Pain. It came in waves, dull and bright, as if his blood could not decide whether to freeze or boil. Robb Stark drifted in and out of it, caught between waking and the black. The world smelled of rot, steel, and wet wool.

He tried to rise once, but the motion tore at his side and a red haze swallowed him whole. When the blur cleared, she was there.

Silver hair, pale as winter’s heart. A face that did not belong to the mud and misery of the camp. The firelight trembled over her, painting her skin in amber and shadow. She did not look afraid of the blood, nor the wound, nor of him.

He did not know her name, only that she was Targaryen, one of the last of that doomed and whispered line. The daughter of fire and old madness, now kneeling over the bleeding king in the filth of a northern war.

The air was cold, but her hands were warm when she touched him. He felt the heat through the linen, steady, unhurried, as she pressed clean cloth to the wound. Robb hissed between his teeth.

He had been struck before, steel, arrow, fist, but this pain was different. It was weakness. It was the body betraying the will.

The tent swayed in the storm. The sound of men outside was distant, like ghosts muttering at the edge of hearing. He thought of the faces of those lost, Grey Wind’s snarl, the glint of ice on a sword left in the mud. Every heartbeat was a reminder that he was still breathing, still failing.

The woman worked in silence. No prayer, no fear. Her fingers traced the edge of torn flesh as if reading it, learning the story of the wound. There was precision in her touch, and something colder than mercy.

He watched her through the dim light. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, catching sparks from the fire. It made her seem unreal, as if she had stepped from one of Old Nan’s tales, the dragons come again, to tend the dying wolves.

A tremor ran through him, half from fever, half from the weight of her nearness. He tried to speak, to thank her, to curse the gods, but the words caught in his throat. Only a sound escaped, a breath, ragged and low.

She did not answer. She only worked, drawing the thread through torn skin, sealing what steel had opened. His vision blurred again. He felt her hand on his shoulder, firm, anchoring him to the world.

He wanted to sleep. He wanted to wake. He wanted to stand and fight again. But his body was a broken thing, and the war outside the tent roared on without him.

When the bleeding finally slowed, she leaned back, face unreadable, eyes the color of old amethyst. There was no triumph in her gaze, no pity. Only calm, ancient and strange.

Robb lay still, chest rising shallow beneath the bandages. The pain dulled to a steady pulse. He looked at her and thought not of dragons or thrones, but of the cost of crowns, how easily blood answered blood.