Chapter 3: Questions Without Answers
Three days had passed since Bran's fall, and the iron nail lay between them like an accusation. Maester Luwin turned it over in his weathered fingers, studying the bent metal with scholarly intensity that made Kole's enhanced senses scream warnings. The healer's chambers smelled of herbs and old parchment, but underneath ran the sharper scent of suspicion.
"Tell me again about the moment young Lord Bran fell," Luwin said, his voice carrying the careful neutrality of a man seeking truth in a world built on lies.
Kole shifted on the examination table, acutely aware of how the story would sound to outside ears. "I heard him scream. Looked up. Saw him falling."
"And your first instinct was to reach out your hands."
"Yes."
"From fifty feet away."
The words hung in the air like smoke. Kole forced his expression to remain neutral while his mind raced through possible explanations. The cosmic curse would scramble any attempt to tell the truth, and lies had their own dangers.
"Instinct isn't always logical," he said finally.
Luwin set the nail aside and moved to his desk, where other metal objects waited in careful arrangement. A scalpel. Forceps. Iron-headed pins. Each piece positioned with deliberate precision.
"Show me this strength you claim runs in your blood," Luwin commanded. "Lift that stone."
Kole eyed the indicated weight—easily fifty pounds of granite shaped into a rough cube. For his enhanced physiology, it might as well have been a child's toy. But showing too much would invite questions he couldn't answer.
He stood and gripped the stone's edges, letting his super-soldier strength flow just enough to make the lift look difficult. Muscle fibers contracted with controlled power, and the granite rose smoothly from the floor.
"Impressive," Luwin admitted. "But not impossible for a young man of your size." The maester's eyes narrowed. "Now hold this."
He offered an iron rod, roughly the length of Kole's forearm. The moment Kole's fingers closed around it, his metal sense blazed to life. Every piece of ferrous material in the chamber sang to him—the nails in the floorboards, the hinges on cabinet doors, the steel instruments arranged on Luwin's desk.
"Describe what you feel," Luwin instructed.
"Cold. Heavy. Normal iron."
"Nothing else?"
Kole hesitated. Lying to Luwin felt wrong—the old maester had shown him nothing but kindness since his arrival. But the truth would destroy everything he'd built.
"It feels... familiar," he said carefully. "Like I've held iron before."
"Most people have." Luwin moved to his desk and deliberately knocked a scalpel to the floor. The blade struck stone with a metallic ring, then began sliding across the chamber toward Kole's position.
The movement was subtle—barely perceptible to normal vision. But it was there, undeniable, the steel drawn by magnetic force radiating from Kole's enhanced physiology.
Luwin's eyes widened. "This isn't strength, boy. This is something else entirely."
Panic flooded Kole's system. His enhanced reflexes wanted to run, to fight, to do anything except sit here being dissected by scholarly curiosity. The iron rod grew warm in his grip as his emotional state triggered involuntary magnetic fluctuations.
"I don't understand," he said truthfully.
"Neither do I." Luwin retrieved the scalpel, studying its position with mathematical precision. "But I intend to find out. There are books in the Citadel, ancient texts that speak of bloodlines touched by the old gods. Giants' blood, children of the forest, the deep magics that ran through Westeros before the Andals came."
The maester's fascination carried undertones of fear. Knowledge was power, but some knowledge came with prices too high to pay.
"What will you do?" Kole asked.
"For now? Nothing. You saved Lord Bran's life, and that earns you consideration." Luwin returned to his desk, making careful notes in a leather-bound journal. "But this conversation stays between us. Lady Catelyn has questions about your... unusual timing. And there are others in the castle asking difficult questions."
"What kind of others?"
"The kind who notice when metal objects move without explanation." Luwin's quill scratched across parchment with mechanical precision. "Be careful, Kole Thorne. Power without understanding is dangerous for everyone involved."
POV: Catelyn
Catelyn Stark had not slept properly in three days. She maintained her vigil beside Bran's bed like a statue carved from northern stone, watching her son's chest rise and fall with mechanical rhythm. The maesters claimed he would recover, but promises meant nothing when weighed against a mother's fears.
The boy looked so small in the great bed, his dark hair spread across white pillows like spilled ink. His left leg lay immobilized in wooden splints, and purple bruising covered half his face. But he was alive. Against all probability, all logic, all the merciless physics that should have dashed him against the stones, he lived.
"My lady." Maester Luwin entered without knocking, his chain of office jangling softly as he moved. "How does he fare?"
"The same." Catelyn's voice felt raw from disuse. "He stirs sometimes, but doesn't wake."
Luwin checked Bran's pulse with practiced fingers, then examined the splinting around his broken leg. The injury was healing cleanly—another small miracle in a situation full of them.
"I wanted to speak with you about the ward," Luwin said carefully. "About Kole Thorne."
Catelyn's attention sharpened like a blade finding steel. "What about him?"
"You've expressed concerns about his... background. His convenient memory loss, his unusual abilities."
"Have I been unclear?" Catelyn turned from Bran's bedside to face the maester directly. "We don't know who he really is, do we? A boy found beyond the Wall with convenient amnesia, who just happens to develop strange gifts when my son's life hangs in the balance?"
"Those gifts saved Bran."
"Did they?" Catelyn's voice carried the sharp edge of maternal protective fury. "Or did someone arrange for Bran to need saving in the first place?"
The accusation hung between them like a sword blade catching light. Luwin's scholarly features tightened with concern.
"You suspect the ward of pushing Bran?"
"I suspect the ward of many things." Catelyn moved to the window, staring out at the courtyard where her son had nearly died. "Tell me, Maester—what do you truly know about metal objects flying through the air? About hay carts that move themselves into convenient positions?"
Luwin's silence stretched long enough to become its own answer. When he finally spoke, his words carried the weight of scholarly honesty.
"I know that what happened three days ago defies conventional explanation. I also know that without those impossible events, Lord Bran would be dead."
"And that's supposed to comfort me?"
"It's supposed to remind you that some mysteries serve beneficial purposes." Luwin approached the window, his reflection ghostlike in the glass. "The ward has abilities beyond normal understanding. But he used those abilities to save your son's life."
Catelyn studied the maester's face, reading volumes in the lines around his eyes. "You've spoken with him. What did you learn?"
"Enough to know he doesn't fully understand his own capabilities. Enough to believe he means no harm to this family."
"Belief isn't knowledge."
"No. But sometimes it's all we have." Luwin returned to Bran's bedside, checking the boy's breathing with automatic precision. "The ward has proven his loyalty through action. Perhaps that should count for something."
Catelyn wanted to argue, to demand answers to questions that kept her awake at night. But exhaustion weighed heavier than suspicion, and Bran's steady breathing provided its own counterargument. Whatever Kole Thorne was, whatever strange blood ran in his veins, he had acted to save her son.
For now, that would have to be enough.
But she would be watching. Always watching.
POV: Kole
The confrontation came at sunset, in a corridor empty of servants and witnesses. Kole sensed Jaime Lannister's approach before the knight rounded the corner—his enhanced hearing picked up the familiar rhythm of expensive boots on stone, the soft whisper of silk and leather that marked high-born fashion.
But it was the smell that confirmed identity: steel oil and expensive perfume, the scent of violence masked by courtly refinement.
"Ward," Jaime said pleasantly, his hand resting with casual threat on his sword hilt. "A word, if you please."
The corridor stretched empty in both directions, providing perfect isolation for whatever conversation the Kingslayer had planned. Kole's super-soldier reflexes catalogued escape routes while his metal sense mapped every piece of iron within fifty feet.
"Ser Jaime."
"Such formality." Jaime's smile carried all the warmth of winter morning. "Considering we share such interesting secrets."
The words hit like a physical blow. Kole's enhanced physiology wanted to fight or flee, but both options would confirm whatever suspicions lurked behind Jaime's green eyes.
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"Of course you're not." Jaime moved closer, close enough that Kole could smell wine on his breath and see the predatory calculation in his expression. "Tell me—when you reached out your hands to catch a falling boy from fifty feet away, did you truly expect anyone to believe it was reflexive action?"
Ice flooded Kole's veins. "I don't—"
"I saw what you did." Jaime's voice dropped to whisper-soft menace. "I saw the metal move. Nails pulling from walls, hinges screaming, every piece of iron in the yard dancing to your tune like trained dogs."
The confession hung between them like a blade at throat level. Kole felt the cosmic curse stirring, ready to scramble any attempt at explanation, but Jaime wasn't asking for explanations.
"Here's what's going to happen," Jaime continued, his casual tone belying the steel underneath. "You're going to forget what window young Bran fell from. You're going to forget any questions about how he fell, or why he might have been climbing that particular tower at that particular time."
Understanding crashed over Kole like a tide. This wasn't just about his abilities—this was about what Bran had seen before falling. The twins' secret. The reason Jaime had been willing to push a child to his death.
"And in exchange?"
"I'll forget that you're some kind of unnatural creature who belongs in a black cell somewhere." Jaime's smile never wavered. "Mutually assured discretion. We both have secrets worth protecting."
The arrangement was elegant in its simplicity. Blackmail for silence, leverage balanced against leverage. But it left Kole trapped between impossible choices—protect his own secret while enabling the cover-up of attempted child murder.
"You would have pushed him regardless," Kole said quietly. "Whether I saved him or not."
"Probably." Jaime's honesty was more chilling than any lie. "But you did save him, which creates complications we both need to manage."
The knight stepped back, his hand finally leaving his sword hilt. The threat remained, but it had been delivered with courtly precision.
"Think carefully about your next moves, ward. Some games have prices too high to pay."
Jaime walked away with the fluid grace of a born swordsman, leaving Kole alone in the corridor with the taste of defeat bitter on his tongue. He'd saved Bran's life, but in doing so, he'd exposed himself to an enemy who understood exactly how dangerous knowledge could be.
The iron figurines hidden in his chambers suddenly felt like anchors dragging him toward depths he couldn't escape. Someone knew his secret. Multiple someones, if he counted Luwin's growing suspicions and Catelyn's maternal paranoia.
The careful invisibility that had protected him for two years was crumbling like stone exposed to winter's grip.
And somewhere in the castle's depths, plans were being made that would test every principle he'd sworn to uphold.
That evening, Ned Stark summoned him to the solar for a conversation that would define everything that followed. The lord of Winterfell sat behind his desk like a man carrying the weight of the world, and his first words changed everything.
"I want you to come south with me," Ned said without preamble. "As my squire. There's a place in King's Landing for someone with your... unique qualities."
The offer hung in the air like a sword about to fall. King's Landing meant proximity to Ned, a chance to prevent his execution, an opportunity to stop Littlefinger and Cersei before their plans came to fruition.
But it also meant leaving Winterfell vulnerable to Theon's eventual betrayal, to the Bolton conspiracy, to threats he knew were coming but couldn't voice.
"I need to choose between saving one person I love and protecting many others I care about. Either way, people die."
The internal monologue burned like acid in his throat. He couldn't be in two places at once, and the cosmic curse meant he couldn't explain his reasoning to anyone.
Kole looked into Ned Stark's grey eyes and made the most painful decision of his life.
"I'm honored by the offer, my lord. But I believe my duty lies here."
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