Three weeks later, the northern column entered the Gift.
The journey had taken longer than anyone wanted and less time than prudence demanded. Snow thickened along the kingsroad, wheels broke beneath overloaded wagons, and the wounded slowed every halt even though most had remained at Winterfell under Maester Luwin's care. Men rode until their thighs bled beneath their saddles, slept for a handful of hours beneath frozen cloaks, then rose before dawn and continued north.
House Stark led the column.
Rickard rode beneath the direwolf banner with Ice across his back. Xuehara remained near the front despite every attempt to place her farther from danger, her dark cloak drawn tightly around her and her attention fixed endlessly upon the road ahead. Brandon rode nearby with Benjen between him and the supply wagons, while Eddard rarely allowed more than a horse's length to separate him from his mother.
Greatjon Umber and his men formed much of the column's strength.
The royal party had come as well.
Rhaegar had refused to remain at Winterfell after learning of Dark Sister and the dragon egg. He had framed his decision around the safety of the realm and the possibility that Targaryen knowledge might prove useful if the egg was involved in whatever had happened to Jinx. Elia had joined before he finished explaining, reminding every protester that Oberyn considered Jinx his brother and that she would not wait in safety while others rode north to decide his fate.
Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy followed because their prince and princess left them no other choice.
Neither knight seemed pleased by it.
For the first half of the journey through the Gift, the land appeared merely abandoned.
Farmhouses stood with doors hanging open. Fences sagged beneath snow, and fields lay untouched beneath the pale sky. No smoke rose from chimneys. No dogs barked as the riders passed, and no farmers emerged to kneel before the royal banners or ask why half the North appeared to be riding toward the Wall.
The silence made every hoofbeat sound intrusive.
Then they found the first animal.
A horse lay beside the road, or what remained of one.
The carcass had been stripped so thoroughly that several men mistook it for a pile of dark cloth until the skull turned toward them from beneath the snow. Almost all the flesh was gone. The ribs had been broken apart and scattered, many missing entirely, while the long leg bones appeared split open and scraped clean.
There were no scavenger tracks around it.
No wolf prints.
No crows.
Nothing living had approached the body after it fell.
Eddard stared as he passed, his face becoming tight and colourless. The animal's skull had been cracked at the crown, and even the marrow inside appeared gone.
They found three more before midday.
A pair of oxen lay beside an overturned cart, their harnesses still fastened around necks stripped down to bone. Farther north, the remains of several sheep had been piled near a ruined pen. Little more than fragments remained, scattered through a patch of dead grass that the falling snow refused to cover completely.
The closer they came to the Wall, the worse the land became.
Decay spread outward from the kingsroad in blackened veins. Trees stood bare and twisted despite being evergreen, their bark split open and grey. Grass crumbled beneath the horses' hooves. The few streams they crossed carried dark water with dead fish floating upon the surface, many of them missing portions of their bodies.
Nothing smelled properly rotten.
That disturbed Barristan more than the sight of the carcasses.
He rode beside Arthur, his eyes moving constantly between the trees. "There should be crows," he said quietly, one gauntleted hand resting near his sword. "Wolves. Foxes. Something."
Arthur's gaze remained upon the dead woodland. "Perhaps they fled."
"From food?"
Arthur looked at him.
Neither needed to say more.
By the fourth day within the Gift, they stopped finding whole skeletons.
Pieces remained instead.
A jawbone beside the road. Several vertebrae buried in blackened snow. A hoof lying near a dead thorn bush. Whatever had fed here had not merely eaten flesh. It had crushed bone, torn joints apart, and taken almost everything that might have contained nourishment.
Rhaegar studied the remains during one of their brief halts.
He had dismounted beside the carcass of an elk, though calling it a carcass seemed generous. Only half the skull and several shattered ribs remained. The surrounding earth had turned black for twenty paces, and the roots of nearby trees had shrivelled into dry cords.
"The lack of bodies may have made his hunger worse," Rhaegar said, keeping his voice low while the others gathered around him. His gloved fingers hovered over the dark earth without touching it. "The Watch reported that he fed from the dead after the battle. If he remained at Castle Black until there was nothing left there, then moved south—"
Xuehara's eyes hardened.
Rhaegar noticed and changed the direction of his next words.
"He may have followed whatever living creatures he could find."
Eddard remained mounted, staring toward an abandoned farmhouse visible beyond the trees.
Its front door stood open.
A small wooden horse lay in the snow near the threshold.
"Where are the people?" he asked.
No one answered.
Eddard looked toward Rhaegar. "You said the lack of bodies might have worsened his hunger. Where are the human bodies?"
Rhaegar rose slowly from beside the remains.
"There are not many people in the New Gift," Rickard said, though the uncertainty beneath his voice weakened the explanation before it finished. "Most of the villages have been shrinking for generations."
"Not many is not none." Eddard pointed toward the farmhouse. "Someone lived there. The roof was repaired recently. There is chopped wood beside the wall."
Greatjon's men had already begun moving toward the building, weapons drawn.
They searched every room.
No one was inside.
The hearth had gone cold long ago, but dried food remained in storage jars. A wooden bowl sat upon the table beside a spoon. Blankets had been pulled from two small beds, and clothing was missing from several hooks upon the wall.
There was no blood.
No sign of fighting.
No bodies.
Greatjon emerged from the farmhouse carrying the child's wooden horse in one massive hand. He stared at it, his beard moving as he worked his jaw.
"They may have fled," Brandon said.
"Toward where?" Eddard asked.
"South."
"We would have passed them."
"Not if they left the road."
Eddard looked toward the forest.
The dead trees stood close together, their lower branches black and brittle. Snow lay untouched between them.
No footprints remained.
Xuehara dismounted and entered the farmhouse herself. She returned several minutes later carrying a strip of dried meat taken from one of the storage jars.
"He did not come inside," she said.
Rickard frowned. "How can you know?"
"The food remains."
She looked toward the blackened road.
"Jinx would not leave it."
No one challenged her.
They found two more empty farms that day.
Then a small settlement.
Seven homes surrounded a well, all abandoned. Doors remained open. One house had burned down, though the fire appeared to have started after the village was deserted. Tools lay where they had been dropped, and an old cart remained loaded with bags of grain that had gone damp beneath the snow.
Again, there were no bodies.
Rhaegar stood beside the well while Arthur searched the nearest home. "They knew something was coming," he murmured, looking at the abandoned road leading south. "Perhaps the Watch sent warning before Castle Black fell."
"The Watch had no men left to warn farmers," Greatjon said. "Those who escaped went straight to Winterfell."
"Then someone else warned them."
Greatjon turned toward him. "Who?"
Rhaegar had no answer.
The prince looked north instead.
The Wall remained too distant to see, but the sky in that direction appeared darker than the rest.
They continued.
Every league stripped more life from the world.
By the time the column entered the northernmost reaches of the Gift, even the snow had changed. It no longer lay smooth and white across the land. Grey patches spread beneath it, and in some places the flakes melted before touching the ground despite the bitter cold.
The horses became increasingly difficult to control.
They shied away from dead trees, refused water from certain streams, and trembled whenever the wind shifted from the north. Several had to be blindfolded before they would continue.
The men felt it too.
A pressure settled across their chests as they rode. It was not enough to stop breathing, but it made every breath feel less satisfying than the one before. Torches burned lower. Food tasted faintly of ash. Sleep brought dreams of something moving between trees just beyond sight.
On the final day, they saw the Wall.
It rose across the northern horizon, immense and pale beneath the grey sky, separating the world like the edge of a frozen sea. Even from miles away, Castle Black appeared wrong beneath it.
No smoke rose from its chimneys.
No flags moved above the towers.
No horn welcomed the approaching host.
The column slowed.
Rickard raised one fist, and the order passed backward until hundreds of riders and wagons stopped upon the road.
The land around Castle Black was dead.
Not merely winter-bare.
Dead.
Black earth spread outward from beneath the Wall and consumed everything around it. The last trees before no-man's-land stood as grey husks, stripped of bark and branches. Frozen grass had become powder. No birds crossed the sky above the castle.
Xuehara stared toward it.
Her hands had begun shaking upon the reins.
Eddard noticed and moved his horse closer, but before he could reach for her, a sound came from the north.
A howl.
It began low and distant, muffled by stone and ice.
Then it rose.
Pain filled it.
Not hunger alone. Not rage.
Agony.
The sound crossed the dead land, struck the column, and drove several horses into panic. Men fought their reins as animals reared and twisted. One rider was thrown into the road. Another's horse turned so sharply that it collided with the mount beside it.
Xuehara did not move.
The howl entered her like a blade.
Her face broke before anyone else understood why.
"Jinx."
The name left her as a breath.
Eddard looked at her sharply.
Xuehara pressed one hand against her mouth, eyes fixed upon Castle Black while the sound continued. She had heard that voice in childhood, muffled against pillows when Jinx believed no one knew he was awake. She had heard it during fevers, when his body shook from a hunger no meal seemed to satisfy. She had sat beside him on nights when he refused to explain what hurt and made that same sound into her lap until exhaustion took him.
Older now.
Deeper.
Twisted beyond recognition by whatever had happened beyond the Wall.
But still her son.
"That is him," she whispered, her voice cracking as tears filled her eyes. "That is my child."
Eddard's throat closed.
The howl climbed once more, carrying such terrible pain that even Greatjon lowered his head. Rhaegar stared toward the castle, his earlier fascination stripped away beneath the sound. Elia gripped the front of her cloak, her face tightening as though she could feel what Oberyn's friend endured from leagues away.
Then the howl stopped.
The sudden silence was worse.
Xuehara lowered her hand from her mouth.
"He heard us."
Rickard looked at her. "We cannot know that."
"Yes." She turned toward the hundreds of men behind them, toward the horses, wagons, armor, and living hearts they had brought into land where life itself appeared to have been consumed. "He knows."
The column remained still.
No second howl came.
Nothing moved within Castle Black.
Greatjon drew his sword.
Arthur Dayne watched the silent towers. "Do not mistake silence for retreat."
"I am not," Greatjon said.
Rickard ordered the main force to remain where it was.
Only the smaller group continued forward: the Stark family, Greatjon, Rhaegar, Elia, Arthur, Barristan, several trusted northern guards, and two surviving brothers of the Night's Watch who had agreed to guide them through the ruined castle.
The distance closed slowly.
Five hundred feet.
Four hundred.
Three.
The smell reached them first.
Even the cold could not contain it.
Blood. Burned wood. Old smoke. Human waste. Rotting flesh frozen and thawed repeatedly beneath unnatural warmth. Several horses stopped so violently that their riders nearly went over their necks.
Barristan pulled a cloth over his mouth.
Arthur did the same, though his eyes remained fixed ahead.
The outer gate of Castle Black stood open.
One side had been torn from its hinges and lay half-buried in the yard. The timber was split inward, iron reinforcements bent away from the wood as though enormous hands had peeled them apart.
Beyond it lay the dead.
The first body remained against the wall beside the gatehouse. Only portions of the black cloak and mail identified it as a brother of the Night's Watch. The rest had been stripped down to stained bone, much of that broken or missing.
More bodies covered the yard.
Some had been burned. Others had been cut apart so cleanly that Arthur needed only one glance to recognize the work of Valyrian steel. Several corpses had withered into thin, dark husks inside armor far too large for what remained within it.
Many had been eaten.
Men who had fought through rebellions, sieges, and battles against armored knights turned away.
One northern guard leaned from his saddle and vomited into the snow.
Another followed.
Even Greatjon's face lost colour beneath his beard.
The old Night's Watch guide beside him stopped breathing properly. His eyes moved across the remains of men he had known, recognizing pieces of cloaks, boots, buckles, and weapons where faces no longer existed.
"Gods," Barristan whispered.
There were marks upon the walls.
Not sword cuts alone.
Handprints in dried blood. Long scratches carved through wood. Blackened circles where something had struck with enough force to shatter stone. The common hall had partially collapsed, its roof burned through and one wall bowed outward.
The snow in the courtyard had been trampled into dark red ice.
Xuehara dismounted.
Rickard caught her arm before she could walk forward.
"No."
She turned upon him. "Release me."
"We do not know where he is."
"That is why I am going inside."
"If he is watching—"
"He already knows I am here."
Rickard's grip tightened.
Xuehara looked down at his hand, then raised her eyes to his face.
"Release me."
He did.
Eddard dismounted beside her.
The others followed more cautiously, weapons drawn but held low. No one wished to appear threatening before they even found Jinx. At the same time, no one could look upon the slaughter around them and walk unarmed.
Rhaegar's gaze moved across the courtyard.
Dark Sister was nowhere among the bodies.
Neither was the dragon egg.
He wisely kept both observations to himself.
Elia stepped over a broken spear and stopped near the remains of a man lying beneath a fallen section of gallery. Her face tightened, but she forced herself to look.
"Where is he?" she asked.
No one answered.
They searched the yard first.
Then the common hall.
Then the armory.
Every chamber held evidence that Jinx had been there—bodies eaten recently enough that the blood had not completely dried, deep gouges across doors, bare footprints marked in old red stains, and patches where the floorboards had blackened beneath his presence.
There was no sign of him now.
No growl.
No breathing hidden behind a door.
No flash of yellow eyes from the shadows.
The dragon egg had vanished with him.
They returned to the center of the courtyard.
The dead surrounded them.
The Wall towered overhead, silent and ancient, while the open tunnel waited at the northern side of Castle Black like a mouth leading into darkness.
Eddard stared toward it.
"He was here when he howled."
Arthur looked toward the broken tunnel entrance. "Or beyond the Wall."
"No." Xuehara lifted her head slightly, listening to the silence. "Closer."
Greatjon tightened his grip around his sword. "Then where the hell is he?"
No one saw the movement.
No shadow passed across the yard. No footstep disturbed the bloodied snow.
Yet one of the horses outside the gate suddenly screamed.
The sound ended sharply.
Every sword rose.
They turned toward the gate.
Nothing stood there.
Only the dead castle, the open road, and the terrible certainty that Jinx Stark had known they were coming long before they arrived—and had chosen not to be found.
The first sign was not movement.
It was the royal guard's boots scraping backward across the frozen yard.
Ser Barristan turned at the sound, expecting to see the man stumbling over one of the broken bodies scattered near the far edge of the courtyard. Instead, the guard stood rigid beside the ruined gatehouse, both hands wrapped around his spear while his heels carved two shallow lines through the bloody snow.
For one confused heartbeat, the man appeared not to understand what was happening.
Then the spear fell from his hands.
He lurched backward.
Not stumbled.
Not slipped.
Something seized him and dragged him with such sudden force that his feet left the ground.
"Help me!"
His scream tore across Castle Black as he struck the frozen earth upon his back and began sliding toward the main gate.
The royal guard clawed at the ground. His gloved fingers caught between blood-darkened stones, nails tearing through leather as he fought desperately for any hold. His sword belt scraped beneath him. His helm struck the ground repeatedly, each impact ringing through the courtyard.
No hand touched him.
No rope had been thrown around his body.
There was nothing between the guard and the gate except empty air.
"Take hold of him!" Barristan roared.
Two northern soldiers lunged from the group. One caught the guard's wrist while the other seized the edge of his cloak, dropping their full weight backward.
For a moment, they stopped him.
The invisible pull tightened.
The guard's arm stretched between them so violently that his shoulder gave a wet pop beneath his mail. He screamed again, kicking wildly while the men holding him were dragged forward on their knees.
Arthur moved.
Dawn came free in a pale flash as he crossed the yard, but there was nothing for the blade to strike. He drove one boot against a broken timber and reached for the guard's other arm.
The force changed direction.
The man jerked sideways.
His injured shoulder twisted beneath the hands holding him, and one of the northern soldiers lost his grip. The second clung to the cloak until the fastening tore free, leaving him sprawled in the snow with black wool bunched inside his fists.
Arthur's hand closed around empty air an instant too late.
The guard shot toward the gate.
His body struck the ground hard enough to bounce before vanishing beyond the ruined archway, dragged into the narrow strip of darkness beside the outer wall where none of them could see.
His screams continued.
Everyone in the courtyard froze.
They heard his armor grinding across stone outside the gate. Heard him strike something with a sickening metallic crash. Heard his boots kick frantically against the earth.
"Something has me!" he shrieked, his voice breaking into sobs. "Gods—please! I cannot see it! Get it off me!"
Arthur reached the gateway first.
Barristan caught the back of his white cloak before he could pass through.
"Wait."
"He is alive."
"And whatever took him is waiting beyond the wall."
The guard screamed again.
This time, the sound climbed higher.
The noise that followed was worse.
A tearing scrape of iron across stone. A strangled grunt. The frantic clatter of mailed limbs striking the ground while the man tried to crawl away from something hidden beyond their sight.
Then came a growl.
Low.
Wet.
Close enough that the sound travelled through the gate stones beneath Arthur's hand.
Xuehara's face emptied of colour.
"Jinx."
Eddard moved toward the gateway.
She caught his arm without looking at him and held so tightly that her fingers dug through leather.
"Mother—"
"No."
"That is my brother."
"That is why you will not run blindly into his mouth."
Another scream erupted outside.
The guard called for his mother.
Not his prince. Not the Seven. Not the Kingsguard standing only a few paces away.
His mother.
The plea broke apart beneath a choking cry.
Rhaegar stared at the open gateway, his face pale and rigid. "Can he pull a man without touching him?"
No one answered.
A wet crunch sounded outside the wall.
The screaming stopped for half a heartbeat, then began again—lower now, broken by gasping breaths and sounds no human throat should have been forced to make.
Elia covered her mouth.
One of the northern men turned away and vomited beside a frozen corpse.
Arthur twisted against Barristan's grip. "Release me."
Barristan did not. His old eyes remained locked upon the darkness beyond the arch, every line of his body drawn tight beneath white armor.
"He wants us to follow."
"You do not know that."
"He took the man farthest from the group," Barristan said. "Not the closest. Not the weakest. The one he could drag beyond our sight."
The understanding moved through them slowly.
Jinx had chosen him.
Not from mindless hunger.
Deliberately.
Eddard looked across the courtyard, toward the collapsed buildings and dark windows surrounding them. "He has been watching us."
Greatjon turned in a slow circle, sword raised. "From where?"
The towers offered a hundred hiding places. Empty windows stared down upon them. Broken galleries shifted faintly in the wind. The tunnel beneath the Wall remained open behind them, its interior dark beyond the abandoned bodies.
Nothing moved.
Outside the gate, the royal guard began sobbing.
The sound was faint now.
"Please," he whispered, though every person in the yard heard him in the terrible silence. "Please, I have children."
A pause followed.
Then something struck the stone outside.
Once.
Twice.
The guard released one final shriek.
It ended in the middle of a breath.
Silence returned.
No one lowered a weapon.
The horses beyond the courtyard stamped nervously, several pulling against their reins. Somewhere inside the ruined common hall, loose wood creaked.
Xuehara released Eddard's arm only to step in front of him.
She looked toward the gate, her face wet with tears she did not seem to notice. "Jinx."
Her voice did not carry far.
It did not need to.
"I know you can hear me."
Nothing answered.
She took another step.
Rickard caught her wrist. "Xuehara."
She tore herself free without looking at him.
"You wanted our attention," she called, her voice strengthening as it crossed the dead yard. "You have it."
A low growl came from beyond the gate.
Several men shifted backward.
Xuehara did not.
"You remember me."
The growl stopped.
Eddard's breath caught.
Every person in the yard waited.
For one moment, there was only the wind passing beneath the Wall.
Then something landed just beyond the arch.
Heavy enough to shake snow loose from the gatehouse roof.
Arthur raised Dawn.
Barristan stepped in front of Rhaegar and Elia.
Greatjon brought his sword into both hands.
A dark shape slid across the ground from outside the gate and came to rest several paces inside the courtyard.
The royal guard's helm.
It rolled slowly through the bloodied snow before stopping at Rhaegar's feet.
The metal had been crushed inward.
Fresh blood dripped from beneath its rim.
Rhaegar stared down at it, every trace of royal composure stripped from his face.
From somewhere beyond the gate came the sound of slow chewing.
Xuehara closed her eyes.
A tear rolled over her cheek, but when she opened them again, grief had hardened into something fiercer.
"Enough," she whispered.
The chewing stopped.
Her voice rose.
"Jinx Stark, come out and look at your mother."
For several long breaths, nothing happened.
Then two yellow eyes opened in the darkness beyond the main gate, each surrounded by a burning red ring.
Just then Footsteps sounded beyond the gate.
Slow.
Uneven.
Each one dragged faintly across stone before settling into the blood-darkened snow, as though whoever approached had forgotten the simple rhythm of walking and was forcing a ruined body to remember it one step at a time.
The yellow eyes remained fixed within the darkness.
Then Jinx Stark emerged.
Every member of House Stark felt something inside them die.
Xuehara had spent the entire journey preparing herself for blood. She had imagined wounds, starvation, madness, even the possibility that her son would no longer recognize her. None of those thoughts had prepared her for the thing limping through the broken gate wearing Jinx's face.
He should have been dead.
Not merely dying.
Dead a hundred times over.
His clothes had ceased to be clothing in any meaningful sense. Blood-blackened leather clung to his hips and thighs in shredded strips, while much of his chest and arms remained exposed to the cold. Some of the wounds across him were fresh enough that blood still ran from them. Others had tried to close without properly healing, leaving jagged seams of red flesh pulled together around arrowheads, broken steel, and dirt.
One side of his torso had been opened from ribs to waist, the injury held shut by nothing except crude regeneration and dried blood. A deep puncture remained beneath his ribs where Rodrik Umber's sword had entered. The flesh of his left shoulder sat unevenly despite having been forced back into place, and his right thigh showed a wound so severe that muscle moved beneath the split skin whenever he stepped.
Several ribs had healed incorrectly.
One pressed visibly against the pale skin of his side.
Burns darkened his legs and lower back. Portions of his flesh had blistered and split again beneath movement. An arrowhead remained buried near his collarbone, another beneath his shoulder blade, while a broken crossbow bolt protruded from the back of his knee.
His face was scarcely better.
His nose had been broken and reset by force rather than care. His lower lip had split to the chin, and several teeth were missing behind the blood dried around his mouth. A long cut ran from his temple to his cheekbone. The flesh around one eye remained swollen and burned.
Yet beneath all of it, the unbearable beauty inherited from his mother had survived.
That made the sight worse.
Jinx's hair hung around his body in filthy, tangled ropes, black soaked through with old blood and scattered with pale streaks of silver-blond that had spread farther than before. Some strands were almost entirely white now, catching the weak daylight as they dragged across his shoulders.
Dark Sister rested in his right hand.
His fingers were wrapped around the hilt so tightly that blood seeped from reopened splits across his knuckles. The Valyrian steel blade remained wet and black-red from the royal guard outside the gate.
The dragon egg rested in his left arm.
He held it close against his chest despite the condition of his body, the great scaled shell partly covered in moss, pale fungus, and remnants of the torn black cloth he had once used to bind it to himself. One end had been wrapped more carefully than the rest, as though Jinx had repeatedly adjusted the covering whenever it slipped.
He carried it gently.
More gently than he carried himself.
The remains of the royal guard were not visible beyond the gate, though fresh blood covered Jinx's mouth and throat. A severed strip of white cloak clung to one of the ridges of the egg before sliding loose and falling into the snow.
No one breathed.
Brandon's hand closed around his sword hilt, not to draw but because he needed something solid beneath his fingers. Benjen stared with his mouth slightly open, his face drained of all colour. Lyanna made a broken sound and pressed herself against Brandon's side, her earlier stubbornness gone beneath the sight of the brother who used to let her sleep across his back while complaining she was crushing him.
Rickard stood rigid.
The father who had once judged Jinx lazy, useless, and unworthy of the Stark name now looked upon the results of every absence, every dismissal, every warning he had failed to notice.
Eddard could not move.
He had spent weeks insisting that his twin remained somewhere inside the hunger. He had built that belief from the shallow wound left upon Torrhen, Rodrik's untouched body, the spared survivors, and the protected egg.
Now Jinx stood before him, and Eddard could see no person behind his eyes.
Those eyes were blank.
The poisonous yellow remained, circled by burning red, but there was no anger in them when Jinx first stepped into the courtyard. No immediate hunger or recognition. They moved across the gathered men without settling upon any face, gliding over armor, weapons, horses, and exposed throats with the same distant indifference.
Jinx looked at them as though they were objects placed in a room.
Not people.
Not family.
Nothing.
Xuehara's breath shuddered out of her.
"My baby."
The words barely existed.
Jinx stopped.
His head turned.
For the first time, his gaze focused.
Those terrible eyes settled upon Xuehara.
The dragon egg shifted faintly against his chest as his fingers tightened around it. His face remained emotionless, but his head tilted several degrees to one side with an almost childlike confusion, as though her voice had reached some buried place he no longer understood how to enter.
Xuehara took one step toward him.
Rickard's hand moved reflexively toward her arm, then stopped before touching her.
Jinx watched her.
The red light around his yellow irises began to dim.
Slowly.
Not disappearing, but withdrawing like embers deprived of air.
Eddard stepped out beside his mother.
Jinx's gaze moved toward him.
The effect was immediate.
His head tilted farther.
The tension in his sword arm eased by the smallest amount, and Dark Sister's point lowered until it touched the snow. His eyes moved over Eddard's face, then back toward Xuehara, repeating the motion as though comparing something remembered with something standing before him.
"Jinx," Eddard said, but his twin's name broke in his throat.
Jinx's lips parted.
No word came.
A faint sound moved behind his ruined teeth, neither growl nor speech. His brow tightened slightly. The blankness in his eyes cracked for a heartbeat beneath something fragile, lost, and so terribly exhausted that Xuehara nearly ran to him.
Then a bowstring snapped.
The sound was small compared to everything that had happened at Castle Black.
It was enough.
A young Stark guard stood several paces behind Rickard, his face grey with terror and his bow still raised. He had seen Jinx look toward Lady Stark and Eddard, seen the monster's attention settle upon the family he had sworn to defend, and fear had moved faster than discipline.
The arrow crossed the courtyard.
"No!" Rickard roared.
Xuehara turned too late.
The shaft flew directly toward Jinx's chest.
Jinx caught it.
His right hand left Dark Sister's hilt and closed around the arrow less than a handspan from his heart.
The movement had been so fast that no one saw his arm rise. One instant the arrow flew through open air; the next it rested motionless inside his blood-covered fist.
Everyone froze.
The young guard's bow slipped several inches in his grasp.
Jinx looked down at the arrow.
His expression did not change.
He turned it slightly between his fingers, examining the dark fletching bearing Winterfell's colors. The shaft had been made inside his own home. The wood had likely been cut from the Wolfswood by men who had watched him grow.
His gaze lifted toward the one who fired it.
The recognition in his eyes vanished.
The dim red edges flared back to life.
Sinister light poured through them, brighter and crueler than before.
A growl began deep inside his chest.
The horses outside the courtyard screamed and pulled against their reins. Frost cracked beneath Jinx's bare feet as the surrounding snow darkened and melted into the black earth below.
The guard staggered backward.
"I—I thought—"
Jinx opened his hand.
The arrow remained suspended above his palm.
It turned in the air.
The point aligned with the guard's throat.
"Down!" Barristan shouted.
Jinx's fingers closed into a fist.
The arrow launched.
It did not fly with the speed of an ordinary bowshot. It crossed the courtyard like black lightning, accompanied by a sharp crack as the air split around it.
Ser Barristan moved between one heartbeat and the next.
He brought his white shield across his body and planted his boots in the bloodied snow just as the arrow struck.
The impact rang through Castle Black.
Barristan's shield buckled inward.
The force drove the legendary knight backward several paces, his heels carving lines across the courtyard until one boot struck a corpse and nearly sent him down. His shoulder twisted beneath the blow, yet he kept the shield raised.
The arrow had punched halfway through the steel-faced oak.
Its point stopped inches from Barristan's face.
For a moment, the old knight stared at it.
Then he looked toward Jinx.
The prince remained standing near the gate with his left arm around the dragon egg and his right hand still closed before him.
There had been no bow.
No string.
No visible weapon.
Only intent.
Arthur Dayne stepped in front of Rhaegar and Elia, Dawn already drawn, its pale blade catching the dim northern light. Greatjon raised his greatsword. Northern guards lowered spears throughout the courtyard, their fear overcoming every order given along the journey.
Jinx's growl deepened.
Dark Sister rose from the snow without his hand touching it.
The Valyrian blade floated beside him, blood sliding slowly down its edge as it turned toward the gathered soldiers.
"Lower your weapons!" Rickard shouted.
No one obeyed immediately.
"Now!"
The fury in his voice broke through their fear. Several spear points dipped, though not all. Arthur kept Dawn ready, his eyes fixed upon Jinx's floating sword.
Greatjon did not lower his own weapon.
"That boy just threw an arrow hard enough to put Selmy on his arse," he growled, positioning himself partly between Jinx and the surviving Watch guides. "You can call him your son while I call him what he is."
Xuehara spun toward the guard who had fired.
Her face no longer held grief.
For one terrible moment, Rhaegar understood why even Greatjon did not immediately argue with her.
"You," Xuehara said.
The guard had dropped his bow. "My lady, I believed he was going to—"
"You believed."
The man's mouth closed.
"You were given one command," she continued as she crossed the yard toward him. Her voice remained low, each word sharpened by rage. "No one was to raise a weapon unless Jinx attacked first. He looked at his mother, and you placed an arrow between us."
"I was protecting you."
"No." Xuehara stopped before him. "You were protecting yourself from being afraid."
The guard bowed his head, trembling.
Rickard stepped between them before his wife's anger became another death in the courtyard. "Disarm him. Take him beyond the outer group."
Two guards seized the young man and dragged him away. He offered no resistance.
Jinx followed him with his eyes.
Dark Sister rotated in the air, remaining pointed toward the retreating guard until he disappeared beyond the gate.
"Jinx."
Xuehara's voice drew his attention back.
The floating sword twitched.
She stepped away from Rickard.
Arthur immediately shifted. "My lady, stay behind us."
Xuehara did not even look at him. "You draw that sword against my son and you will discover whether Dawn is faster than a mother who has already buried him in her mind a thousand times."
Arthur's jaw tightened.
Elia placed one hand lightly against his arm. "Let her go."
"My princess—"
"He recognized her."
Arthur looked toward Jinx.
The hunger had returned to his eyes, but his attention was once again fixed upon Xuehara. The dragon egg remained protected against his body. Dark Sister hovered near his shoulder, ready to move at the smallest sign of threat.
Xuehara continued forward.
One step.
Then another.
Jinx's nostrils flared as her scent reached him beneath the blood, smoke, and death. His mouth opened slightly. A thin line of blood ran from his lower lip where an old wound had reopened.
"Do you remember when you fell asleep beneath the weirwood during a snowstorm?" Xuehara asked, her voice trembling as she entered the open space between them. "You were six. Everyone searched half the castle while you lay beneath the roots because you said the old gods were quieter than your brothers."
Jinx's head tilted again.
The glow in Dark Sister's runes—or perhaps merely the blood upon its rippled steel—shifted beneath the light.
"You complained when I carried you inside," she continued. "You bit my shoulder because I woke you."
A faint sound left Jinx.
His lips moved.
No word emerged, but the growl lost some of its depth.
Eddard stepped after her.
Rickard caught his shoulder. "Ned."
Eddard shook him off.
"I am not letting her stand there alone."
He approached more carefully than Xuehara, making certain his hands remained visible and far from his sword.
Jinx looked at him again.
"You told everyone I pushed you into the crypts when we were eight," Eddard said, forcing a small, broken smile onto his face. "You spent three days swearing revenge. Then Mother discovered you went there to sleep because Brandon would not stop snoring."
Brandon made a sound behind him that might have become laughter in any other place.
Jinx's eyes flicked toward the eldest brother.
Then Lyanna.
Then Benjen.
Each face seemed to touch something inside him and vanish before he could hold it.
His knees bent slightly.
The floating Dark Sister dropped several inches.
Xuehara was close enough now to see every injury upon him clearly. Close enough to smell dried blood and burned flesh. Close enough to see that the hand holding the dragon egg trembled from exhaustion.
Her face crumpled.
"Oh, Jinx."
She raised one hand.
Every soldier in the courtyard stopped breathing.
Jinx watched her fingers approach.
The red ring around his eyes brightened once, and Dark Sister shifted in the air as though preparing to cut her apart.
Xuehara did not stop.
"You know me," she whispered, tears moving freely down her face. "You may not know yourself. You may not know this place or what you have done, but you know me."
Her fingertips came within inches of his cheek.
Jinx inhaled.
His eyes widened.
For one moment, the entire unnatural glow dimmed enough for grey to appear beneath the yellow.
The old colour of his eyes.
The same grey as Eddard's.
His lips moved.
"M…"
The sound scraped through a throat damaged by howling, blood, and weeks without speech.
Xuehara's hand shook violently.
"Yes," she breathed. "I am here."
Jinx looked at her as though he stood at the bottom of a frozen lake and had finally seen light through the surface.
Then a horn sounded from somewhere beyond the castle.
One sharp blast.
The main force south of Castle Black, reacting to the screams and the clash in the courtyard.
Jinx's recognition shattered.
His head snapped toward the sound.
Dark Sister spun into his waiting hand.
The yellow flooded back across his eyes.
And every living thing around Castle Black felt the hunger awaken.