Robb had not been there when it happened. Amidst the clash of steel and throes of battle, a raven carried the news that no parent should ever endure. His firstborn son, his only child. Dead. Poisoned by the hands of the enemy, no more than three years old. And for what? A threat? First, they took his father, and now, his son.

Winterfell seemed colder when Robb returned home. He was no longer greeted with a smile and kiss from his wife, and no longer got to feel the weight of his boy in his arms. All of the warmth of family was gone, replaced with a deep and aching hole in his heart. Even Grey Wind sat outside the nursery, waiting for a child that would never return. The guilt was a heavy burden, one that followed him like a dark cloud. How was he supposed to be the King in the North if he could not even protect his family from the claws of evil?

You'd demanded the head of the traitor who killed your son, and Robb did not hesitate to give the sentence. His blade met flesh, and blood spilled forth, cascading through the grooves of the ground as a heavy summer rain poured down upon him. Taking the life of the man who'd stolen his son was not enough, and it never would be.

Robb was silent when he returned to your bedchambers. Auburn curls clung to his forehead, skin dampened from the rain. You were there by the vast window, eyes hollow and void of any joy that used to be plentiful. There was a suffocating stillness in the room, thick with unsaid words. A dove was perched on the ironwood tree by the glass — a rarity in the North. Perhaps it was a sign from the gods.

Robb's footsteps were heavy as he approached, his heart lodged in his throat. Gently, he placed his hands upon your upper arms, and coaxed away your hand that had been fidgeting with the locket around your neck. His fingers laced with your own, rough and calloused. “My love,” he whispered, voice so vulnerably quiet, “it is done.”