Heavy rain lashed the ancient stone walls of Winterfell, coursing down stones laid by ancestors thousands of years dead, gathering in murky puddles in the corners that reflected the guttering light of the torches at the castle gate.
Winterfell, the capital of the North, seated at the heart of this vast and harsh land. The North encompasses nearly a third of the continent of Westeros, from the Gift to the swamps of the Neck, from the Shivering Sea to the Sunset Sea. Yet the climate is unforgiving, and when the long winter comes, ice and snow can lock the land in frost for years. It is sparsely populated, with perhaps a million souls scattered across frozen hills, deep forests, and cold, windswept coasts. The northerners are children of the First Men, who keep the old gods, carving faces into heart trees and listening to the whispers of the wild in the depths of the wood. This icy land breeds a hardy people, taciturn, who hold honor and an oath more dearly than life.
Before the Conqueror's War, when the long winters came, the veterans of the North would form the Winter Wolves and ride south to plunder as far as the Neck. These aged warriors fought with a berserker fury unto death, hoping to spare their young families the cruelty of a winter they might not survive. They were fierce, with a unique, stark truth to them. They did not fear death for themselves, but they dreaded seeing their families starve and freeze.
After Aegon the Conqueror united the Seven Kingdoms, becoming Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, he decreed that whenever the long winter came, the Targaryens would call upon the six southern kingdoms to aid the North. But it was House Stark that truly held this land through countless cruel winters. They had been Kings in the North for five thousand years, yet they never amassed the golden and silver seas of the southern lords. Winterfell's coffers were often empty, for every dragon was traded for food, furs, and firewood, doled out to the people in the harsh winter. In the hearts of the northern folk, a Stark is no ruler set above; he is the fire in the cold winter, the hope in desperate times. The Stark words are law in the North.
In the Great Hall, oak logs crackled and spat in the hearth. Daemon Targaryen shrugged off his heavy, rain-soaked cloak and tossed it to a waiting servant. His dark red leather armor gleamed like blood in the firelight, the three-headed dragon of his house embroidered in golden thread on his chest seeming almost alive. Rainwater dripped from the tips of his silver hair.
Cregan Stark sat in the high seat, a throne carved from a single massive weirwood stump, its seat worn smooth by the backsides of generations of northern kings, now covered with the pelt of a great direwolf, its grey-white fur thick, its head resting upon the back of the chair. The young lord possessed the trademark long face of his house, with grey eyes and dark brown hair. Beside him stood Maester Red, his beard and hair white as snow, the links of his chain clinking softly about his neck, his eyes, which had seen decades of northern wind and snow, fixed watchfully on the visiting prince.
"The prince has come a long way," Cregan spoke, his voice not loud but clear enough to cut through the drumming of the rain against the windows. "The North should offer him every courtesy. But with respect, my prince, I fear you will return empty-handed this time."
Daemon narrowed his violet eyes. At four-and-forty, years had etched fine lines at their corners. His gaze moved slowly across the hall. On the walls hung tapestries of past Stark lords, of Kings who fought the Others in the Long Night, and of the King in the North who knelt to Aegon the Conqueror. Banners hung from the rafters, the grey direwolf on its white field stirring faintly in the hall's drafts.
"Empty-handed?" Daemon's lip curled. He strode towards the hearth, extending his hands to the flames. "I've said nothing yet, Lord Stark, and you claim to know my mind?"
"All the Seven Kingdoms know," Cregan said calmly. "The butcher's bill in the Gullet. The fall of High Tide. The bloodletting at Dragonstone. Jacaerys. Lucerys. Joffrey... When the raven brought that ill news, I was inspecting the granaries at Long Lake, preparing for the winter to come. The old gods above grant those young Valyrians peace."
Daemon turned, his voice cold. "Valyrians? Those boys were the heirs of my wife, Princess Rhaenyra. They died by treachery, and now you cower from the Greens' power and hold your tongue?"
Cregan was silent a moment. A log shifted in the hearth, sending up a shower of sparks. "Even so," he said slowly, "kinslaying is still a grievous sin. The ancient law of the gods is written in the weirwoods, graven on the hearts of the First Men. Those who spill their own blood are accursed in the end."
"The old gods?" Daemon smiled, the expression carrying his characteristic arrogance. "Lord Cregan, do you know what blood meant in old Valyria before the Doom? It meant purity. It meant power. Brother slaying brother? Father slaying son? Common as salt in that land of freehold. A dragon does not flinch from blood. A dragon follows strength."
Maester Red cleared his throat, his chain links whispering. "Your Grace, this is the North. My lord follows the thousand-year traditions of his ancestors. He sets great store by oaths and the bonds of blood."
"So you'd rather be true to the Greens?" Daemon stepped forward. "Viserys, my own brother, lies in the Red Keep now, drugged and asleep all day. Every decree comes from Queen Alicent and her whelp Aemond. Do you swear fealty to the king on the Iron Throne, or to the Greens who hold him captive?"
Silence filled the hall. Only the rain hammering the stone window frames, the wind keening through the cracks in the ancient masonry, and the ceaseless crackle of the fire.
Cregan breathed out, a faint plume of white in the chill air. The cold of the North never truly relented, even at the height of summer.
"I received a raven from King's Landing not long ago," he said slowly. "Upon the parchment was the king's seal, pressed in golden wax with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen. It bore the signature of the Queen Regent, a fair hand. The letter stated that the three brothers—Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey—had defied the king's command and stolen royal dragons with treasonous intent. All of it was procedurally sound."
"Procedure?" Daemon nearly laughed. "Sound procedure! Then let me ask you this, my lord. Did you see Viserys pen that letter with your own eyes? Did you hear him give that command with your own ears? Or does the king's seal make you swallow any lie stamped upon it? Viserys is my brother! He has not been seen publicly in over half a year!"
Cregan's grey eyes sharpened. "You accuse the Regent of forging a royal decree, my prince."
"I accuse them of holding my brother prisoner in his own castle and butchering his own blood!" Daemon's voice rose. "Aemond Targaryen washed High Tide in blood—a century of Velaryon legacy plundered by him! Now he's taken Dragonstone as well! Which of these acts had the king's assent?"
He drew a deep breath, forcing calm. Cregan looked away. He had heard the rumors, of course—from caravans crossing the Neck, from rangers returning from south of the Wall, from wandering singers in taverns. News from the Seven Kingdoms always reached Winterfell eventually, distorted by distance, perhaps, but the core of it remained true. King's Landing was tearing itself apart, and the Targaryen feud was written in blood.
"Nevertheless," the young lord said, meeting Daemon's gaze again, "Prince Aegon was publicly named the king's heir. That is a fact, my prince."
"Because my brother was deathly ill!" Daemon snapped. "Befuddled by Alicent and Aemond! We believed their promises of peace, and they fed us lies while three of Rhaenyra's sons—my sons, in truth, if not by blood—paid with their lives!"
Maester Red spoke softly, his voice placid but reasoned. "My prince, this is still a matter for House Targaryen to settle..."
"No." Daemon cut him off, rounding on the maester, his purple eyes burning in the firelight. "This is about the future of the Seven Kingdoms."
Cregan rose. He was tall, though only eighteen, already carrying the presence expected of a Warden of the North. "And you, Prince Daemon?" he asked, meeting Daemon's eyes without flinching. "How many prisoners did you slaughter when you held the Stepstones in your wrath? They call you the Prince of the Narrow Sea and Lord of Flea Bottom, and those are not kind names. There are other tales... that you slew your wife. Rhea Royce. Not long after Laenor Velaryon died, you married Princess Rhaenyra, and men said you had Laenor killed too. You fought as a sellsword in the East when you were young, raiding trading ships, and some whisper of slaving. Those tales reach the North as well. In my eyes, you and the kinslayers in King's Landing are not so different."