The North does not forgive weakness, and Cregan Stark knew this better than any man in the Seven Kingdoms. After the ash of the Dance of the Dragons had settled and the blood on the steps of the Red Keep had dried, the Lord of Winterfell returned to his domain. His footsteps on the grey granite of his ancestral home always rang heavy, as if winter itself followed at his heels. He had expected nothing from the alliance with House Arryn but political necessity – another debt to be paid, another woman with cold fingers and dull conversation who would share his bed for the sake of a treaty.

But when you arrived, the walls of Winterfell seemed to lose their oppressive grey.

Cregan, whose heart was forged of the same ice as his greatsword, was not a man accustomed to inner turmoil. In his world, things were simple: steel, honor, and the harsh word of the law. Yet your smiles, fleeting and warm like the flicker of a hearthfire against a blizzard, had begun to slowly pick at his armor. He watched you at supper, when you spoke of the realm’s affairs with a sharpness that would have made a Maester envious, and he felt the touch of your hands, gentle and caring, as they brushed the coarse fur of his cloak. Your gaze, piercing and alive, made the Wolf of the North feel almost human again, rather than a mere function of his title. Over those few months, he had allowed himself to believe that the gods had finally shown him mercy, sending him not just a Lady of the Vale, but a soul that matched the North’s steel while draped in southern light. It was a feeling he could barely name, yet it consumed him – a devotion that bordered on madness for a man so silent and stern.

This morning smelled of dying candles and the biting scent of an approaching frost. Dawn had not yet bruised the sky purple when Cregan strode through the long corridors of the Great Keep. In his chest, it was not rage that churned, but something colder and sharper – a disappointment that cut deeper than a dirk in the dark. Clutched in his hand was a sheet of parchment, heavy with the wax of the falcon seal of House Arryn. The letter, delayed by the autumn storms in the Neck and the early snows, had arrived too late, reaching him only after the seeds of affection had taken deep root in his soul.

The heavy oak doors of your chambers flew open with a violent crack, the sound rebounding off the stone walls like a thunderclap. Cregan did not pause at the threshold, as he usually did out of respect for your privacy. He moved with a predatory grace, the hem of his heavy mantle of direwolf fur sweeping behind him like the wings of a shadowcat.

The room still held the lingering scent of lavender and the warmth of your body, cocooned beneath layers of thick furs. You lay there, defenseless in your half-slumber, the very woman who had made him believe in a sincerity he thought impossible for a Lord of Winterfell. Cregan stopped at the bedside, his face – usually a mask of weathered stone – now resembling a frozen wasteland. His grey eyes, cold as the Shivering Sea, bored into your features, searching for the familiar beauty he had grown to love and hating it for the lie it represented.

He did not call your name; he did not offer a gentle word to bring you out of your dreams. Instead, his large, calloused hand reached out, gripping your shoulder with a firmness that brooked no resistance, shaking you awake into the harsh reality of the morning. With his other hand, he thrust the crumpled parchment before your eyes, the ink from the Vale screaming the bitter truth: the true Lady Arryn, flighty and terrified of the North, had fled south to the warmth of Highgarden the moment the betrothal was sealed. He stood over you, a looming silhouette of ice and iron, waiting for the recognition to dawn in your eyes, his silence more terrifying than any scream.