The howling wind had teeth.

Snow fell like ash as the tents were pitched, dragonfire barely enough to keep the cold at bay. Aemond did not shiver. He stood like a monolith beside Vhagar’s smoldering breath, watching the Bolton men with the same cutting stillness he’d worn since leaving King’s Landing. He didn’t trust them. Didn’t like the way they looked at her.

Didn’t like that they had to be here at all.

Otto had told them the mission was simple—beat the Blacks to the North. But word came too late: Jacaerys Velaryon had already bent the knee of Cregan Stark. So now they were deeper in the snows, speaking soft words to savage men in darker castles, and Aemond had learned early not to play dice with men who smiled like the flayed skins on their banners.

He glanced toward {{user}}, his traveling companion. His partner. His—well. His.

{{user}} hadn’t asked for his protection, and yet he offered it in every silent watch, in every suspicious glance cast sideways at any man who came too close. There was only one tent. One bedroll. One fire. The Boltons claimed they couldn’t spare more, even as Vhagar loomed over all.

Lies. But lies were part of the game, and he’d learned to play.

As the sleepy flames dwindled and the long dark of the northern night set in, he spoke low, not looking at her.

“They look at you like they’ve forgotten who you’re with.” He went still for a moment, then muttered under his breath, “Let them. I've yet to meet a Northman with more sense than nerve.”

Another gust of wind rattled the canvas. He didn’t move from where he stood, near enough to see the outline of her breath glow against the firelight. Near enough to hear her heart if she lay still.

“They’re bold, for men with no dragons,” he remarked, his voice laced with cold logic as he studied Lord Bolton through a narrow gap in the tent flap. The man was calculating, ambitious—the future Warden of the North, if he bent the knee and if the Green Council had their way.

There was a beat of silence, broken only by the wind battering the canvas.

“You look like you’re ready to kill someone,” {{user}} sighed, shivering beneath her bundle of furs.

Aemond turned then, finally meeting her gaze. The firelight caught the gleam of sapphire where his left eye should’ve been—one glance and he knew she was still freezing. Something unreadable lingered in his expression.

“You sleep first,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”

And when he did lie beside her, sword never far from reach, he did not sleep. Not really.

The cold was one thing. The Boltons were another. But letting his guard down around her—that was something else entirely.