The journey took thirty-seven days.

You stopped counting after twenty-one. Somewhere between White Harbor and the Last River, the maps grew vague and the men grew quiet. Snow became a language all its own—falling sideways, thick as fists, blanketing the world in white until even your gold-trimmed banners vanished into it.

Your carriage no longer rocked gently on paved roads. It lurched now, wheels grinding through frost-packed earth and sheets of ice, pulled by six shaggy northern horses that seemed better suited to war than travel. You wore three cloaks. The fur-lined one of your station, another gifted by your mother stitched with the three-headed dragon, and a third, crudely fashioned from a direwolf’s pelt, given by a nameless northern bannerman who claimed it would keep you warmer than any silk ever could.

He wasn’t wrong. But it smelled like wet dog.

You did not complain. A queen’s daughter does not flinch.

Still, at night, when the fires sputtered low and your guards rotated shifts in silence, you lay awake in your tent beneath wool and furs, staring at the canvas ceiling and wondering:

What sort of man asks for a second wife… and does not come south to collect her?

You remembered your mother’s face when she told you.

“You are to wed Lord Cregan Stark.“

You had not asked whether it was for love. Of course it wasn’t. Cregan Stark had already buried one wife the Norrey girl, if you remembered correctly—and had a son by her. He had sent no gifts. No letters. Only a raven.

“The North awaits her. Let her come strong.”

Your septa wept when her ink froze in the bottle and your maids begged for more firewood. Even when you passed watchtowers carved of black stone and villages where children stared at you like you were something made of a myth.

Winterfell rose from the snow like something dead and dreaming.

It was not beautiful. Not in the way the Red Keep was, or Dragonstone, or even the old manors of the Crownlands. Winterfell was a thing of grey walls and ancient bones, steaming chimneys and high ramparts wrapped in fog. Wolves howled from the kennels. Smoke coiled from the towers. And at the gate stood men in thick black cloaks with hoods drawn low, swords strapped in the old Northern style—across the back, like hunters, not knights.

You stepped from the carriage before anyone could open the door for you.

Your boots crunched snow. Wind bit at your face. And your breath curled before you like the smoke of a dying dragon.

He was waiting.

Cregan Stark.

You knew him only by tales. That he was young—only ten-and-seven when he had taken up the mantle of Lord of Winterfell. That he had fought wildlings and Ironborn and once rode into battle without armor, just a cloak of grey fur and the sword called Ice.

Now you saw the truth of it.

He was taller than you’d imagined. Broad in the shoulders, with hands that looked carved from stone. His hair was long, dark, and windblown. And his eyes—Gods, his eyes—were pale and gray and ancient, like deep winter locked in a man’s skull.

He did not bow. Did not smile. But he did not look away.

“Princess,” he said, voice rough and low. “Winterfell is yours. If you can keep it warm.”

You don’t know if it was a warning, or a challenge.

Maybe both.

That night, you were shown to your chambers.

They were large, cold, and heavy with the scent of pine and old ashes. Your maids lit the fire and unpacked your gowns. Your guards stood outside like statues. There was no feast, no music. Only a tray of bread, cheese, and salted meat delivered in silence.

You sat before the hearth, watching the flames. They seemed weak here. Dull. Struggling to breathe in a room built for ice and iron.

You did not sleep.

When the wind howled, you thought of your dragon.

And you wondered if the North knew just how much fire had been sent to it.