the hour of the wolf | cregan stark x reader
as the trials of the greens play out, you and jaehaera cannot seem to avoid lord cregan stark and the boy-king he safeguards - though you will die before you let him betroth the two survivors of the dance. will you thaw enough of lord stark’s icy heart to protect jaehaera from the vultures circling her maidenhood? and will you be able to protect your own heart in the process?
word count: 10k
contents: fem!reader, slowburn, angst, intense hurt/comfort, valyrian!reader but no direct relation or appearance given, mentions/threats of torture and death, i’m feeling adoration for helaena and maternal about jaehaera, eventual smut, mix of book and show canon, part two of four
a/n: if i ever say i'm nearly done a fic, apparently assume that means i'm about to be stricken with the plague lmao. i'm very pleased with this part, and that slowburn is slowburning and i am so excited for reader to go to winterfell in the next one :')) hope you guys enjoy!! if you want to be tagged when i have the next two parts up, lmk and i can add you to the taglist :)) <3
masterlist
dividers by @strangergraphics
taglist: @nixtape-foryou @sepho @silverjaysz @casualstay
A trial is similar to a siege, you find.
The days of King’s Landing’s siege, the last days of Aegon’s butchered reign, were ruled by fear – but the waiting drew the fear out so long, pulled it so thin, that it made you numb. There’s no heart-pounding, world-ending terror when you spend your days in silence, waiting for nothing to come.
So, the trial drags your fear out until you hardly feel it. You just sit, hands in your lap, waiting for the sword.
Some Corbrays arrived to fetch you at dawn, and they clustered around the door to Helaena’s rooms like men discovering buried treasure. Their eyes strained to see in the dim light, searching for the little lump under the covers that meant a Princess was inside with you. You just closed the door behind you with a snap, still feeling the kiss you’d pressed to her temple as you slipped from the bed.
Jaehaera is still tucked away in her mother’s rooms as you face the throne in the Great Hall, hands clasped before you and chin dipped, the very portrait of penitence. All around you, the court teems with nervousness, fidgeting and murmuring so much that they best resemble a cloud of gnats. The low buzz of excitement crawls under your skin, threatens to peel you right open.
“His Grace, Aegon Targaryen, Third of His Name, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, King of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Realm.”
The titles spill out like a tipped wine barrel, something sour and sharp in them as they pour forth. You do not turn, though you can hear every other head in the room whipping around, trying to catch a glimpse of the new King. They seem so silly – he’ll be seated on the Throne soon enough, and then everyone will have no choice but to look at him as they kneel.
When Aegon walks down the heart of the Great Hall, he does so with shuffling steps, and he sits on the Throne before anyone can get on their knees. He looks out across the room but not at any of his guests, eyes drifting to the back wall above your heads.
The northman emerges from behind the dais and hovers next to Aegon, and you can feel his eyes on you as you stare at the floor.
When Aegon says your name, it startles you hard enough to yank you from your reverie. It’s the first time in months that you’ve heard it in your family’s mouth, and he approaches every syllable warily.
But, though Aegon calls you to trial, it is Lord Stark who presides over it, and who meets you before the Throne.
“You stand accused of kidnapping Princess Jaehaera Targaryen, and of conspiracy to commit treason alongside her father, the false King Aegon Targaryen. How do you plead?”
You stand before him with your wrists chained and your chin tilted up, anger and indignation simmering in your stomach. Stark meets your gaze with an impassive one of his own, revealing nothing. The man’s face is a barren wasteland, you think, just like his home amongst the direwolves.
“I plead innocent,” you say, tamping down the tremor in your voice. “To all charges.”
The Great Hall is silent, and you can feel them all watching, waiting. It’s one thing for a soldier to be put on trial – for a Lady to stand before the executioner’s blade is another thrill entirely.
Lord Stark nods once, stepping back. “You will plead your case to all three judges – myself, King Aegon, and Lord Oscar Tully. If you have witnesses to call upon, you may do so.”
Witnesses? Everyone you know is dead. The thought is nearly funny to you, and you fear that you may actually laugh in the face of your judges. You try to nod solemnly, mind racing. Lord Tully and Lord Stark watch you, unreadable, and Aegon looks nauseous as he frowns at you.
“I was no ally of Aegon Targaryen,” you start, and you see Aegon flinch. “I – I was lady in waiting to his wife –” You swallow, steeling yourself. “- Helaena.” To say her name before these people feels like muddying her memory.
“She was my cousin, however distant, and I grew up beside her – beside many of the people who commanded this war. She was my friend – my dearest friend. King or no King, Queen or no Queen – to leave Helaena with Aegon, alone, undefended, would have been treasonous to her and to the love we shared.”
It’s the truth, and you hope it will be enough. Stark is hardly blinking as he watches you, sitting next to Lord Tully, whose brow seems to lower more with each word from you.
“I was no commander, no propagandist, no councillor. I hid Helaena and the children in the Keep as Aegon continued his campaign. And after Jaehaerys –”
You pause, swallow the hurt. Your boy, the boldest one, the little Prince in his finery among his books and his playthings. You remember his laugh, so loud and unafraid. His blood soaked right down through the mattress to the bedframe, staining the wood. You remember burning it, after the funeral.
The ripple of Jaehaerys’ name in the crowd sets your teeth on edge. You know to mention him carries accusation in and of itself: Rhaenyra the kinslayer, whose vengeance ended with a corpse too small to see from the crowd. But he was Helaena’s boy, he was your boy, and you won’t pretend he did not exist to placate the feelings of vultures.
“I could not leave her side. And when the city was taken, I could not leave her daughter in the hands of anyone who was not Helaena or myself.” You look to Lord Stark as you speak, your words from the black cells echoing through the Great Hall now. “I could not risk bringing her to the people who had a hand in the deaths of both her brothers. I would have been a fool to do so.”
“And when Rhaenyra’s armies took King’s Landing, after the Queen’s death?” Lord Tully asks. “You didn’t think then to surrender, as the rest of your family had done?”
“Would anyone here surrender their child, hardly seven years old, to the army that invaded your home? Would you not want assurances, treaties, negotiations?”
“You hid the Princess from any negotiating,” Lord Stark began.
“As though the commander of an army couldn’t rip her from my arms during any meeting,” you say, interrupting him. “You are thinking like a general, Lord Stark. I’m asking you to think like a woman – like a mother.”
“But you are not her mother.”
“Someone must be, since the war killed her mother.”
Murmurings erupt throughout the Hall, and Lord Tully leans over to Stark to whisper something to him. You look to Aegon, whose hands are trembling on the edge of the Throne’s seat.
“We will deliberate,” Lord Stark says, his eyes locked with yours.
The three of them gather together to speak, and you feel your whole body loosen, something light and wavering growing in your chest. You feel untethered, as though everything you’ve done to cling to the earth has been snipped away. One thread remains, trailing all the way back up the stairs and into Helaena’s chambers.
When the trio break apart, Stark’s frown is clear. Aegon is the one to stand before them, announcing to the crowd.
The word innocent clangs around the room before everyone starts speaking at once again. It stuns you, and you feel a hand on your wrist, leading you by your irons to the side of the Hall. Stark watches you, and you don’t even look back. The stone beneath your feet is somehow a brand new experience, the stale air the freshest you’ve ever tasted. You stand, unmoored by your own relief, and wait.
The trials speed by, a many are found innocent, which makes your own ruling feel more acceptable. It’s only as those charged with Aegon’s own demise are brought before the crowd that things begin to go awry. Guilty verdict after guilty verdict are handed out to the men, many of whom immediately take the black. You think of the Wall, the great monument of Lord Stark’s ancestors. In a way, no matter what punishment, he seems to win.
But the word death cracks across you like a cold winter wind, sudden and sharp and frightening.
You move from the Great Hall to the stone steps outside as sheep are herded into their pens. You can tell exactly who fought the war and who poked their heads out once the fighting had finished. Lord Blackwood and Lord Tully stand together, spines stiff and voices low as they watch the crowd. Several northmen cluster in a loose formation, their stillness a rock that the crowd’s current breaks against. You are swept along by the chittering, shivering majority, ladies and lords who look around them with the whites of their eyes showing, their hands moving as though they long for a door to close behind them.
A hand on your shoulder pulls you from the crowd, and you stumble to the side with a flinch. Its weight is warm and frighteningly familiar now, and you look up into Lord Stark’s grim face.
“I was found innocent,” you breathe, and he nods.
“Yes, you were. You’ll be escorted back afterwards – Ser Glover, if you’ll help her.”
He says nothing else, only releases you so that a man in red-and-silver can offer you his hand, helping you down the steps with a gentle grip. You stand next to him, apart from the frantic crowd and beside the impassive northmen. You fight a shiver, though the sun hangs high in the afternoon sky.
“My Lady,” Ser Glover says, low and smooth. “You needn’t look, if you don’t want to. It won’t take long.”
But you don’t cower, don’t even blink, as the two men are lead to the top of the steps, are asked to kneel. You know them, though only from the clench of Strong’s jaw and the furrow of Belgrave’s brow. They’re still wearing the gold of the Kingsguard, and it turns them burnished in the sunlight, already statues dedicated to greatness or loyalty or whatever noble virtue the sculptor can think of. Lord Stark stands beside them, and he has eyes only for the convicts, doesn’t acknowledge the crowd. The sword on his back finally comes off, and it is a devastating thing in his hands, great and terrifying.
He speaks low to them, and the men speak back. You dig your nails into your palms, hold your breath. Ser Glover says something else, maybe asking you to look away.
The greatsword swings, and Stark’s man was right: it does not take long. One moment of swift, stone-faced efficiency, and then more death. Your chest clenches, but you do not flinch.
Across the steps, Lord Stark looks over and meets your eyes. A faint breeze cards through the loose locks of his dark hair, flutters them about his face in a motion too soft for such a scene, and carries the metallic scent of blood to you. The sword in his hand drips red onto the stone. You hold his gaze, even as Ser Glover urges you to follow him back into the Keep.
King’s Landing after the war has gone from terrifying to boring.
Embroidery unravels between your fingers, books blur into nonsense before your eyes. The days and nights creep by you, the sun and moon waving hello and goodbye as they dance back and forth around one another. You pull despair over yourself like a blanket, too-warm and heavy.
Jaehaera sits next to you, never quite touching, and watches you work. Your tasks, busywork meant to keep yourself from going mad, are her greatest entertainment. She ignores ladies who come to invite her to tea, does not stand for seamstresses who are hired to craft her new gowns. She braids and unbraids the long, frizzy mane of her hair, which you untangle for an hour every night before bed. She stacks books like she may read them, but returns them to the same spots when supper is brought to your room.
They start whispering whenever you dare to venture from your hiding place. You don’t move through the Keep often anymore, wanting to keep Jaehaera in your line of sight at all times. The pair of you walk, hand in hand, through halls that once brimmed with light.
The ghosts of the Red Keep. The phantom Queen. You hear every word, and you know Jaehaera does, too. She’s keen, always looking up at passersby through her pale lashes, her mouth a flat line. They ridicule her for her grief, for the way it diminishes her. You think about pushing them down the stairs, laying in bed after Jaehaera falls asleep. Clobbering them over the head with candlesticks, slicing them clean through with the knife you stole from your supper tray last week. Visions of death lay down next to you, tuck the blankets over your cold shoulders. It’s nice to think that you can still affect change in your world.
It’s an excursion to the gardens that brings you face to face with Lord Stark.
You’re poised at the top of the stairs, the hardest place for Jaehaera to go. Heights make her nervous now, and she looks down the steps like she can already feel herself falling. Her hand is clammy in yours, gripping your fingers tight enough to numb them, and her little mouth twitches as she considers the descent.
“Ilon dore naecess dekurubagon,” you whisper. We don’t have to go. Everything spoken between you is hushed now, even when you’re alone. Your throat is too tight to speak up. “Ilon kostagon umbago intu tubis.” We can stay inside today.
“Jaelan huraflos.” I want a moonbloom. Her voice is faint.
“Ilon kostas tolot dertan.” We can ask someone else to pick it.
Jaehaera shakes her head. “Ponta mazedan pyrta mere.” They’ll get the wrong one.
You have no idea what she means by that, but she’s deathly serious about it, so you don’t press.
“Is she ill?”
You turn and put Jaehaera behind you in one motion, her hand still clutched in yours. The hall is quiet, sunlight soft through the tall windows, and amid the green of the tapestries and the lush flowers stitched into the carpet, Lord Stark looks like a monster in a fairy tale.
He’s shed his cloak, the thick furs that made you warm just to look at, but his armour is still on. This is a man who has never stopped being at war, you think. It’s all simple but finely made, shades of black and slate grey that remind you of tundra, of desolate landscapes. His hair is pulled back, looking cleaner and neater than you’ve yet seen it.
“The Princess,” he says. His eyes are locked with yours, too intense to look away from. “Is she ill?”
You blink, glance at Jaehaera over your shoulder. She looks up at you with a scrunched brow, then back down the stairs.
“No,” you say, and the word comes out like an argument. “She’s fine.”
“She doesn’t speak.”
“She speaks in her family’s tongue,” you snap. “If you’re so concerned with her well-being, perhaps you should learn it.”
You say it because you don’t think he can, not because you want him to, and it’s clear he understands this from the way his mouth tilts downward.
“You can translate if need be,” he says. “Why won’t she go downstairs?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“The Prince would like to accompany her down, if she’d like.”
That’s when you see him, sheltered behind the mass of this northern warrior: Aegon, unadorned and frowning. He looks to you, then Jaehaera, then back again, as if weighing the situation. Then he touches Lord Stark’s elbow and the man leans down to listen to his whispered question.
“We will all go downstairs,” he says, straightening back up, and you scowl. “Where are you headed?”
“Nowhere you need to be,” you say, and look to Aegon. “My apologies, Your Grace.”
The term makes him flinch, and you take Jaehaera by the shoulders before you can do further damage. Lord Stark is watching the two of you intently, hardly blinking. You crouch down, whisper to Jaehaera.
“Do you want to go to the gardens now?”
Jaehaera blinks at you, then at Lord Stark over your shoulder. Her hand is shaking in yours, and you clutch it between both hands, resist the urge to smooth back her hair or put a hand on her shoulder. She was always a somewhat solitary child, but now touch overwhelms her in an instant. You think of Helaena, whenever her daughter cried, sitting across from her on the floor and holding both of her hands, waiting for the tears to dry.
“Nuha redamas vumbiarzy,” she whispers. I will go back to my room. She’s still looking at Lord Stark, her eyes wide. “Emagon nuha daor tembyrnos.” I haven’t read my books yet.
You think of the stack, sitting now on the low tea table, a pile of promised afternoons by the hearth, worlds she tells herself she will hide in.
When you walk past Stark and Aegon, you put yourself between them and Jaehaera, and you wait for her to enter before you follow. Lord Stark watches you all the while, his eyes meeting yours as you close the door behind you.
You spend the evening stitching a moonbloom on an old hankerchief, Jaehaera watching you in silence, her fingers in her hair and her toes tapping rhythms into the carpet. When supper arrives, she slides her books back into their spots, unread.
Aegon’s coronation was a hasty, private affair, while the city was still crumbling to pieces and the realm was torn apart by war. There was no room for celebration – they needed a King who wouldn’t destroy his kingdom, and they needed him quickly.
You receive the invitation with supper the next evening, after a day where you and Jaehaera hid in her mother’s rooms from Stark and his men. It is written on stiff parchment and closed with a red seal, a three-headed dragon stamped into the wax. Jaehaera picks it up off of her tray with two pinched fingertips, frowning.
You break the seal and reveal the news: a coronation feast, to celebrate peace and prosperity. Jaehaera is invited as a guest of honour, and you will chaperone her. The words are in narrow, careful cursive, and you toss the letter into the hearth.
“Do I have to go?”
You look over at her, the way she shrinks into her seat.
“Not if you don’t want to,” you shrug, as though the celebration is meaningless, as though her absence will not be noted. “Eat, prumia, or your supper will go cold.”
The seamstresses arrive the next day, and they are as patient as Jaehaera is stubborn.
“It will not take long,” they say, and you know you’ve heard those words before. “If you just stand still, we can measure you and let you choose the fabrics and styles –”
“Cupanu,” Jaehaera says, eyes trained on the book open in front of her. It is upside down, and she is pressing flower petals into the pages. I am busy.
“She would rather not,” you say, crossing your ankles as you sit upright on the chaise. “If you don’t mind.”
The seamstress at the head of the pack levels you with a cool stare. “The Hand of the King –”
“Cannot give orders to the Princess,” you say. Jaehaera’s mouth twists at the word, but these people don’t need to know a thing about your plans, about her fears. “She has dresses, she does not need more.”
“The King has requested that she be dressed appropriately for the coronation,” one of them tries again, and you smile at her.
“She will be. Just not by your hands. Good day.”
In the end, Jaehaera lets you braid her hair for the feast.
She’s spent the afternoon bathing in the sunlight that pours through the tall windows of her room, staring out at the Keep’s courtyards where servants prepared for the celebration. You spent it watching her and pretending to read. When you asked her what dress she wanted to wear, she laid out the black dress she’d worn to Jaehaerys’ funeral. You can still see her now, a tiny shadow against the bright flame of his pyre. It’s a little too small for her now, and you can see the dark green of her slippers where the velvet doesn’t reach.
The hum of revelry calls out to both of you as you descend into the heart of the Keep. She tugs on your hand at the bottom of the stairs, her face still pale from the climb.
“Vellagao setan Jaehaerys inidnu glaesalo?” Would they have made me marry Jaehaerys if he had lived?
You freeze, your hand instinctively tightening around hers. The halls are quiet but not empty, and you want to tuck her behind you in case anyone recognizes her brother’s name in her mouth.
“Nuha gimi,” you answer. I don’t know. “Vellagao vaorestan?” Would you have liked that?
“Nuha gimi,” she says back. “Kostala. Raqiros Morghul se Shrykos.” Maybe. Morghul and Shrykos were friends.
It’s the first time you’ve heard her say their names since the Dragonpit’s destruction, and you want to steal her away to Helaena’s chambers and bar the door at the very thought. You wonder if she’s connected those dots: that the love people had for her mother had led them to Morghul’s enclosure, had brought about more fire and death and blood. You’re glad she never saw the body of the creature that was to one day protect her.
Servants and nobles eye the pair of you as you step into the chaos of the celebration, their gazes hungry with curiosity. Jaehaera is silent beside you, and you hear them whisper as you pass. The Green ghosts.
“My lady.”
Lord Blackwood looks softer under the light of the sunset and the braziers, his mouth curled in a lopsided smile and his arm extended to you. His house colours are the same as yours, you realize. Black and red, the colours of the body and the grave. The emerald silk of your gown makes him look half-dead to you, his cheeks pink from the wine as though a fever burns through him.
“Lord Blackwood,” you say, nodding.
“You look well.”
“Most people do when not in prison,” you agree, and his smile falters for just a moment. This strong-headed boy, so confident about his own accomplishments. His arm is still held out for you, and you imagine he thinks himself quite the gentleman for it. “I hope we’re not late.”
“We’re just getting started,” he waves off your concern, finally dropping his arm. “I just thought you’d like to greet the King first.”
“You were sent to bring us to him,” you correct him, watching his dark eyes flick to the Throne and then back to you. “Lord Stark is not subtle.”
“No,” Lord Blackwood agrees. “He’s definitely not that.”
It’s a long, winding walk to the Throne, moving past tables laden with food and lords already drunk on wine. You keep Jaehaera close to you, her hand still in yours, and you meet every stare with a cold one of your own. These people are in your house, not the reverse.
“Your Grace, I present Princess Jaehaera and her, uh, keeper,” Lord Blackwood announces, wincing at his own words.
“Your Grace,” you say, ignoring Lord Blackwood and dipping into a curtsey for Aegon.
Jaehaera follows your lead, but she stumbles a bit from the depth of her own gesture, and you help her right her footing before she falls. She picks at the silk of her dress, looking at the tall windows above the Throne.
Aegon is seated and stone-faced. The boy curls in on himself, as though the noise overwhelms him, and the black velvet of his doublet makes him look like he’s trying to blend into the shadows.
Lord Stark is there, as always. Hovering next to the Throne, just a step below Aegon but still towering over his skinny frame. He looks clean, his hair combed neatly into a braid and the leather of his doubtlet shining. He’s even left his greatsword behind, and he looks incomplete to you without the threat of it looming over his shoulder.
“My lady,” he says, nodding to you. His eyes are so serious in the candlelight, so at odds with the celebration he’s orchestrated. “Princess Jaehaera.”
Jaehaera stares at him but doesn’t move to acknowledge his greeting. You smooth a palm over her hair, your other hand still clutched in hers. You can already see the revelry overwhelming her, the way she’s gone stiff beside you, her fingers plucking out an odd rhythm on a fold in her skirts.
“Congratulations, Aegon,” you say. “I don’t think I’ve said that to you yet.”
“No,” the boy shakes his head. “You haven’t.”
“Kostagon jaelredemas?” Can we go now?
Jaehaera’s whisper cuts through the silence that threatens to settle over the four of you, and you look down at her with your brow furrowing.
“Daor vasir prumia,” you say, though you long to disappear upstairs with her. Not yet, my heart. There’s no one in this room that makes you feel anything but rage. Someone laughs in the dancing crowd, and you have to fight back a scowl. “Aderi.” Soon.
“Perhaps the Princess would like to see someone her own age,” and you weren’t prepared to see Baela.
She looks well, all things considered. Her hair is coiled tight behind her and her gown is a structured, jet black sheath that makes her look like the commander of an army. When she looks at you, she does so with assessing eyes and a pinch between her brows.
“My Lady,” you say, dropping into yet another curtsey, but you keep your hand in Jaehaera’s. She’s half-hiding behind your skirts now, peering up at the strangers crowded around you.
“Daenaera,” Baela says, waving at someone behind her. “This is Princess Jaehaera Targaryen. Princess, Lady Daenaera Velaryon.”
Daenaera Velaryon is a tiny angel, her face round and big eyes shining, and she prances around her elder cousin in a concoction of turquoise organza, the pearl strings in her hair bouncing with every step. She curtsies for Jaehaera, and Jaehaera says nothing and stares.
“Daenaera is a friend to the King,” Baela says, leaning down to look at Jaehaera, trying to catch her eye. “She would love to play with you, Princess.”
“Come with me,” Daenaera says, holding out her hand. “We’re all playing tourney.”
“Skoros iksis bona?” Jaehaera whispers to you. What is that?
“Like jousting,” you explain. “Knights and maidens, like in the songs.”
“It’s fun!” Daenaera says. “You can be the audience.”
Jaehaera slowly releases your skirts and emerges from her hiding spot, watching Daenaera like she’s a new insect to discover. The girls are playing only next to the dais, all within your sightline. She looks up at you, and you nod, giving her shoulder a tiny squeeze.
“She’s a sweet girl,” Baela says, and Lord Stark nods. Her eyes flick to you. “She lost her parents before the war. I brought her to King’s Landing in the hopes that she might find her way – whether that’s a suitable betrothal or a position as lady-in-waiting.”
You don’t see Lord Stark leave the Hall so much as you feel it: his stare lifts from you, and you look up to see him vanishing through a back door, out onto one of the balconies overlooking the courtyards.
It’s an awful idea, but your feet are moving before you can think twice about it. You slip through the door without hesitation, your slippers silent on the stone, as Baela and Lord Blackwood fall into conversation behind you.
“Marry them instead.”
The gardens are heavy with dusk, its shadows beginning to drape languidly over the shrubs and trees and flowers. Stark turns, looking like he genuinely thought himself to be alone. The final rays of sunlight reflect off of the leather of his doublet, making patterns shine in shifting gold across his chest, flashing off of the embossed direwolf growling on his pin. He’s a final howl before the night’s darkness as he turns to you.
“My lady?”
“Aegon and Daenaera,” you snap, arms crossed. “It’s clear that’s what Lady Baela desires – let it happen. Let them wed, and let Jaehaera go free.”
“Lady Daenaera is not yet ten,” Stark says, shaking his head.
“And the King is hardly more than ten,” you shoot back. “Betrothe them. Let them court, let them find some fondness, then have them wed. You have other choices.”
“The Princess is the most sound of them all –”
“There is nothing sound about condemning her.”
Silence. The courtyard is quiet as nighttime slinks further and further across its flagstones, cloaking the glimmer of insects’ wings as they buzz and chirp in the trees. Stark stares at you, stone-faced and tired. You can see it now, in the lines of his rough face, the way his brows seem furrowed even when the skin between them is smooth.
“Have you married, Lord Stark?” You watch him with care, wait for his eyes to shutter, the honesty to vanish from his face.
But he looks away, towards the final hints of the setting sun. “Yes.”
“And she loves you? She loves being Lady of Winterfell?”
A muscle tenses in his jaw as he avoids your gaze. “She did.”
It’s enough to give you pause, to quell your anger for a moment. She did. The past tense has become a constant companion to you in the days since the war began, but its presence still sneaks up on you somehow. You’re so used to your life being in the past, that it sounds strange when applied to a stranger. Lord Stark looks too much alive to be speaking in it.
“Then you were lucky,” you push on. You lean on the railing of the balcony, bowing forward as though in prayer. Below you, the gardens shift and shimmer in the breeze. “To not know how it is for women who cannot choose their betrothal.”
“Life is not all pleasure,” Stark says. “Sometimes it’s about duty.”
“My aunt Alicent talked about duty.”
He stiffens at the name, and you nearly laugh. The way people react to it, you’d think you were summoning some ancient Valyrian bloodgod. Then again, Alicent Hightower has as much red on her hands as a deity – sacrifices made in her family’s name, blood for the sake of the realm as she saw it.
But you remember how she saw Helaena, in quiet moments where the heartbreak cracked the hard stone of her mask clean in two. How she saw Maelor, stroking the crown of his head even when he went silent as death, wide eyes panicked but too frightened to cry. How she saw Jaehaera, watching her from across the garden as she carefully tucked caterpillars into her basket of leaves and grass.
“She married the King out of duty, and where did it get her? She had her children marry out of duty, and where did it get them? The realm burned for it.”
“Aegon will not burn anyone –”
“I’m telling you,” you interrupt him, pushing your luck. “That duty leads so easily to tragedy if you’re not careful. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that girls are not handled carefully by this world.”
Stark’s face shadows as he turns away from the setting sun, looking down at you. He doesn’t lean against the banister as you do, standing stiff-backed and ready for a fight. His greatsword may not have accompanied him to the feast, you note, but the threat of its blade still echoes in his every movement.
“There are few other ways for us to put this tragedy behind us,” he says, and it comes out as an apology. You wish he would just say he’s sorry – then you can at least have the satisfaction of rejecting it. “Bringing what’s left of the Greens and the Blacks together.”
“Jaehaera isn’t the only Green left,” you say before you can stop yourself, straining to look up at him with as much scorn as you can muster. “Why aren’t you trying to marry me off?”
For the first time since he met you in the black cells, Lord Stark seems to be caught off-guard. His face drops in an instant, something storming overtaking his eyes. “Is that something you want?”
“No.” You rush to deny it, cheeks flaming. “I imagine I’m too tainted for any of the men in this city, and I’d rather hang myself than meet any of them in the sept. I just mean that you can forget tying up your loose ends. Let them win – let Rhaenyra’s son rule, and let someone she would have chosen be his Queen. Let us be history.”
Stark runs a hand over his mouth, looking past you into the Great Hall. Another first: you’ve not been this close to him without intent to maim. He’s a presence you feel without touching, somehow, the way you feel the shadow of a mountain as it guards you in the valley below. He sighs, and it touches your forehead.
“Nothing is set in stone yet,” he says finally. “But I won’t swear something I cannot be certain of.”
“Then swear something else, if you want peace so badly,” you shoot back. “Swear that you’ll choose what’s best for Jaehaera, not for the realm.”
“The realm –”
“Doesn’t care if she’s safe, or if she’s happy – hells, most of them probably don’t even care who she marries. The people who care are the people who want her close, and they aren’t the sort you need to be doing favours for.”
“You may be the most hard-headed woman in the whole of Westeros,” he mutters, and you smile without a hint of humour.
“Then I’m right where I need to be.”
He studies you for a long moment, so long that you don’t think he has anything else to say. There’s hardly a foot of space between you, something that has you leaning forward, as though to challenge his propriety, his honour. Show me, you want to demand. Show me how honourable the Lord of Winterfell is, show me who will break first, who will cower. It will not be me.
Then he shifts, moving past you to head inside the feast, his hand brushing the back of yours as he passes you. The touch turns your skin to pins and needles, your hand curling into the skirts of your gown.
“Enjoy the feast, my Lady,” he says, an echo in your periphery. You stay frozen, watching the sunset. “You and the Princess will sit at our table.”
The King’s table is heavy with food, jugs of ale and wine passed around and soft cheese and bread torn between your fingers. Your stomach is roiling with anxiety as you sit between Jaehaera and Baela, wreaking havoc on your dinner instead of eating it.
Jaehaera is planted right next to Aegon, Lord Stark on his other side. Jaehaera’s plate is piled with food, all put there by someone else, and she picks at the roast duck with careful fingers, ignoring her utensils.
“Princess,” Aegon says to Jaehaera. “Would you like to walk through the gardens later?”
She stays silent, excavating a single carrot from beneath her potatoes and wiping it clean before she eats it. Then she tugs on your sleeve and whispers up at you.
“Jaelskorys umbalis?” How long do we have to stay?
“Saltem vapar lilarpradan,” you whisper back. At least until the dancing begins. You see Aegon’s frown deepen.
“Daor merbagon?” No hunger?
The stumbling Valyrian gives you and Jaehaera pause, and you wait for Aegon to continue in frozen surprise. He just looks at the two of you, his fingers knitting and unknitting together in front of him. His own plate is half-empty, a valiant effort on his part. You can see Lord Stark watching the three of you, though he disguises his studying poorly by taking a deep drink of wine.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace?” You ask, and Aegon’s mouth twists to the side in clear frustration.
“Daor merbagon?” He asks again, and Jaehaera squeezes your hand.
“Pendagonu daor Valyriha ydrago,” she whispers. I don’t think he speaks Valyrian.
“Perhaps you could speak Common,” Lord Stark interrupts. “So everyone can understand you.”
Jaehaera looks at the northman with a trembling coldness you only see when she stares out her mother’s bedroom window, her eyes deep and dark, her teeth clenching and unclenching in a strange rhythm before she speaks.
“Daor.” No. She looks to you. “Kessa skyro lilarae?” When will the dancing start?
Beside you, Baela takes a sip of her own wine and leans closer. “Does she not speak Common?”
“Not when she doesn’t wish to,” you say, keeping your tone even, burying your frustration as they poke and prod at Jaehaera like a dancing bear in a carnival. “Does the King not speak Valyrian?”
“His education was interrupted,” Baela shrugs. “Understandably, I think.”
Understandable, yes. Who has time to teach languages in a civil war?
“Will they not speak the same language, even after marriage?” Baela asks, and you turn to place yourself as a wall between her and Jaehaera.
“Let’s not speak of marriage when a betrothal is not promised,” you say, low and cold. “The future can hold many possibilities beyond what everyone else at this table has assumed.”
“You’re right,” she replies, eyes narrowing as she takes in your anger. “And perhaps some are wiser than others.” You watch her gaze move past you, and you already know who she’s looking to.
“I think that’s enough discussion for tonight,” Lord Stark says. You turn again, opening your mouth to argue, but he closes the door on your reproach with a shake of his head. “We will all do what we must for the realm, whatever that may be.”
“Jaevedros regnyma,” Jaehaera murmurs, looking out across the room as she taps against the edge of the table. I hate the realm.
You look over her at Lord Stark. “Gaomanu prumia.” As do I, my heart.
The coronation feast casts a golden glow into the next few days, its warmth lighting up the Keep. Aegon still spends most of his time secluded in his chamber, but the rest of the council and the court act as though their world has been born anew.
The noble girls flit through the halls like tiny fairies, all of them giggling and whispering in their silk dresses. Jaehaera watches them from down the hall, trailing after them like a phantom, her green dressing gowns slithering behind her on the floor. They always beckon to her, coaxing her along as you watch from a distance, hoping these little creatures of childhood will help you hear her laugh again.
Three days after the feast, Daenaera Velaryon comes scurrying through the gardens, bursting through the hedges and nearly hurling herself across the flagstones. She halfway crashes into you, her face shining with tears, and clutches at the front of your gown.
“Princess Jaehaera -!”
You don’t need to hear anything else – her shrill, bone-deep panic is enough explanation, and you follow her deep into the gardens, chasing the chorus of cries.
Three noble girls are sobbing next to the pond. It’s decorative, not too deep, but its lilies pitch and sway in the motion of its green-blue surface. There’s a heartbeat where you are not here: you are standing at Helaena’s bedroom window, palms braced on the sill. Your world is ending far, far below, and you are falling right through each of the seven hells.
Suddenly you are collar-deep in the water, sunshine fracturing all around you. The velvet of her dressing gown is made alien underwater, feeling more like the flesh of some deep-sea creature. You yank on it, drawing her into you.
By the time you flounder your way to the edge of the pond, your lungs are burning and your arms shake too hard to lift her. Tiny hands clutch at her shoulders, under her arms, around her middle. Four noble girls soak their finery as they haul Jaehaera onto the grass, and you keep her sleeve in your hand even as you struggle to pull yourself out after her.
“Daenaera –” You gasp her name, and the girl’s face is tight with fear when she looks to you. “Don’t be afraid, just – just turn her onto her front and get her to cough!”
You hold your own breath until you hear Jaehaera’s, ragged and desperate as she hacks into the grass. It loosens something that had gone taut within you, and your grip on the earth around the pond relaxes. You press your forehead to it for a second, drawing yourself together.
“See?” You say finally, looking up at the girls. “Everything is alright. Why don’t you all go inside and get cleaned up?”
They scamper off, although Daenaera hestitates, her palm still splayed on Jaehaera’s back. She looks to you, her little mouth trembling, and you nod.
“Go on,” you say. “I’ve got her.”
When Daenaera finally vanishes into the gardens, you struggle to pull yourself onto the grass, your gown sodden and trying to drag you back down into the pond’s gleaming depths. You hurry to kneel beside Jaehaera, cradling her against you, your cheek smushed against the crown of her head. She’s so cold and shakes wildly in your arms.
“Why would you do something like that?” You murmur, running your hands up and down her shoulders, trying in vain to warm her. “What would possess you?”
“They said I’m going to marry Aegon,” she croaks, and you hold her closer to you. “I thought I could stop it.”
Stop it. You’re back at the windowsill, and you can see the blood all the way down on the flagstones, and Helaena’s dress is green as the grass that you and Jaehaera kneel in. You can already see the crown glinting on her delicate brow, feel the heat of her pyre.
“I have moonblooms, for tea,” she says. “But I think that’ll just make them angry with me.”
She’s shuddering, and her words are coming out strangled by her tears. Moonblooms for tea – you press your mouth to her hair, stifling your own sudden agony.
“You mean to make moon tea?” You whisper, and she nods.
“It was in the books,” she says. “I thought if – maybe if I can’t ever do my duty, then they won’t want me anymore.”
You’re still beside yourself, unravelling the horror of her words, when you hear the rustle in the grass. You look over your shoulder, curling around her like a shield, and find a wolf in the garden. Stark hovers at the edge of the pond’s clearing, his hand on the pommel of a longsword, still sheathed, and you nearly laugh. As though there’s an enemy he can slay here, a scoundrel to be bested. As though the enemy is not his own machinations at work.
“Princess,” he begins, before his mouth spasms with something distasteful. “Jaehaera?”
“She’s alright,” you say, not relaxing your grip on her at all. You can’t seem to say anything else. You feel your throat working, as though you might continue, but then you swallow the sea of feeling down and just watch him, waiting.
Stark approaches you like an animal caught in a trap, and you feel just as dangerous right now. He kneels just far enough away that you’re out of arm’s reach, and he looks to you before turning his eyes to Jaehaera.
“Jaehaera,” he says, and she shivers, her eyes locked on his. “Would you like me to carry you back to the Keep?”
She presses her cheek against your collar, scrubs at her eyes with her hand, and then nods.
It’s a difficult task, separating yourself from her, but you let Jaehaera untangle herself from you, still weak-kneed where she sits in the grass. Stark scoops her up like she weighs nothing to him, and she clutches tight to his shoulder with both hands.
“Do you need help, my Lady?” Stark asks, and you push yourself to your feet, standing wobbly but upright. He watches you, a shadow passing over his face, before you turn and start leading them into the Keep.
The walk back up to Helaena’s rooms is a slow one, Stark being careful not to jostle Jaehaera too much, and stares follow you. Daenaera and the other girls are clustered by the foot of the stairs, evidently having sent Stark out to find and rescue you. You pause to take Daenaera’s shaking hands, bending down to look her in the eye. She’s never seemed more her age.
“You were very brave,” you whisper. “Thank you.”
Daenaera nods like you’re knighting her before the Throne, and the girls all clutch each other and watch as the three of you ascend the stairs.
Stark sets Jaehaera down on her mother’s bed, and she immediately flings her dripping dressing gown onto the floor, frantic not to make the bed too wet. You wrap a blanket around her, smooth back her hair.
“I’ll send for a maester,” Stark says, startling you. He’s in the doorway, already turning to leave, and you think about calling him back. Thanking him, chastising him, clawing his face like a wolverine. Telling him what his plan has done to your girl, showing him what he and his council have reaped.
But you just watch the door close behind him. You curl up beside Jaehaera, and let her fall asleep on your shoulder as you stare up at the canopy of Helaena’s bed.
It’s dark when you wake. Jaehaera has slid over to the other side of the bed in her sleep, curled in on herself and holding the damp blanket around her shoulders. Her hair is loose and fans across her pillow, a spill of moonlight in the darkness.
For a moment, it’s before the war. Helaena is coming back to bed soon, and Jaehaera will sleep between you because she’s had a nightmare. Jaehaerys will complain in the morning about being left all alone, since Maelor is only a baby and still sleeps in the cradle in his mother’s chambers. You’ll make it up to him by letting him sit on your shoulders as you walk through the gardens, and you’ll make up an excuse for Helaena not to visit her lord husband in the afternoon, claiming she and the twins need to be fitted for new formal attire.
Then you wake from your half-dream, shaking the last of sleep off of you and feeling the cold riptide of truth.
There’s a light shining under the door, in the hallway. It moves back and forth, pacing, and you follow it with a trancelike confusion. Someone pacing outside Helaena’s rooms in the dead of night. After the day you’ve had, you don’t want any more surprises.
You slip from the bed, padding silently to the door. Jaehaera doesn’t stir, but you can still see the steady motion of her breathing, so you exhale, try to relax. She resurfaced. You can still see her below the water when you blink, like it’s stamped into your eyelids.
Maybe you should be more surprised that Lord Stark is standing on the other side of the door, but all you feel when you see him is the heat of familiarity. His is a face you’ve come to recognize, to know to look for when you enter a room, and you haven’t realized how novel the feeling has become until now.
“My Lady,” he says, and it’s a hushed, gentle greeting. The candle in his hand looks too small for him, like a giant carrying around a torch. The tiny flame flickers its light across his face, glinting off of a knitted brow and a pursed mouth. He wears the same worry that has gnawed at you for nigh on a moon.
“Lord Stark,” you whisper, frowning. “Has something happened?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he says, and his eyes flick behind you. “Is she sleeping?”
You nod, and step into the hall, shutting the door behind you.
The space feels too small, cramped like the crypts far below your feet. The darkness drapes over you, made warm by the candlelight, and Stark does not back up when you step out to meet him. You stand nearly toe to toe, your bare feet cold on the stone. He’s not dressed for sleep, still in doublet and trousers, and you shiver in your dressing gown, its silk fluttering about your ankles.
“Jaehaera does not wish to be Queen.” It is not a question, so you do not deign to respond. “She thought to end her life to avoid it.”
“Yes,” you say, your voice catching. There’s more to it, revelations that make your throat close over, but you just nod. “She did. Are you here to placate me some more?”
He swallows, an audible sound, and looks to the side before turning his eyes back on you. When you meet his gaze, it is the shade of his greatsword, steel gleaming in the dark.
Then, he holds out a hand.
“I’m here because I know now what is within my power to promise you.”
The word is a softer one: a blanket around cold shoulders, a steadying hand on a set of stairs. But the way Stark says it, you can smell the blood that runs beneath it, hear the swing of a sword, the howl of the wind. Northern promises, you know, are made in the frosts and the famines, traded between hardened hands.
You accept the forearm he holds out, and his hand is the most sure thing you’ve felt in a long time. He grips your forearm as you grip his, the swearing of a surrender, of reconciliation. The end of a war.
“I swear to you, by the old gods and the new, that Princess Jaehaera will not marry the King.”
You clutch him tighter, nodding.
“She will go north, and become my ward in Winterfell.”
You jerk back, but Stark holds you fast, not finished.
“You will accompany her as a chaperone and stay in the North with her, for her protection and her education.”
Suddenly, the hall is frigid. You can already feel the bitter wind blowing in, biting at your bare skin. Lord Stark watches you, waiting.
“I’ve never been north,” you say, feeling stupid with shock. “Not farther than Gulltown.”
“I think you’ll like it,” he says. He’s still holding your arm, nearly cradling it with how limp you’ve gone. He’s frowning again as he peers into your face, searching for something. “Everywhere north of the Vale, women do all sorts of threatening and thrashing, as you seem so eager for.”
“Don’t – don’t patronize me,” you snap, and Stark smiles, though it looks forlorn on such a stony face.
“You’re already talking like a northern woman,” he says, and releases your arm. It drops to your side, and you lean back against the door.
“When would we leave?” You ask, trying to take in full breaths.
“I resign as Hand tomorrow morning. By the next day, we’ll be packed and ready to go.”
We. His retinue, his men, his greybeards. All the Cerwyns and Dustins and Glovers, marching back to their homes, putting this whole war behind them. You can imagine it now: a sea of grey and black and white, two green cloaks riding within, vulnerable as a fresh shoot in the frosty ground.
“Winterfell is a good month from us, but the Spring is fresh, so the journey shouldn’t be so hard.”
“Am I allowed to say no?”
It comes out small, raspy, a pitiful runt of a question. You look up at Stark through your lashes, braced against the closed door to keep standing.
“If you and the Princess refuse, she will marry. If she stays in Winterfell, as my ward, I would be the arbiter of her hand. I could refuse any man who wanted her.”
You chew your lip, his words a sudden balm to your frayed nerves. “Any man?”
“Anyone at all,” he says. “In the North, she would be untouchable.”
You straighten, pushing yourself up and off the door. You still feel unsteady on your feet, but it doesn’t seem to matter anymore: the hall, the candle, the shadows, it all seems to melt into the distance, into the past. It is only you and Lord Stark, and you hold your hand out to him in the darkness.
“I accept.”
