Galbart I
296 - AC
The wind howled through the Wolfswood like a wounded beast, rattling the palisade logs of Deepwood Motte and sending dead leaves skittering across the muddy yard.
Inside the great hall, the air was thick with the scent of pine smoke and damp wool.
A fire roared in the massive stone hearth, but it did little to chase the chill from Galbart Glover's bones.
He sat at the high table, broad shoulders hunched, staring at the parchment in his callused hands.
The direwolf seal had been broken, but the words remained sharp as Valyrian steel.
Robb Stark, heir to Winterfell, betrothed to Arianne Martell, Princess of Dorne.
Galbart's fingers tightened, crumpling the edges. Disappointment settled in his gut like lead, heavier than any armor he'd worn. He had expected many things from the Starks, honor, duty, the unyielding strength of the North but not this. Not a Dornish match for the Young Wolf.
He leaned back, the chair creaking under his weight. The hall was quiet save for the crackle of the fire and the distant thud of axes in the wood beyond the walls.
His brother Robett was away hunting with the younger men, leaving Galbart alone with his thoughts and the raven's unwelcome gift.
He read the letter again, though he had no need. Eddard Stark's hand was unmistakable, plain and steady. The same hand that had once clasped his forearm after the Trident, after Pyke.
Galbart remembered the Usurper's War as if it were yesterday. He had ridden south with Lord Stark, a young lord then, full of fire and grief for his father and brother.
They had fought together at the Trident, blood and mud and screams, and when the dust settled, he had won Galbart's respect with quiet words and steady steel. No boasts, no preening, just a man who did what needed doing.
Later, when Balon Greyjoy crowned himself king and the ironborn came reaving, Stark had called the banners again. Galbart had answered without hesitation, marching to Pyke beside the man who had become more than a liege lord: a brother in arms.
They had stormed the castle together, watched the false king fall.
Eddard Stark had solidified Glover loyalty that day, forged it in iron and salt spray.
But even then, the seed had been planted.
When Stark went south as a boy, warded in the Vale under Jon Arryn's roof, he had returned with a southern wife.
Catelyn Tully, red-haired, pious, soft-spoken in the way of Riverlanders. She had come to Winterfell like a spring thaw, gentle and foreign. And what had she brought? A sept, gods damn it. A sept in the heart of Winterfell, stones hauled from the south, septons chanting their seven-faced prayers where the heart tree stood silent watch.
Galbart had seen it with his own eyes the first time he visited after the wedding: white walls rising beside the ancient godswood, candles flickering where weirwood leaves should have whispered secrets to the wind.
The old gods had no need of stone gods, no need of southern rites. Yet Ned had allowed it, for love, for alliance, for peace.
Peace. Galbart spat into the rushes. Peace that diluted the North, one southern breath at a time.
And now this. A Dornishwoman. Not even a Riverlander with some claim to northern blood through old ties, but a sun-baked princess from the deserts where men took paramours openly and women ruled as equals.
Arianne Martell—heiress to Sunspear, they said, clever and bold.
Bold enough to wed a Stark, it seemed.
Galbart's lip curled. Bold as a viper, perhaps.
Dornish whores, the smallfolk whispered when they thought lords weren't listening.
Sand in their veins, fire in their beds, and schemes in their smiles. What place had such a woman in Winterfell? In the North?
He thought of Robb then, and the ache deepened.
The boy had come to Deepwood Motte not two years past, riding at the head of a small party—his winter sons, he called them, though they were lads barely old enough to shave and greybeards, who had seen more battles than any.
Robb Stark, tall for his age, with his father's grey eyes and his mother's auburn hair.
Half-southern blood ran in him, aye, but when the outlaws had plagued the western Wolfswood, cutthroats hiding in the thickets, preying on travelers, Robb had not hesitated.
The boy had listened to his reports with a serious face, asked sharp questions, then called the banners.
Glover men had ridden with him, axes gleaming, and together they had rooted out the vermin.
Robb had led the final charge himself, sword in hand, fury in his voice like the old Kings of Winter from the tales. No quarter given, no mercy begged.
The boy had fought like a Stark of legend, fierce, unyielding, honorable.
He had watched him stand over the last bandit's body, blood on his blade, and thought: This is our lord paramount one day. This is the North's future.
And he would never acknowledge a Dornish whore as his lady.
He rose, pacing before the hearth. The flames cast long shadows across the hall's timber walls, where old shields hung—mailed fists on scarlet, the sigil of his house. A strong northern woman by his side, that was what Robb needed. A daughter of the Wolfswood or the Rills, someone raised on snow and pine, who knew the old gods' silence and the bite of winter wind. Someone who would bear true northern sons, not half-southern whelps raised on southern songs and septs.
Someone who understood that the North remembered, that it did not bend easily to foreign ways.
He stopped, staring into the fire. Eddard was making a mistake. Again. The same mistake he had made when he brought Catelyn north. Alliance, duty, strategy, he understood those things. He had fought for them. But there were lines that should not be crossed.
The North had its own strength, forged in ice and iron.
To dilute it with southern blood, Dornish blood, of all things, was to invite weakness.
What would the old gods say, watching from the heart tree as a Martell walked Winterfell's halls? What would the smallfolk whisper when a sun princess bore the next Lord of Winterfell?
He crumpled the letter in his fist. He would send a reply, of course. Polite. Loyal. House Glover had always been loyal to the Starks, steady, unyielding, like the mailed fist on their banner.
He would not approve of the match, he would make sure to help Lord Stark understand that this was a mistake and many lords of the North would agree to it, that this would bring them disappointment.
Disappointment that would linger, cold and hard as winter stone and grow like moss over the keep.
He would make sure to root this out.
—----
Theon III
296 - AC
The air in the whorehouse was thick with the smell of cheap perfume, spilled ale, and sweat-soaked furs.
A single tallow candle guttered on the bedside crate, throwing long, flickering shadows across the low rafters.
He laid on his back atop the straw mattress, one arm flung behind his head, the other resting lazily across the bare waist of the woman beside him.
Her name was Mira, or Myra, or something close enough, he hadn't bothered to ask twice.
She was warm, soft in the right places, and currently asleep with her dark hair fanned across his chest like spilled ink.
Her breathing was slow and even, the gentle rise and fall of her breasts the only movement in the dim room.
Theon stared at the ceiling beams, tracing the knots in the wood with his eyes. His body was sated, but his mind was restless, turning over thoughts like stones in a cold stream.
He had heard the news the same way everyone else had: the Young Wolf, betrothed to Princess Arianne Martell of Dorne. The heir of Winterfell would wed the sun of Sunspear.
Sand and snow.
They called it in the songs already being sung by drunken singers in the common room below.
Theon had laughed when he first heard it, laughed loud enough to draw stares, because what else was there to do when your best friend, your almost-brother, was handed the most beautiful prize in the Seven Kingdoms?
Envy curled in his gut now, small and sharp, like a fishhook lodged just under the ribs.
He had seen her. Gods, how could he not?
She moved through Winterfell like summer came early, dark hair streaked with those strange black threads, skin the color of burnished copper, eyes that laughed even when her mouth stayed serious.
She wore silks and light furs that clung in ways northern wool never would, and Theon had noticed, how could any man not notice?, the way her nipples sometimes pressed against the thin fabric when the wind slipped through the battlements, or how her hips swayed with a lazy, deliberate grace that made every man in the yard turn his head and then pretend he hadn't.
Dornish whore, they called her in whispered tones at the inns of Winter Town.
A woman who took lovers as freely as she breathed, who laughed at septons and fucked without shame.
The smallfolk said it with a mixture of scorn and longing; the highborn said it in lowered voices, as though speaking the word might summon her to their beds. He had laughed at that too, at first. But the laughter tasted bitter now.
He had been with them often enough these past weeks. Robb, ever dutiful, ever the perfect host, had taken her everywhere: the godswood first, of course, where the heart tree's carved face watched them with its red eyes while they spoke in low voices under the bone-white branches. Then the sept, because she had asked to see it, curious, not reverent.
Robb had stood stiffly while she trailed her fingers along the seven statues, smiling at the Mother as though greeting an old friend. He lingered near the door, arms crossed, pretending to be bored.
And the crypts. That had been his idea, half-jest, half-challenge.
"Come see the old Kings in Winter," he'd said, grinning. "They don't bite. Much."
She had gone down with them, torch in hand, her silk gown whispering against the stone steps.
The cold had hit her like a slap; she'd shivered despite the fur Robb draped over her shoulders.
She had looked at the stone faces of the old Starks, Brandon the Builder, Cregan, Torrhen, with polite interest, but no warmth.
When they reached Lyanna's statue, she had paused longest, studying the sad young face with something almost like pity.
"She looks lonely," Arianne had murmured. Then she had turned away, hugging herself against the chill. "This place is too quiet. Too full of ghosts. I prefer the sun."
Robb had smiled at that, soft, indulgent and led her back up the steps without protest.
Theon had lingered a moment longer, staring at Lyanna's stone eyes, feeling the familiar twist of something he refused to name. Then he had followed them out into the pale northern daylight.
Lying here now, with Myra's warm thigh draped over his, Theon let the images play behind his closed eyelids.
Arianne laughing at one of Robb's rare jests, tilting her head to listen when he spoke of the North's history and brushing snow from her sleeve, the motion lifting the fabric just enough to hint at the curve beneath.
He shifted, and Mira murmured something sleepy, nestling closer. His hand slid down her back almost by reflex, tracing the dip of her spine. She was pretty enough, dark-eyed, full-lipped, skilled in ways that made him forget his name for a little while. But she was not Arianne.
The thought came unbidden, sharp and disloyal, I could ask her. One word to the right servant, a purse of silver, and she might come to his chambers.
She might smile that slow, knowing smile and let him peel away those silks. He could taste the salt and spice of her, feel those swaying hips under his hands, bury himself in heat that would burn away the cold forever.
The fantasy lasted only a heartbeat.
Then shame rushed in, cold as Blackwater Bay.
Robb was like a brother to him. Closer than brothers, sometimes.
They had trained together, hunted together, shared ale and secrets and the kind of silences that needed no words.
He trusted him and he had never once looked at Theon like the hostage he was. To even think of touching his betrothed, to imagine stealing even one night from what was Robb's by right, was a betrayal so deep it made Theon's stomach turn.
No. He would not.
He rolled onto his side, away from Mira, staring at the rough plank wall. Envy still brooded there, low and sullen, like coals under ash.
Not just for her body, though gods, that body, but for everything she represented. A princess. A beauty. A future.
Robb would have her in his bed, in his hall, in his life. He would have children with her, heirs with Stark grey eyes and Martell fire. He would have the North and Dorne both at his back, a realm stronger for the match.
And Theon? He had a room in Winterfell that was never truly his, a name that belonged to a father who had once tried to kill the man who raised him, and nights like this, warm flesh, empty comfort, and the bitter aftertaste of things he could never claim.
Mira stirred again, her hand sliding across his stomach.
"You're quiet tonight, m'lord," she murmured, voice thick with sleep and satisfaction. "Thinking of someone else?"
Theon forced a laugh, short and hollow. "Always."
He stared into the dark, listening to the wind claw at the shutters. Somewhere in the keep above them, Robb was probably asleep, dreaming of battles or wolves or the woman who would soon be his wife.
He closed his eyes.
Envy was a cold thing. It did not warm the blood. It only reminded you how little heat you had to begin with.