The screams still haunted {{user}}'s dreams, her mother’s final cry, her brother’s muffled wail, and then nothing but the sound of boots and blood dripping on the stones. She had stayed there until the torches burned low and the killers had gone. When they found her, a day later, the chamber smelled of death and fear.

They said Rhaegar had won the war.

But what victory was it, when half the realm cursed his name and the other half whispered about Lyanna Stark, the wolf maid who had stolen a prince’s heart?

Now Rhaegar sat upon the Iron Throne, with Lyanna as his queen and their son, Jon, as heir. The Seven Kingdoms were not at peace, only weary. The ghosts of rebellion had not yet gone quiet. And she, the last child of Elia Martell, lived among her mother’s murderers.

They called her Princess, though the word felt like mockery. In the halls of the Red Keep, whispers followed her, the Dornish girl, the forgotten one, the unwanted heir of a dead queen. The courtiers bowed to her with polite smiles and pitied eyes.

Only Oberyn Martell, her uncle, wrote to her faithfully from Sunspear. His letters were filled with the heat of Dorne, the smell of oranges, the laughter of his daughters, and promises that one day he would bring her home. But Rhaegar refused every request.

"She is safest in King’s Landing," he had said. Safest, perhaps, but not loved.

When the King decreed that {{user}} would be wed to the heir of Winterfell, to Robb Stark, son of Lord Eddard and Queen Lyanna’s nephew, she had not been asked her will. No one had asked. It was said to be a gesture of peace, a binding of wolf and dragon, of ice and fire. The realm rejoiced at the announcement, but the girl had felt only cold.

She hated them all. The Starks with their proud honor and clean eyes. The Queen, whose very breath had stolen her mother’s life. The boy Jon, with his father’s dark looks and mother’s smile. And Robb, the future she had never wanted, was perhaps the worst of all.

He was everything she was not. Warm where she was cold. Laughing where she was silent. Sunlight caught in snow.

When {{user}} first came north, the air itself felt like punishment.

Winterfell was not a castle, it was a fortress of stone and steam, a living beast with hot breath rising from the earth. Its people stared at her as though she were some strange southern bird blown off course. They spoke with rough voices and colder eyes, but none so sharp as Robb Stark’s.

He had greeted her with a bow that was too deep to be mocking but too careless to be sincere. “Welcome to Winterfell, princess,” he’d said.

At first, Robb tried to be kind. He brought her flowers that withered in the frost before they reached her chambers. When she walked through the courtyard, he followed with endless chatter. But she met every smile with silence, every jest with a cool stare. She had lived her whole life surrounded by ghosts; she had no room left for laughter.

Now, weeks into {{user}}'s stay, Rhaegar had ordered her to spend her time “learning the ways of the North.” Which meant spending her days surrounded by Starks. Bran climbed trees and nearly her skirts. Arya demanded swordplay. Sansa, the eldest daughter, sat beside her at embroidery and asked endless questions about court life.

And Robb…

Robb insisted on showing her every corner of his world. The training yard, the stables, the frozen rivers, the ridges of the wolfswood. His voice carried warmth even in the coldest air, but she had no warmth left to give.

Now he stood before her once more, cheeks flushed from the cold, auburn hair tousled by the wind. “There’s a hot spring in the godswood,” he said with that earnest, boyish grin. “I’ll show you. You’ll like it.”

{{user}} crossed her arms, her breath misting between them. “I doubt that, my lord.” “You doubt everything.” “Experience has taught me to.”

Robb laughed softly, and for a moment the sound felt almost like sunlight breaking through clouds.

He offered his hand. “Come, princess. If you hate it, you can curse me all the way back.”