for the good of my home. For the Watch. For the North. Whatever reaches that tunnel will pay for every step it takes."
He bowed his head once.
Then Rodrik Umber withdrew his hand, stepped into the corridor, and pulled the office door closed behind him.
The latch settled with a small, final click.
He did not look back.
(a/n: i cried writing this or atleast on the letter part )