Winterfell, a certain abandoned corner.
For thousands of years, the castle had grown like a monstrous stone tree—branches twisted, roots tangled and interwoven.
Its walls and towers, courtyards and covered walks, were like a vast labyrinth of gray stone.
Now, inside a ruined tower that had long been abandoned—
"As a devout believer of the Many-Faced God, don't think this can make me feel even the slightest shame! I will not yield!"
Her voice echoed through the cramped, narrow space, but no one answered.
Benita felt as though she was going mad.
She could not even tell whether anyone was there—whether she was facing a person or only air. It was too quiet. There was not even the sound of insects.
The woman assassin who had been bold, seductive, and striking in the Smoked Log Tavern now looked pitiful—small, weak, and helpless.
Benita had been stripped bare. A hood covered her eyes, cotton plugged her ears, and her limbs were fixed tight to a cross.
The ruined tower's space was tight and constricted, surrounded by stone walls made of huge blue-gray blocks—so sealed that even echoes could not escape.
There was only one exit. A heavy iron door had been shut, leaving only a finger-width gap as a breathing slit.
This female assassin—Benita—the one who had tried to kill Domeric at the Smoked Log Tavern, had been temporarily placed here by him.
Domeric's purpose was, of course, not to satisfy some strange appetite, nor to indulge in some "captivity game."
He simply wanted to extract the intelligence he needed from Benita—by the simplest method, in the shortest time.
For someone like Benita, a Faceless Man of the House of Black and White across the Narrow Sea—though she was still only an apprentice who had not passed her trials—ordinary physical torture had already lost its effect.
Compared to tormenting the body, breaking the mind was far more terrifying.
A place like this ruined tower—cramped, monotonous, suffocatingly dull—paired with the restricting design around her would drive a person's senses down to the lowest possible level…
In the darkness, Benita drew a deep breath.
Negative emotions flooded her. She grew restless and agitated, her attention scattering, her thoughts disrupted—she could no longer think as she normally would, and she could not even feel time moving.
How long had it been outside? A day? Two days? A month?
As time passed, her body began to change as well—nausea and retching, severe disruption in hormonal balance, even the onset of hallucinations.
That physiological damage pushed Benita's senses and cognition toward collapse.
She was being broken.
This was one of the most effective interrogation methods in human history—sensory deprivation.
There were precedents for it throughout history. In his former life, the so-called "hunger mask" punishments of the seventeenth century had inadvertently touched on the principle of sensory deprivation.
Such masks left only a narrow slit at the mouth. The prisoner would feel hunger, and at the same time be terrified by the obstruction of their senses.
Even in prisons, solitary confinement had never been a comfort.
Rather, lacking human contact, prisoners gradually became neurotic. In earlier times, political prisoners going mad in their cells was often for this very reason.
In interrogation, sensory deprivation could cause a suspect to lose judgment little by little—making it far easier to achieve the interrogator's aim.
Trapped in this storage shaft, Benita felt fear.
It was a feeling that truly made one ill—like being sealed inside a black box, forever and ever, endlessly dark.
In the dark, you cannot reach out—and even if you do, you will never touch anything.
Domeric had once read a top-secret manual from the American CIA, the Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual, which detailed many techniques for extracting confessions.
He remembered its contents vividly. He had never imagined they would be useful here.
The book contained more than a hundred ways to interrogate a prisoner.
If he had sufficient time, Domeric could even try them one by one on Benita.
And if nothing unexpected happened, this woman assassin would eventually weep and scream and spill every scrap of intelligence she had, cleanly and completely.
House Karstark, to hire a Faceless Man to kill Domeric, must have paid a staggering price.
Perhaps they had not paid enough—because the assassin they obtained was only an apprentice, not yet tried and proven.
At the same time, this assassin would become the final straw that crushed House Karstark.
Hiring a killer to assassinate a noble—
In Westeros, that was an unforgivable crime.
Because it crossed the bottom line of every noble house.
If such conduct were not punished severely, every lord would lose any sense of safety.
Domeric could even picture it: the moment this ironclad evidence was placed before Lord Eddard Stark—
A man who prided himself on chivalry as though it were his marrow—Eddard Stark would unleash thunderous measures against the acting castellan of Karhold, Torrhen Karstark, for defiling the very ideals of knighthood.
Of course, that was only if Domeric could successfully obtain from the woman assassin the proof he needed:
Proof that House Karstark had hired an assassin to murder a noble.
Domeric was not an ambitious man—he never had been.
Before he came to this world, he had been an ordinary office worker. To work, save money, and enjoy life—that had been his goal.
Sleep in, play games, stare into space when he felt like it—then marry a woman who was "good enough," and live the simple life of wife, child, and warm bed.
But since arriving in Westeros, all of that had changed.
Even if Domeric cast aside his noble identity, fled House Bolton, fled the Dreadfort, hid his name in some corner of the world—one day he would still be dragged into the storm for reasons he could not foresee.
Like the protagonist of a tale—until, because friends or family were harmed, he became some lonely, dark avenger.
The road to heaven runs through hell.
If you want to live in heaven, you must hold a blade and step into hell.
If you want to live like a tree beneath the sun, your roots must sink deep into the darkest earth to draw enough nourishment.
A man who holds power—if he does not use it effectively…
History teaches that such men often meet bitter, miserable ends—and drag down the very people they cherish.
The world was too cruel.
In Westeros, it was far harder to remain an outsider than it was to enter the game and become a piece on the board.
Without sufficient strength, you could only be prey in this world—living one day at a time, to be butchered at another's whim.
Some might pity you, feel compassion for you.
But far more would trample you and grind you down.
So, facing the coming War of the Five Kings, Domeric chose to meet it head-on—if he had to die, then he would die in a blaze.
Slowly, Domeric drew his thoughts back. For now, dealing with House Karstark and expanding the Lonely Hills domain were the urgent priorities.
He glanced at the naked woman assassin bound to the cross.
Fear had already begun to take root in her heart.
The moment to dig out secrets had arrived.
-
-
-
🏰 Game of Thrones: Secrets Beneath the Dreadfort
📢 Dark Secrets Await in the North! 📢
Game of Thrones: Secrets Beneath the Dreadfort now has 30 chapters ahead available on Patreon! 🩸🐺
Uncover the secrets buried beneath the Dreadfort and the dark legacy of House Bolton before anyone else.
🛑 Also on Patreon, you can find exclusive novels not available anywhere else, including:
R18: Reincarnated in Her World
Cyberpunk: Lucy Adopted Me and I Got a System
Cyberpunk: The Relentless
My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew?
My Cyberpunk 2077 Simulator
The Rebirth of Harry Potter
Dragon King of Ice and Fire
Star Wars: Relics of the Past
🔗 www.patreon.com/c/MrMagnus👤 Patreon name: SrMagnus🐦 Twitter/X: https://x.com/SrMagnusBook
⚠️ Remember: I'll always post more chapters of the novel that gets the most Power Stones!