EDDARD II

The morning sun offered no warmth against the grey stone of Eddard's solar. He sat at his desk, the Lord of Winterfell's work spread before him: trade accounts from White Harbor, a request for aid from a lesser lord whose lands bordered the wolfswood, and a stack of reports from his Master-at-Arms. It was the mundane, necessary work of a ruler, yet his mind was elsewhere. A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.

"Enter," he called.

Vayon Poole, the steward of Winterfell and head of his household guard, stepped inside, his face etched with familiar, dutiful concern. "My lord. A matter from the Winter Town."

"Speak," Eddard said, leaning back in his chair.

"A thief was apprehended last night," Poole began. "A man named Rickard. He's been the source of the recent troubles among the merchants. We found him in his shack with a cache of stolen goods."

"Good," Eddard nodded. "A simple matter, then. Have him flogged and—"

"That is the difficulty, my lord," Poole interrupted, a rare occurrence. "He was not apprehended by the guard. We found him unconscious. Beaten, but not seriously harmed. The stolen goods were piled in the center of his hovel, and a racket was created to draw our attention to the scene."

Eddard sat forward, his interest piqued. "Someone else caught him and delivered him to us?"

"It would seem so, my lord," Poole confirmed. "No one saw anything. The man claims he was attacked by a shadow— a ghost that moved without sound. Drunken rambling, most likely, but the fact remains: someone is taking the law into their own hands in the town. A vigilante."

A cold knot tightened in Eddard's stomach. Order was the foundation upon which the North was built. A man, even a well-intentioned one, operating outside the lord's law was a spark that could ignite dissent. "This cannot be allowed to stand," he said, his voice hard as iron. "I want eyes and ears in the town. Find this person. I will not have masked men dealing out their own justice in the shadow of my walls. Find them and bring them to me."

"At once, my lord," Poole said with a bow. "And the thief, Rickard?"

Eddard's mind flashed to the letter he'd received weeks ago. "He is young?"

"Aye, my lord. Not yet twenty."

"Give him a choice," Eddard commanded. "The loss of a hand for his crimes, or he can take the black. Let the gods judge his worth at the Wall."

"Very good, my lord."

After Poole departed, Eddard could no longer focus on his paperwork. He needed air. He walked from his solar, his path taking him, as it often did, toward the training yard. The familiar clang of steel was a sound that usually soothed him, but today it was accompanied by a sight that made him stop in the archway.

It was Jon. He was not practicing drills or sparring with a single opponent. He was in the center of the yard, a practice blade in hand, facing three household guards at once. And he was not merely holding his own—he was controlling the engagement.

Eddard watched, his breath catching in his throat. It was not the brawling style of the North, nor the flashy dueling of the south. Jon moved with a sublime, lethal grace, his longsword held in two hands, becoming an extension of his body. He didn't overpower his opponents; he flowed around them, his footwork impeccable. He would turn aside a heavy blow with a subtle, efficient deflection that seemed to cost him no effort, using the opponent's momentum to create an opening elsewhere. It was a style Eddard had seen only once before, wielded by the greatest knight he had ever known, at the foot of a lonely tower in Dorne. It was the style of Ser Arthur Dayne.

The fight ended when Jon disarmed one man, used a fluid spin to evade another's lunge, and placed the tip of his sword at the third man's throat. The guards yielded, breathing heavily, looks of awe and disbelief on their faces. Jon simply nodded, his own breathing barely labored.

A surge of fierce, undeniable pride swelled in Eddard's chest. That is my boy, he thought. My son. The skill, the focus, the potential—it was breathtaking. The dread was still there, a cold shadow lurking beneath the pride, for he knew what such skill could mean in the eyes of others. But in this moment, watching Jon, it was a father's pride that won out.

Every display of Jon's prodigious skill was another stone on the wall between him and Catelyn. She had become more antagonistic these past weeks, her words sharper, her glares colder. She saw Jon's growing prowess not as a credit to the household, but as a direct threat to Robb's future. He is the better swordsman, she had hissed at him just last night. What will happen when other men begin to see it, too?

Adding to his unease was Jon's own quiet persistence. Over the past two moons, the boy had started asking about his mother again, a topic he had long seemed to abandon. The questions were infrequent, posed with a hesitant hope that twisted a knife in Eddard's heart. Each time, Eddard had to give the same vague, practiced answers, the same gentle deflections. He saw the flicker of hurt in Jon's violet eyes before it was masked by resignation, and the lie tasted like ash in his mouth. To protect the boy, he had to wound him, a cruel irony that was his constant companion.

He had been thinking of his children a great deal lately. Robb, his heir, so full of honor and strength, but sometimes lacking the finer, more subtle cunning. Sansa, a beautiful southern flower blooming in the cold north, already dreaming of knights and princes. Arya, his little wolf girl, all wildness and steel, so much like Lyanna it ached. Bran, the climber, with his old soul and curious eyes. And Rickon, still just a babe. They all had a place, a path set for them.

All but Jon. The outsider in their house. Catelyn had even fought him on Jon's sudden interest in the library, seeing it as another way for the bastard to elevate himself. But Eddard had stood firm. He had seen the hunger for knowledge in the boy's eyes and could not deny him. Let him learn. Let him be the best man he could be, even if Eddard did not know what to do with the man he was becoming.

Lost in these heavy thoughts, he returned to his solar to find Maester Luwin waiting for him, a small, tightly rolled scroll in his hand.

"My lord," Luwin said, his expression grave. "A raven from the Wall. From your brother."

Eddard took the scroll, his heart sinking. A letter from Benjen so soon after the last was never good news. He broke the black seal and unrolled the parchment. The message was short and stark.

Ned,

The wildlings are stirring. Mance Rayder is gathering them by the thousand. We have had more rangers go missing in the last moon than in the last year. Our numbers are too few. The Watch is dying. Send us men. Any men you can spare.

Your brother, Benjen.

Eddard stared at the words, the parchment crinkling in his tightening grip. He thought of the thief in the dungeons, given the choice to take the black. He thought of Catelyn's fears, of Robert's blind hatred, of his own impossible promise. He thought of Jon in the yard, a warrior with no war to fight and no name to claim.

Benjen needed men. And here was a boy with no name, no claim, and too much talent for peace. A sword with nowhere to swing. Sending him would be mercy. Or it would be exile. Or it would be betrayal. Perhaps all three.

The solar suddenly felt suffocating, the walls pressing in around him. Eddard pushed away from his desk, his chair scraping loudly in the silence. He needed air. He needed the quiet counsel of the old gods.

He retrieved Ice, his greatsword, from its place on the wall. The Valyrian steel was dark as smoke and impossibly sharp, its weight familiar and grounding in his hands. He carried it not as a weapon, but as a penitent carries a holy relic.

The Godswood stood silent, a world unto itself within the castle walls. Cold, still air hung heavy with the scent of damp earth and pine. He walked past ancient sentinels and oaks until he reached the heart of the grove, where the weirwood stood watch over the black, placid pool. Its bone-white bark contrasted sharply with its blood-red, five-pointed leaves, and its carved face, weeping red sap, seemed to watch him with ancient, sorrowful wisdom.

Eddard knelt by the pool's edge, laying Ice across his knees. He took out an oilcloth and began the slow, methodical ritual of cleaning the blade. The rhythmic strokes became a meditation, quieting the storm in his mind. With each pass, he saw the faces of his dilemma: his brother Benjen, desperate for men; his wife Catelyn, her eyes cold with fear for her children; his king Robert, features twisted in drunken rage at the mere mention of "dragonspawn."

And finally, Jon's face. The boy's fierce pride in the yard, his quiet hurt when asking about his mother, his rare, unguarded smile. Eddard looked up at the weirwood, at the bleeding eyes that had witnessed thousands of years of Stark history.

Promise me, Ned. Lyanna's voice whispered on the wind.

He had promised to protect the boy. But what did protection mean? Was it keeping him here—a source of strife in his own home, a target for the ambitious, a secret that could burn them all? Or was it sending him away to a hard but safe life, where the name Targaryen held no meaning and a king's wrath couldn't reach?

He finished cleaning the blade, its dark surface reflecting the grim set of his face. The Godswood offered no easy answers or divine intervention—only silence and the strength to bear a warden's duty. He had made a promise to his sister. And he knew, with a certainty that felt like a stone in his soul, that he would keep it, even if it meant becoming the villain of his own son's story.