It wasn't easy to shadow someone in Winterfell without being noticed, especially when you possessed a face that everyone was beginning to memorize.
But I had learned in the past days that people don't look at "shadows"; they look at garments, at swords, at the faces they expect to see. So I donned a tattered old cloak, hid my dark hair under a frayed hood, and waited by the servants' exit.
My heart hammered in my chest like a war drum, and cold sweat trickled down my back despite the night's chill.
"What are you doing, Alex?" a voice whispered in my head. "This isn't training. This is... madness."
But I couldn't turn back. Not now.
When the servant Wat emerged from the western gate heading toward Winter Town, he moved with suspicious caution. He didn't head for the tavern, nor his home; instead, he took a narrow side path behind the pig pens, where the stench of rot and filth hung heavy in the air.
I trailed him, using everything I had learned about stealth.
But every step was a reminder: I'm not a professional. I'm just a boy playing with fire.
My right knee still ached from training, and every movement produced small sounds—the rustle of a cloak, a footfall on gravel—sounds that seemed like screams to me in the night's silence.
"If he hears me, he'll run. Or worse... he'll kill me."
Wat stopped at a derelict shack on the edge of town. The stranger I had seen the day before stepped out. He wore dark clothes, and in his hand, a dagger glinted in the pale moonlight.
I hid behind an old wooden barrel, my heart nearly leaping from my chest.
"Did you bring the guard roster?" the stranger asked in a voice that sounded like the hiss of a snake.
"Yes, but Lord Stark has increased the watches. The Cassel boy, that young man... has started prowling the corridors too often. He makes me nervous," Wat whispered anxiously.
Something in my chest twisted.
They were talking about me.
"The Cassel boy is just a pup playing with a sword," the stranger replied with disdain. "We'll deal with him if necessary. What matters now is the message going to King's Landing. Lord Baelish is waiting for news of Stark's movements."
Baelish!
The blood froze in my veins.
Littlefinger. He had eyes here, even before the King's feet had touched the North.
Suddenly, my foot came down on a dry branch.
Snap!
The sound of breaking wood was like a cannon shot in the stillness of the night.
"Who's there?!" the stranger shouted, drawing his dagger.
No time to hide.
I stepped out from the shadows, my real sword—the steel I had stolen from the armory—in my hand.
But my hand was shaking.
Not just from fear, but from realization:
This isn't training. This is a man who will try to kill me.
"The pup you spoke of... has fangs," I said, my voice trembling despite my attempt to remain steady.
The stranger didn't wait. He lunged with terrifying speed.
He wasn't a formal warrior; he was a killer. His movements were unpredictable, aimed at the throat, the eyes, the places that kill quickly.
I dodged his first thrust, feeling the dagger's tip tear the edge of my cloak.
Wat had already fled, screaming into the darkness.
We clashed. He had the advantage of experience in killing, even if I was taller and stronger.
He kicked me in my injured knee, and I fell to the ground, exactly as I had in the training yard.
The stranger laughed as he stepped closer to finish it. "That pretty face of yours will look grand with a long slit."
In that moment, I didn't think of the "Water Dance" or "Chivalry."
I remembered my father's words: "A warrior does what is necessary to live."
As he leaned in to stab me, I grabbed a handful of mud and filth and flung it into his eyes.
The stranger shrieked, stumbling back blindly.
I rose quickly, and with all my strength, I drove my sword into his chest.
I felt the resistance, then the sound of tearing flesh and bone.
It was the first time I felt a blade sink into a human body.
The stranger stared at me with bulging eyes, blood beginning to spill from his mouth, before he slumped into a lifeless heap in the mire.
I stood over him, my hands shaking violently.
The smell of blood mixing with the stench of the filth. It was sickening, heavy, and it left a hole in my soul.
But the worst part wasn't the smell.
It was the silence.
The terrible silence after a human stops breathing.
"I killed a man," I whispered to myself, my voice trembling. "I'm... I'm a killer."
My knees gave out, and I fell beside the corpse. My stomach tried to vomit, but there was nothing in it but bile.
It wasn't like the movies. It wasn't like the books.
It was real. And sick. And wrong.
"But he would have killed me," I tried to convince myself. "He would have betrayed Ned. He was—"
"He was human. And you killed him."
But I had no time to collapse.
I searched his pockets quickly, my hands still shaking, and found the scroll. It contained names, numbers, details of Winterfell's defenses.
Littlefinger didn't just want to spy; he was preparing for a grand betrayal.
I hid the scroll under my cloak and looked at the corpse again.
"I need to get rid of it. I need to—"
But how? I hadn't thought of this.
Panic began to creep in.
"If the body is found, they'll know. They'll search. Wat saw me. He—"
Wat.
Wat had fled, screaming. How long before he tells someone? Before he returns with more men?
I dragged the body—gods, it was heavy, much heavier than I expected—toward an old abandoned well behind the shack. I pushed it in, hearing a distant thud.
Then I covered the opening with old wooden planks and dead leaves.
It won't be enough. But it's all I can do.
I returned to the keep through the secret passages I had learned from Arya.
I washed the blood from my hands, but the scent lingered in my nose.
I went to the mirror.
My face was smeared with mud and gore.
I no longer saw the youth who read novels in peace; I saw someone who had begun to be tainted by the filth of Westeros.
"The Game of Thrones isn't played with words alone, Alex," I whispered to myself as I burned the scroll in the candle flame. "It is played with blood in dark alleys."
But then, something strange happened.
I felt pride.
Small, poisonous, disgusting pride.
"I did it. I saved information. I stopped a spy. I'm—"
"You're lucky."
The voice in my head was cold, honest.
"You were lucky. He was faster than you. Stronger. But you threw mud in his eyes. Not skill. Luck."
I sat on my bed, my hands still trembling.
"What if Wat had returned with other men? What if there had been two of them? What if—"
The questions didn't stop.
And I couldn't sleep that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his eyes. The bulging eyes. The blood.
And in the morning, when Robb looked at me with a smile and said, "You look tired, Alex,"
I smiled and said: "I didn't sleep well."
And that was the first of many lies to come.
One month remained until the King's arrival.
And now, I wasn't just a trainee; I was a killer.
And a guardian of a secret that could burn the entire North if it were known.
But the worst part?
A small part of me... was proud of it.