ROBB
Robb hadn't spoken since the assassin finished confessing in the dungeons. The way Ruyan interrogated— emotionless, methodical — still echoed in his head like ice striking stone. She gave him a choice: speak the truth and die clean, or stay silent, and suffer a painful death. The man confessed to everything.
"Mercy," he'd said. As if that justified a dagger in Bran's ribs.
Bran. His little brother who climbed too high and fell too far. And Mother, who hadn't slept since.
If Ruyan hadn't been in the room—
He swallowed hard against the bile rising in his throat. Another Stark gone. Another piece of his family shattered.
He came in after it happened. After the guards, just in time to see her kneeling on the assassin's back — calm, controlled, hand slick with crimson. Not a hair out of place. Not a tremble in her fingers.
The man wasn't moving. In her fist, she held one of her hair pins.
She rose slowly, and handed off the body without even glancing down, wiped the pin on her sleeve, and slid it back into her braid as casually as if she were preparing for dinner. Then she crossed the room, bent over the corpse of the other assassin, and pulled the second pin from the man's neck. Wiped. Put back on her head. Gone.
No one stopped her. No one spoke. Not even him.
Later, his mother told him everything — how Ruyan hadn't called for help, hadn't hesitated for even a heartbeat. She'd acted. Fast. Surgical. Silent.
He'd seen the aftermath.
But not the moment she decided to kill. Somehow, that made it worse. Made her more foreign than any accent or custom ever could.
He kept wondering: was that her first kill? And if it wasn't... what else didn't he know about the woman he'd married?
He walked just behind her now, following the precise rhythm of her steps through the stone corridors that suddenly felt colder than he remembered. She didn't look at him. Her face hadn't changed — not during the interrogation, not after. That same cold stillness that had once been merely distant was now something else entirely. Something predatory.
She looked as she had last night. Composed. Untouched. As if blood hadn't stained her hands hours before.
And then she spoke.
"Two victims. One suspect. Jon Arryn and Bran — different locations, same pattern. What ties them together is the method and motive. Jon Arryn knew something. Bran saw something. And whatever it was, it made them both disposable."
She turned into the inner hall, her movements fluid as water.
"Both deaths were clean. Efficient. Done to silence, not expose. But last night's attempt — it was sloppy. Traceable. No backup plan. Either the killer lacked coin and paid with the dagger, or it was planted for misdirection."
She said it without emotion. Just certainty — as if she were discussing crop yields, not his brother's murder.
His throat constricted. The Starks — honorable, straightforward, bound by duty and tradition — were being hunted. And he'd been too blind to see it coming.
"Anyone worth considering?" he managed, hating the roughness in his voice.
"It was mercy," she said. "Whoever sent him believed murdering Bran was a mercy. That's arrogance. Impulsiveness. Dangerous."
"So you think the queen pushed Bran, but didn't send the assassin?"
"Cersei remains a suspect. But the two acts weren't the same. Different hands. Different goals. The culprit was reacting to what came before."
"Mother's going to Father. We can't trust ravens. He'll find out who owns that dagger." The words tasted like ash. His family scattered. His father in the lion's den. His mother on the road. Bran broken. And him—left to protect what remained.
"I've read your histories. Only a few houses own Valyrian steel. I'll need names — anyone who's held that dagger, or one like it. Either way, the conflict escalated"
She stopped at a window and looked out, her profile sharp against the gray light.
"If the queen did push Bran… what do you think will happen?" she asked, tone cool. Probing. Testing. As if his family's fate were merely a theoretical problem.
"Father would have to raise it. Confront her. Demand justice." The words sounded hollow even to his own ears. Justice. As if the world still worked that way.
"And Tywin Lannister? Do you think he'll sit quietly while someone accuses his daughter of treason?"
Robb said nothing. The knot in his stomach tightened. Everyone knew what Tywin Lannister did to those who insulted his house. Entire families erased. Castles drowned in blood. Songs written as warnings.
"The king is Father's friend," Robb said, the words weaker than he intended. Desperate, almost. A child clinging to old certainties. "He'd make sure Bran gets justice."
"Tell me, Robb — when the king came to Winterfell, did you see any of his people? Who commands the court: the king, or the queen?"
She didn't wait for him to answer. He suddenly couldn't.
"In Yi Ti, faction lines are drawn in silence. Here, they're carved into stone. The king drinks and whores. He doesn't rule. His Hand did — Jon Arryn. Now he's gone. So the king turns to your father. But the Iron Throne? That's already in Lannister hands."
He stared at her, truly shaken for the first time. The cold calculation in her eyes, the detached analysis of his family's destruction – it was horrifying. And worse, she was right.
His father was in King's Landing. Investigating the same truth that had gotten the last man killed.
"There will be war," she said. "One more spark, and it burns. Your father is in the capital. Your mother is leaving. You need to prepare."
He looked at her. Really looked.
His wife. The foreign girl who'd taken him from his home. Who studied his world like a scholar dissects a corpse. Who vowed to be his equal.
His cold wife. Colder now than he'd ever imagined possible. And yet, the only ally he truly had.
"Then what is our next step?" The question fell from his lips, heavy with the weight of all he stood to lose.
"Prepare. In war, you need coin, supplies, men, and allies. I'll handle the coin and supplies. We'll use my trading ships to start buying grain from the Reach — No one will suspect if the North is buying grain early on. Winter preparation is what's north is known for after all. I'll send a raven tonight to Sea Dragon Point."
"We don't have enough funds in the treasury. It will take time to access our funds at the iron bank." His mind raced, trying to keep pace with hers, to think beyond the crushing fear for his family.
"We'll use my trading account in Old town. All they need is my sealed letter — they'll transfer gold directly to the Tyrells."
"I can't raise the banners. That's father's call. But I'll increase the military drills. Order more weapons. Say it's for Essosi demand." His voice strengthened as he spoke. This, at least, he understood. Preparation. Defense. Protection.
She nodded. "Good. You're learning, Robb Stark."
The way she said his name — not as a wife, but as a teacher — should have stung his pride. Should have felt like condescension.
But it didn't.
What disturbed him most wasn't her coldness, or even the blood on her hands. It was how grateful he was for both.
RUYAN
The candle burned low in her solar, its flame flickering against stone. Ruyan sat on the floor, back straight, arms resting on her knees, her breath measured and still. She just finished writing all the letter she will send to her father.
Yèmíng landed silently on the rafter above her desk — just a whisper of feathers in the air.
She was a great owl, large for her kind, with mottled grey and white plumage that blended with stone and snow alike. Her eyes were gold-ringed, round, and unblinking — the kind of gaze that didn't just see, but judged.
She had come with Ruyan from Yi Ti.
Not because she had to. But because she chose to.
Yèmíng had watched her train in the temples, listened through years of court whispers, tracked shadows across cities and forests. She had crossed with her into the North — adjusted without complaint to new skies, new winds, new prey.
More than companion.
Less than bonded.
Ruyan looked up at her now, meeting her gaze without pretense.
"I thought you'd leave," she said in Yi Tish, quiet. "There will be war."
Yèmíng didn't blink.
Years ago, Ruyan had tried to bond with her — truly reach her. It had been the first time she tried to open herself with intent, unguarded. The bond hadn't formed.
She had opened herself, fully and correctly. But the bond never formed. Not because Yèmíng rejected her.
Not out of fear. Just... stillness. A boundary she could not cross.
And still, Yèmíng had stayed within reach.
"Maybe you understood better than I did," Ruyan said. "Some things aren't meant to be bound."
The owl tilted her head — slow, deliberate. The kind of gesture that felt like punctuation.
Ruyan bowed her head in return. A gesture between equals.
Yèmíng had never followed orders. Only choices. And that, in the end, was the one line between loyalty and bond.
The next morning, mist clung low over the gift garden. The frost hadn't lifted. Ruyan stepped through the arch barefoot, her breath visible in the air, her silence deliberate.
He was already there in her bamboo garden at the godswood.
The falcon sat on the pine branch as he always did — grey and white, indistinguishable from sky and bark. He watched without blinking.
He had come to her weeks ago. Unbidden. Unnamed. He accepted her offerings in silence. Watched her train. Listened to her speak.
She had entered the minds of creatures before. Not often — and never deeply — but enough to know the texture of other lives. With Yèmíng, it was always the same: she could see through her eyes, feel wind the owl's feathers, even sense flickers of instinct and intent. It let her peer into its emotions and senses. But she never sensed her in return. In its mind she could look through the window Yèmíng, left open — but not step inside. And Yèmíng, had never asked to step into hers.
This falcon was different. She tried communing with it, and every time she had reached for him — not with hands, but thought — the, falcon had given nothing back.
Not rejection.
Not acceptance.
Just stillness.
Ruyan had stopped trying. The falcon came anyway.
This morning, she didn't bring food. She didn't speak. She didn't even look up.
She knelt in the frost-laced garden, let her hands rest on her knees, and let the breath settle.
No intention. No request.
Only space.
She opened herself slowly — the way she was taught. Not with ritual. Just… readiness.
The falcon landed with minimal sound.
Talons on stone. Closer.
Still, He did not look.
Closer still.
Then the weight of him — light and sharp — settling on her wrist.
He didn't open himself. Not at first.
She expected to try again. Reach. Extend. Form the connection. The same way she had been taught. The same way that had never worked.
But he didn't wait for technique.
He offered.
And this time, she felt it — not in her mind, but lower. Behind her ribs. A pressure like breath that wasn't hers.
She didn't push forward. She didn't grasp.
She let something in. Passed through the door he had opened — not with thought, but with being.
She didn't know how she allowed it. She only knew that she hadn't before.
Only then did Ruyan lift her head.
Their eyes met and something locked.
She didn't force the bond. Its soul circling hers.
She closed her eyes.
She felt wind, edge, hunger, cold — but not as glimpses through glass, like with Yèmíng. This was contact. Skin to skin. Soul to soul.
Her breath caught.
She had never felt this before. Not like this.
No hesitation.
No refusal.
Only clarity.
The falcon's soul melded into hers, like a shape that had always been meant to fit. The bond took over.
Above Ruyan and the falcon, Yèmíng perched on the garden wall, golden eyes unreadable. Watching. Separate. Loyal. Unbound.
Ruyan raised her other hand and pressed it gently to the falcon's chest.
A heartbeat met hers — sharp, focused, alive.
She whispered:
"Until the end. Two paths as one."
Then, only then, did the name form in her mind — not chosen, but revealed.
"Tiāncì."
He made no sound.
He didn't need to.
In Winterfell, Bran Stark opened his eyes.
Not because someone called to him.
But because something old had answered.