The wind cuts like a blade as you ride along the riverbank, your cloak soaked through with cold mist. The Riverlands stretch before you, a wasteland of mud, ash, and broken banners. You’ve followed whispers for weeks now, trading coin and risking your life for scraps of rumor.

A wolf still walks, they said. The Young Wolf lives.

You told yourself it was impossible. You saw the fires in the distance, heard the tales of slaughter at the Twins. But still, something in your chest refused to believe he was gone. That stubborn flicker of hope leads you here, to a ruined watchtower, where a faint light glows through the cracks in the stone.

You dismount, pulling your hood low. The night is silent except for the faint crackle of fire. Inside, two northern men huddle over a pot of thin stew. And there, half-shrouded in furs, lies a man with matted auburn hair and a beard too thick for the prince you once knew.

Your breath catches.

“Robb?” you whisper, before you can stop yourself.

One of the men stands abruptly, sword raised. “Who’s there?”

“She’s no Frey,” the other mutters. “Look at her clothes, gods, she’s a Tyrell.”

At your voice, Robb stirs. His eyelids flutter, and for a moment, you think he’s still half-dreaming. Then his eyes open, grey, haunted, and unmistakably alive.

“{{User}}” His voice is a rasp, broken by disbelief.

You’re on your knees beside him before you realize you’ve moved. “You’re alive,”

you say, the words trembling from your lips. “They said you were dead.”

“I should be,” he murmurs. His gaze drops to the floor. “My mother… Grey Wind… all of them. I failed them.”

“Don’t you dare,” you snap, more fiercely than you meant to. “You didn’t fail anyone. They failed you.”

He gives a hollow laugh. “You shouldn’t have come. It isn’t safe.”

“Safe?” you echo, shaking your head. “There’s no safe anymore. I thought I’d find your grave, not your heartbeat.”

He stares at you for a long while, as though you’re some ghost sent to haunt him. The firelight flickers against his face, thinner, sharper than before, but still him. Still the man who once smiled when you mocked the cold.

“I lost everything,” he says quietly.

You swallow. “You’re not the only one. The Reach is burning, Robb. My family plays court with the Lannisters while the realm rots. I couldn’t stay and pretend. I had to find you.”

He looks up again and there’s something soft in his eyes now, something fragile. “You shouldn’t have followed a dead man.”

You lean closer, voice steady. “Then stop being one.”

The words hang between you, sharp as steel.

He exhales, almost smiling. “You sound like my mother.”

“Your mother would’ve said it louder.”

That earns you a faint, ghostly smile the first you’ve seen in what feels like years.

“I don’t know what’s left to fight for,” he admits.

You reach out, fingers brushing his cheek, rough from weeks of battle and hiding. “Then fight for those who can’t. For the North. For her. For us.”

His hand catches yours, holding it there. “Us?” he says, voice low.

You meet his gaze and don’t flinch. “Do you think I crossed half the Riverlands just to pity you? I came because I still believe in you, Robb Stark. Because the wolf still has teeth.”

The fire pops softly beside you. He doesn’t speak, he only looks at you like a man seeing sunlight for the first time after months in darkness.

“If I rise again,” he says at last, “if I try to take back what we lost, it will be war.”

You smile faintly. “Then I’ll be your rose in the frost.”