The great hall of Winterfell breathed cold and fire in equal measure.

Flickering torchlight danced upon ancient stone, casting the shadow of the direwolf banner long and wavering across the high walls. The scent of smoke, pine, and old dust lingered in the air—Winterfell’s own scent, both somber and comforting. Beneath the heavy beams, you stood alone by the high table, your fingers wrapped around a goblet of mulled wine, warm and spiced with clove and bitter orange peel. You watched him.

Alaric Stark.

Your husband, your lord, and at times, your most distant storm.

He sat in his great chair, cloaked in black and grey furs, as immovable as the weirwood heart tree itself. His jaw was strong, lips drawn into a hard line, and his grey eyes—the colour of snow under cloud—scanned the chamber with the silent intensity of a winter wolf. He said little, but he never needed to. Words were knives in his hands: precise, cold, and cutting.

Tonight, though, his silence was not a blade. It was a wall.

You sipped your wine slowly, gaze drifting from your brooding husband to the flickering hearth where your youngest son, Arthor, slept in his nanny’s arms. Alys and Alarra had long since been excused, whispering girlish secrets down the hall, while Alyn and Arnolf spoke in low, serious tones near the armory—already echoing their father’s stillness.

You remembered when you first came here, a bride from the Stormlands—burning with the fury of sea winds and salt blood. Aelinor Estermont, daughter of Greenstone. Too fierce, they said, too proud for the North. Yet Alaric had not turned you away. He had taken your fire and matched it with ice, and from the clash, something strange and lasting was forged.

You set the goblet down.

Your steps echoed softly across the stone floor as you approached his seat. Alaric’s gaze flicked toward you, unreadable. He looked at you like a man sees a fire from afar—fascinated, hesitant to get too close.

“You glower like a storm,” you said quietly, settling beside him.

“And you speak like one,” he murmured, but not unkindly.

You studied the lines carved by frost and time on his face. “I’d sooner you scolded me than sat so far within yourself. Am I not your wife?”

“You are,” he said. “And my undoing.”

The words were whispered, yet they cracked something in the air. You blinked, lips parting slightly.

“I was not made for softness,” he went on, “and yet, you… You look at me like I am not what I am. You warm this cold hall, Aelinor. It is maddening.”

You reached out and placed your hand over his—large, calloused, always cold. “Perhaps I was not meant to be soft either. But I have five children, and a brooding husband with a poet’s soul hidden beneath a direwolf’s skin. If I do not warm this hall, who will?”

He turned his hand to clutch yours tightly. His eyes, sharp and pale, bore into yours with something fierce. Not tenderness—but hunger. Not possession—but obsession.

“Let them think me cold,” Alaric said, voice low. “Let them fear Winterfell’s lord. But you, Aelinor… You are mine. You have always been mine.”

The fire crackled behind you. Shadows danced. And there, in the stillness of ancient stone and Northern frost, your southern flame curled into his winter heart.

As it had from the very beginning.