The sound of steel piercing ice sounded as a figure cloaked in black roared as his pick pierced the ice. With his legs, he moved as the screws attached to the bottom of them etched themselves into the ice.
With another swing, another pickaxe pierced the ice before cracking could be heard.
The ice screamed.
Eddard Stark felt it before he heard it, the sudden, sickening vibration traveling up through his boots, through the iron screws biting into the mountain's face. He froze instinctively, ice pick buried deep in the wall, breath caught painfully in his chest.
Then the mountain gave way.
The ice beneath him shattered with a crack like thunder, the surface splintering into jagged shards as his foothold vanished. Eddard's grip slipped. His pick tore loose. For a single, heart-stopping moment, he was weightless.
Then he fell.
The world became a blur of white and blue, wind tearing the breath from his lungs as he tumbled downward. He screamed, more in shock than fear, arms flailing uselessly as the cliff face vanished above him.
He fell for what seemed like minutes before the impact.
Not stone. Not ice.
Snow.
He crashed into a deep, packed drift, the powder exploding outward and swallowing him whole. Pain flared across his body, sharp but fleeting, knocked loose by the strange softness of his landing. The snow cushioned the fall far more than it had any right to.
Eddard lay there for several long seconds, gasping, waiting for pain that never truly stayed or went away.
He was alive.
He pushed himself upright, coughing snow from his mouth, his breath coming out in white plumes. His limbs trembled, but they obeyed him. Nothing felt broken.
That was when he realized something was very, very wrong.
There was no mountain.
The blizzard was gone. The biting wind had vanished. In its place stood stone, endless stone, rising in walls so tall his neck ached as he tilted his head back to follow them. He was standing inside something vast, ancient, and impossibly large.
A castle was what came to mind.
Before him loomed a door of impossible size, its surface carved from dark stone veined with faint silver lines. Each hinge alone was taller than Winterfell's gatehouse. The door stood closed, silent, indifferent to his presence.
Eddard staggered back a step.
"Gods…" he whispered.
Light spilled faintly from above, filtering down through a massive breach in the ceiling far overhead. Jagged rock framed the opening, and from time to time, small stones broke free and fell, vanishing into darkness before they ever reached the floor.
The air was cold, but not biting. Still.
Eddard adjusted his grip on his ice pick and turned slowly, heart hammering. Shadows stretched endlessly in every direction, broken only by dim points of light.
Lights.
They hung in the air.
Eddard stiffened.
Small bulbs, like lanterns stripped of chains, floated motionless in the darkness, glowing weakly. They weren't evenly spaced, nor did they sway. They simply were, suspended as if the world itself had forgotten gravity.
His breath hitched.
The old stories clawed at his mind, tales his nurse had whispered of gods and giants, of places men were not meant to tread. He should have run.
Instead, he followed the lights.
They led him toward a narrow stone path that extended forward into nothingness. On either side of it yawned a sheer drop, the darkness below swallowing even the faint glow of the hanging lights.
Eddard swallowed hard.
He stepped onto the path.
Each footstep echoed too softly, as if the sound were being eaten by the abyss. His eyes stayed fixed ahead, refusing to glance down for fear his legs would betray him.
The path widened at the far end.
And there,
He stopped.
Books floated in the air, dozens of them, some open, others closed. Swords rested upright without support, blades dark and rippling like smoke. Massive eggs hovered gently above the stone floor, some smooth and scaled, others rough, crystalline, or faintly pulsing with heat.
Power radiated from the space like pressure before a storm.
At the center of it all sat a throne.
And upon the throne sat a man.
He appeared young, no older than a grown man, yet something about him felt wrong. Too still. Too composed. His posture was perfect, unmoving, as if he had been carved there rather than seated.
A book rested upon his lap.
The man lifted his gaze.
Their eyes met.
Eddard felt it then, the crushing weight of attention, like standing before a king… no, before something older. His knees threatened to buckle.
For a fleeting, irrational moment, a name surfaced in his mind.
■■■■
Although he could hear it play within his mind, he couldn't visualise it.
He did not know why.
The man did not speak.
The sheer pressure emanating from the man made Eddard feel terror deep within himself. As if he had walked into a dragon's maw freely.
- Jack's POV -
I looked at the young wolf, the young man was swarffed with terror. It was sad mildly, I wanted him to see me like a god written about in these endless books I was given, but well.
Jack moved his arm, the sudden movement sending signals within Eddard's brain which shouted for him to run, to at least make a chance. And yet Eddard's body didn't move; it stalled there like a frozen body encapsulated by ice.
I looked at the young wolf with wonder. How had he entered he, even with the limited time between the rewards, I found no entrances or exits. The only thing that came to mind was that he had fallen from the roof, but how could a human survive that fall?
The scene expands as Eddard's mouth begins to move.
"H-Hello?" Eddard's voice was young. Say he hadnt even started puberty.
Jack's eyes stared at the wolf before he registered that he had just spoken. What came from Jack's mouth was broken, ancient, tough. His voice sounded like gravel beneath a shoe.
"Hello... Young Wolf."
The 'Young Wolf' caught Eddard off, nobody knew that a son of House Stark was in the Lonely Hills and escapicelly someone, or something that, by the look,s was stuck within a mountain.
Jack, seeing the young man's shock, broke into a smile before the young wolf spoke.
"H-how did you know I'm from House Stark?"
Jack wasnt even stumped by the question before he listed it like a checklist.
"Black Hair, Strong Jaw line, Dark grey eyes which seem like coal." Jack looked at the Starks' boots before continuing, "House sigil Stark on your boot."
Eddard looked down to indeed find his boots with the sigil on them. burning with indignation, he looked at the man on the throne and spoke. "Who are you?"
The question hung before Jack could speak; the question stirred within him.
"Some say I'm the last king of Angora. Some say the last Ancient, Others say a survivor of the Last Empire. But I call myself Jack."
Eddard took the answer in, his memories of the maesters' writings of past kingdoms told of no Empire Angora or kings named Jack, so instead Eddard stayed silent.
Jack, in return for the young man's question, asked in return. "What is your name. Young Wolf."
Eddard stood up with confidence and pride about his house before speaking with a smile breaking his lips.
"I'am Eddard Stark, son of Rickard Stark and Lyarra Stark, Brother to Brandon Stark."