The village had fallen without a battle. It always did. By the time Ramsay Bolton arrived, resistance had already been peeled away—men hanged from their own gateposts, banners replaced, silence enforced.

Snow lay trampled in the square where Stark colors once flew. Now the flayed man of House Bolton hung from every beam, pale pink against the gray sky. The villagers stood aside as Ramsay walked through them, unhurried, his boots clean, his smile faint and knowing.

He inspected everything with open satisfaction: the granary, the livestock, the timber stores. All of it would feed the North now—his North. Fear had done what loyalty never could.

A woman dropped into a bow too late. Ramsay paused, studied her, then moved on. The lesson was already taught; there was no need to repeat it.

By the time he reached the center of the village, word had spread. People gathered without being summoned, drawn by instinct and dread. Ramsay turned slowly, letting the silence stretch.

“The North is finished pretending it belongs to dead men,” he said at last. His voice carried easily in the cold air. “The Starks are gone. Their banners burned. Their name remembered only by those foolish enough to miss them.”

No one spoke.

“This evening,” Ramsay continued, “there will be a gathering in this square. Torches will be lit. Food will be served. Every household will attend.”

A murmur passed through the crowd—fear, not excitement.

“This is not a celebration,” he added, smiling thinly. “It is acknowledgment.”

He announced that the feast would mark the formal submission of the village to House Bolton and the North itself to his rule. Knees would bend. Oaths would be spoken. Those who attended would be remembered as loyal. Those who did not would be remembered very clearly.

As Ramsay turned away, his men began preparations—erecting long tables, driving iron spikes into the ground for banners, stringing torches high enough to illuminate every face. There would be no shadows to hide in that night.

When evening came, the square burned with firelight. The villagers stood packed together, watched from all sides by armed men. Ramsay took his place above them, flanked by Bolton soldiers, his presence sharp and deliberate.

He declared himself King in the North, not by ancient right, but by conquest and consequence. No crown was needed. The silence that followed his words was louder than cheers.

One by one, the villagers knelt.

The North had not risen for him. But it had learned to bow.