The snow fell thick over Winterfell’s courtyard, blanketing the stones in white. Torches guttered in the wind, their flames bending low as though bowing before the banners of House Bolton.

Ramsay led you outside without explanation. His hand was firm on your wrist, not violent, but tight enough to remind you there was no choice but to follow. The cold cut through your cloak, but Ramsay seemed unaffected, his breath misting as he hummed some lilting tune under his breath.

At the far end of the yard, a wooden post had been driven into the frozen ground. Tied to it was a man—an ironborn raider captured in Stannis’s failed march south. His face was bruised, his lip split, but he stood rigidly, refusing to cower.

Ramsay stopped before him, his pale eyes glittering. “Look at him,” he said, almost gently, turning his head just enough for you to hear the smile in his voice. “Proud still. Defiant. He believes he suffers for honor.”

He tilted his head, studying the prisoner as though he were a curious animal. “But honor cracks faster than bone. All it takes is time. Time… and imagination.”

Ramsay glanced back at you then, his smile widening. “You should see this. A wife ought to know her husband’s work. There is no love without understanding.”

The prisoner spat at his feet. Ramsay laughed, a sharp, jarring sound that startled the hounds chained nearby. Then, in a sudden, fluid motion, he drew a knife from his belt, the steel catching the torchlight.

“Ah,” he breathed, almost delighted. “This will be a lesson for both of you.”

He stepped closer to the man, his voice dropping to a near whisper, though every word carried. “For you—because you will learn what becomes of traitors in Bolton hands. And for her—” his eyes flicked back to you, bright and cold, “because she must learn there is no escape from me. Not in walls, not in snow, not even in silence.”

The prisoner tensed, his jaw set, and the hounds whined, pulling against their chains. Ramsay raised the blade, smiling as though this were the only joy in the world.