[Winterfell, first week of the 7th moon, 294AC]
The courtyard below Winterfell's high balcony was a riot of noise: the rhythmic clatter of practice blades, the sharp barked orders of the drillmasters, and the grunts of five hundred men moving in near-unison. Lord Alaric Stark stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the wind tugging gently at the grey wool of his cloak, as he watched them.
The first muster of the Greycloaks, all veterans of Greyjoy's Rebellion.
Only a fraction of what he dreamt of building, but a beginning nonetheless. Five hundred men, all drawn from Wintertown and the surrounding villages, trained and equipped directly under Winterfell's hand. No divided loyalties. No petty lordlings pulling them away for their own squabbles. These men would be his.
Alaric watched a group form up into shield walls, shields overlapping tight and neat. Wylam Slate, the 2nd cousin of Lord Erich Slate, a hard-faced man Alaric had pulled from obscurity, strode along the ranks with a stick, barking corrections. When a lad's shield drooped, Wylam rapped his knuckles without hesitation. A good man, Wylam, a harsh taskmaster, but fair.
Alaric allowed himself a thin, approving smile. The Greycloaks would take years to perfect, but this… this was a good beginning.
Below, Torrhen and Harald stood unobtrusively behind him. His shadows, as always. Torrhen, steady as an old oak. Harald, younger and more brash, but fiercely loyal.
"My Lord," Torrhen murmured, breaking the silence. "Shall we continue?"
Alaric gave a last look at the drilling men. "Aye."
The bell atop the Broken Tower tolled faintly as they left the balcony, the sound rolling out across Winterfell like a heartbeat. A week past his nameday, and the lords who had lingered were now steadily trickling away to their own holds. Good. He had little patience for endless feasting and hollow courtesies.
The real work awaited.
[Next morning, the Great Hall of Winterfell]
The next morning, the great hall was awash in golden light as Alaric took his seat at the long table for breaking their fast. His family was already gathered, the familiar and comforting faces of kin brightening the stark stone.
Benjen and Dacey sat near him, their two sons, Rickard and the babe Cregan, bickering good-naturedly over a platter of smoked fish, little Cregan, barely a year old, trying his hardest to grab the fish. Robb and Jon were nearby, flanked by the rest of the troublemakers now forever coined as the "Wolf Pack," lean and sharp-eyed, while Sansa and Lyarra fussed over Bran and Edwyn's tunics, trying to straighten them despite their squirming protests. Arya stabbed a sausage onto her plate with unnecessary violence, the high hills twins japing beside her.
Scattered among them were the few lords who had lingered: Lord Artos of High Hill, grim as a winter storm; Rickard Karstark, stern and brooding as ever, his two eldest sons Harrion and Eddard flanking him; Medger Cerwyn, whose sly wit had grown heavier these past moons; and the Greatjon, already tearing into a leg of mutton with gleeful abandon.
Of Roose Bolton, there was no sign. Alaric's mouth twitched into a brief, humorless smile. The Leech Lord preferred to take his meals alone, brooding in his chambers. So be it.
Alaric's gaze caught on a quieter scene: Jory Cassel, Ser Rodrik's nephew, sitting unusually close to Jonelle Cerwyn. Jory laughed at something she said, his eyes lingering warmly on hers. Jonelle's cheeks flushed prettily.
Alaric's lips curved into a rare full smile. Across the table, Lord Cerwyn caught his eye. The two men exchanged a subtle nod of understanding and approval.
It was well.
Later, as he leaned back in his chair, sipping hot spiced wine, Alaric turned to Ser Rodrik Cassel, who had been observing the flirtation with a poorly hidden grin.
"Your nephew has finally found his match, it seems," Alaric said mildly.
Rodrik chuckled, his great grey mustache twitching. "About bloody time," he rumbled, voice thick with amusement and no small amount of relief. "I'd begun to fear the Cassel name would die with me and Beth. Jonelle's a good girl. Strong Northern blood."
Alaric inclined his head. "They have my blessing when they come to it."
Rodrik's grin widened. "You'll be doing the North a service, my lord. And me a favor besides."
The meal carried on with laughter and talk of less serious things, hunting trips, new foals born at the stables, and gossip of marriage matches among the lesser houses.
But the work of a lord never truly ended.
[Later, the Lord's Solar, Winterfell]
In his solar that afternoon, Alaric sat hunched over a sheaf of reports, the sun slanting low through the window, painting golden bars across the stone floor.
The new crop, a tuberous root they had taken to calling "earthfruit," was taking well to the soil of Stony Shore and various other less fertile regions, the mountains being among them. Faster-growing than turnips, hardier than carrots, and capable of feeding a smallfolk family through even the bitterest winter. Already, some villages were boasting that the coming winter would see none go hungry.
Alaric let the parchment fall to the table and allowed himself a rare moment of satisfaction. A small thing, perhaps. But a hundred small things made a strong realm.
A knock sounded at the door. Before he could answer, the door opened to admit Ser Torrhen and Ser Harald.
"My lord," Torrhen said, stepping aside to reveal Maester Luwin, his grey robes fluttering around him like tired wings.
"Maester," Alaric said. "Come."
Luwin approached with a grave expression, clutching a bundle of fresh missives.
"Bad news, my lord. Reports from the Dreadfort."
Alaric straightened. "Speak."
Luwin laid the letters on the table and unfolded one carefully.
"Banditry in Bolton lands. Villages sacked, travelers waylaid, men slaughtered, and the women, well, im sure you can imagine. Most troubling of all… the blame falls upon Roose Bolton's bastard son, Ramsay Snow."
Alaric's brows drew together. "Ramsay Snow?"
"Aye. Only four-and-ten, yet the witnesses speak of… cruelty beyond his years."
Alaric leaned back slowly in his chair, feeling a slow, cold anger coil in his gut. He had met Ramsay only once, a pale, sullen boy with watchful eyes. Roose had acknowledged him grudgingly, foisting the boy onto the care of a servant named Reek. He had thought little of it then.
"You are sure?"
"As sure as we can be from witness accounts," Luwin said. "There is… more."
He hesitated.
"Speak freely, Maester."
"Some say the boy is not merely thieving, my lord. He… hunts the smallfolk for sport."
Alaric's fingers drummed against the table in an unconscious rhythm. Hunting men like animals. Burning farms. Rape.
"Summon Lord Bolton and my uncle Ned," he said without looking up.
Torrhen and Harald were gone at once.
Alaric stared at the reports, the anger smoldering within him growing heavier with each passing breath.
A storm was coming.
And this time, it was one of their own.
[Shortly after]
The solar was cold by the time Roose Bolton arrived.
He entered without ceremony, the doors thudding shut behind him. Lord Bolton was a wraith of a man, all pale flesh and dark hair, draped in thick grey furs that seemed to absorb the dying light of the afternoon. His pale blue eyes, near colorless, flickered once across the room, noting Alaric, seated like a wolf on a crag; Eddard Stark, newly arrived and standing stiffly at the hearth; and Maester Luwin, bent over a sheaf of reports.
"My lords," Roose said, voice thin and flat as a drawn wire.
Alaric steepled his fingers. "Lord Bolton. Thank you for coming."
Roose said nothing, only dipped his head in a gesture so slight it might have been imagined.
Ned broke the heavy silence first. "We have had troubling reports from your lands."
"Aye," Roose said, the faintest curl to his lips. "Banditry. Tragic."
Alaric studied him. The man's tone was wrong. Indifferent. As though they were discussing the weather. Not the slaughter of smallfolk, not the burning of villages.
"We have more than rumors," Alaric said. His voice was quiet, but it carried. "Witnesses. Survivors. Names."
Roose tilted his head, birdlike. "Names?"
"Your bastard son, Ramsay Snow."
A flicker of something, annoyance, perhaps, or calculation, crossed Roose's face. He folded his hands into his sleeves.
"A motherless boy," he said. "Wild, like a dog untamed."
Alaric's jaw tightened. "A dog that maims and kills, if left unchained."
Again, Roose said nothing. He stared at the fire, as though it held all the answers he needed.
Ned stepped forward, voice hardening. "Roose. These are not crimes to be brushed aside. Innocents have died. Women, children, old men. There are laws, and justice must be done."
Still no answer.
The silence dragged, heavy and suffocating. In that long, still moment, Alaric saw the truth more clearly than any report could tell him: Roose did not care. Not about the smallfolk. Not about the law. Perhaps not even about his own son's black deeds.
He thought only of his own power.
Alaric tapped a finger against the tabletop, once. Twice. The sound was a slow, deliberate drumbeat against the tension in the room.
"Your son," he said at last, "is a rot at the heart of your house."
Roose's mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a snarl. "The boy is young. Reckless. A leash can yet be found."
"Leash him, then," Alaric said. His voice dropped low and dangerous. "Or we will."
Roose met his gaze for the first time, truly met it, cold blue on storm-grey.
"And if I refuse?"
Alaric smiled thinly. "Then you will answer to Winterfell."
At that, Roose's nostrils flared, a subtle and fleeting sign of anger. "You would move against a vassal lord?"
"I would move against a threat to the peace of the North," Alaric said, rising slowly to his feet. His voice, still quiet, now filled the solar with the weight of an unspoken threat. "Do not mistake me, Roose. You are lord of the Dreadfort by the grace of your forebears, by the ancient oaths sworn to Winterfell. Not by right divine. Not by immunity from judgment."
He leaned forward slightly, every inch the wolf that his house sigil bore.
"If you cannot keep your house in order, we will."
For a long moment, the two men simply stared at each other, the crackling of the fire the only sound between them.
Finally, Roose inclined his head again, just a hair deeper than before.
"I will… address the matter," he said, voice like ice breaking on a river.
"See that you do," Ned said grimly.
Roose said nothing further. With a whisper of fur and leather, he turned and left the solar, the door swinging open and shut behind him with a soft finality.
The moment he was gone, Alaric exhaled slowly and dropped back into his chair.
"You were too lenient," Ser Torrhen said after a moment, still standing behind Alaric.
Alaric snorted. "You would have had him executed on the spot." Turning to face his sworn shield and friend
"If needed," Torrhen said bluntly. "The law must be held, or it breaks."
Alaric rubbed his brow with one hand, feeling the beginnings of a headache building behind his eyes.
"And what then? Tear down the Dreadfort? Set the whole North to squabbling like a pack of dogs?"
He shook his head. "Better to leash the beast while we still can. Watch. Wait. Strike only if the rot spreads."
Ned frowned but said nothing.
Maester Luwin cleared his throat delicately. "My lords… it may be wise to keep a close watch on Lord Bolton's movements in the coming moons."
"Aye," Alaric said. "Quietly. I want no banners raised, no swords drawn unless it must be."
He leaned back, staring at the beams overhead.
This was no simple matter of one bastard boy gone bad. This was a test of Roose Bolton's loyalty, of the stability of the North itself.
And if he mishandled it, the North could bleed.
Already, his mind raced ahead, weighing options, calculating risks. Ramsay Snow could not be allowed to run free, but neither could Roose be allowed to think he was cornered. A desperate man was more dangerous than a defiant one.
Perhaps… perhaps there were ways to shape the boy. To curb him. If not, then like all rabid dogs, maybe putting him down is needed.
But would Ramsay Snow bend? Or would he simply grow more cunning beneath a velvet glove?
Alaric's mouth twisted grimly.
More likely the latter.
Across the room, Ned Stark watched him, eyes dark with unease.
"You plan to act," Ned said.
"Aye."
"How?"
Alaric smiled thinly. "Carefully."
[Two Days Later]
The wind howled outside Winterfell's walls as Alaric stood with his closest advisors around the war table in the solar. A fire burned low in the hearth, but the cold seeped in anyway, sharp as a knife.
Torrhen, Harald, Benjen, Ned, Lord Artos, and Ser Rodrik Cassel, all men who descend from the King's of Winter, ringed the table.
The map of the North lay spread before them, little tokens marking each holdfast and village.
"We can't trust Roose to discipline his own blood," Torrhen said bluntly. "You saw the look on his face. He'd sooner gut the witnesses than his bastard."
"Agreed," Lord Artos said, voice like gravel. "The Boltons have always thought themselves a law unto themselves."
Rodrik tapped a thick finger against the Dreadfort's marker. "He'll keep Ramsay close now, mark my words. Won't let us take him without a fight."
Alaric nodded. "Which is why we won't try."
The others looked at him, waiting.
"We offer the boy a place here," Alaric said, tracing a slow line from the Dreadfort to Winterfell. "A wardship, as is the right of his liege lord. We frame it as mercy, a chance to foster the boy properly, teach him discipline. A second chance, for Roose's sake."
"And if Roose refuses?" Benjen asked.
Alaric smiled without humor. "Then we have cause."
"And if the boy comes?" Artos asked, tone grim.
Alaric's hand closed into a fist. "Then we keep him close. Watch him. And if he cannot be taught…"
He let the words trail off.
None of them needed it spelled out.
That night, Alaric stood once more atop Winterfell's high balcony, the wind tugging at his cloak, the stars wheeling cold and bright above him.
Below, the Greycloaks drilled by torchlight, their shield walls forming and reforming like the tide.
Strength. Unity. Order.
The North would need all of it, and more, in the moons and years to come.
Because somewhere out there, Ramsay Snow was growing like a poisoned thorn. And Roose Bolton, pale, cold, patient, was watching.
The wolf watched, too.
And this wolf would not sleep.
Not while the North bled.
Not while the wolves of Winterfell still had teeth.