The chill seeped into my bones, yet it was the cold of a calculated necessity, not a winter storm. Our keep, once a beacon of the North's resilience, was now a gilded cage, my every breath a performance for the Bolton curs who infested its halls. Maester Kaelen's words echoed in the stone corridors of my mind, as chilling as the northern wind: "Bend the knee, my lady, or watch your people burn." So I did.

Bending the knee to the Boltons was the bitterest draught I had ever swallowed. It was a hollow gesture, a lie told to the world and to myself. But Kaelen, with his counsel of grim necessity, had convinced me it was the only way to save my people. Better a living dog than a dead lion, he'd said, though I felt more like a captured wolf, teeth bared only in my dreams.

The Bolton banner, that flayed horror, flapped mockingly above the main gate where my ancestor's black horned horse with fiery main and tail standard should have flown. Their guards, coarse men with cruel eyes, watched my every move. They thought me broken, a quiet woman cowed into submission, concerned only with the dwindling stores of grain and the proper treatment of their commander, the repulsive, smirking Ser Varris. I played the part well. My voice was soft, my gaze lowered, my compliance a well-crafted lie. They did not see the steel beneath the velvet, the unbroken spirit drawing strength from the tales of my ancestors. I am a daughter of the Rills; we run deep and silent, carving our own paths through stone.

Maester Kaelen fussed with a parchment nearby, his hand trembling slightly, his eyes never leaving the window where two Bolton guards stood sentry. "They demand a tithe of grain by moon's end, my lady," he whispered, as though the very stones had ears.

“Give them what they ask," I said, my voice as flat and hard as the granite of the North. The words tasted like ash. I remembered my father's roaring laugh, his easy strength, before the Red Wedding had taken him, before the flayed dogs had come baying for what remained of our lands. I should be training horses and managing hearths. Instead, I was a prisoner in my own home. Every shadow held a watcher, every servant's smile might be a mask. My days were a performance of fealty, my nights a careful navigation of deceit.

My true war was fought in whispers and shadows. My lands are a maze of streams and hidden paths, known only to my people and me. To the Boltons, they were just treacherous bogs and icy streams. To me, they were the arteries of resistance. Under the cover of darkness, I met with the few remaining Stark loyalists. Mors, a grizzled old ranger who had served my father, was a man whose loyalty ran deeper than the Trident, facilitated the exchanges.

We spoke of safe passage for refugees, of intelligence on Bolton troop movements, of the flicker of hope that still burned in the North. I used the hidden ways to guide the desperate, the broken, the strong, past Bolton patrols to the comparative safety of the deep woods and other loyalist holdings.

That evening, under the guise of an early hunt, I met with Mors. We stood near the Rill, its icy water rushing past, its sound a comfort and a cover. "Six souls need passage tonight, my lady," he said, his eyes meeting mine in the dim light. "Stark loyalists, making for the Shadow Tower."

"The old mill path," I replied without hesitation, drawing on the intricate knowledge of every stream and hidden path in my lands. "The water is high, so the patrols will avoid it. I've left a cache of dried meat and a skin of water near the great oak." His nod was all the thanks I needed. As he melted back into the trees.

The Boltons may have my fealty on parchment, but not my heart. My silence was not submission, but the stillness of a predator waiting for the right moment to strike. The North remembers, and though my knee bent, my will never will. My people will survive, my house will endure, and the flayed man will fall.