SIN·EATER

Owen smiled at her, chuckling at her comments. "The others spent a long night drinking, it's the only thing to do here. Drink and sing and dance. It is a bit too early for them. And I didn't feel the need to rouse the kingsguard and have them follow me out. They will find my words and know I am safe but not to be followed." Even if they decided that they would track him later and be waiting off somewhere in the distance but he didn't like hunting the way kings hunted.

He recalled seeing the last King of the seven kingdoms hunting in such a way. His knights would throw ropes around the necks of boars and stags and then he would take his shot and Owen remembered the feeling. The way disgust crept up his neck when he realized the Targaryens were mortal and weak. They were never Gods, nor their dragons, but he always thought they were more.

Crowns are no good for hunting, he said, and she smiled subtly at those words. The sálþyrja's eyes lingered on the Stark for a moment, also taking notice of the simplicity of his garb and gear. He didn't hunt like the Southron kings, with all that pageantry and false glory. There was no retinue of soldiers capturing and weakening the prey for him to deliver the last blow. Vilde only saw a man with a bow in the woods. That was just right. But she said nothing about it.

At his question, that eerie stillness in her deepened, and then her head tilted very softly to the side. Her eyes, pale as the winter sky, carried a memory to the present. “Aye, they are larger,” she said simply, her voice calm, grounded. “There are boars with tusks as thick as your wrist, the northern lynxes that move without sound, and the elk that can trample a grown man into the ground. We hunt bears too”. Vilde's eyes stayed on him, trying to see if her words might be weaving images in his mind. “We chase, we use bow, axe and spear. We also set hunting pits and self-firing traps,” she added, for the ingenious nature of those mechanisms was just as valuable as the courage of the clansfolk in the hunt.

“You’ve never been to Moon Circle, Owen Stark,” the deathmaiden added after a moment. She wasn't asking a question, she knew she'd never seen the King in the North in the Harclay's land. “You should come. See it for yourself”. Vilde’s lips then curved into the faintest hint of a smile, there a moment and gone in the next. “I will show you how clansfolk hunt”.

It was then that her gaze dropped, not away but downward, as her attention was caught by something. Around his neck was a pendant made of pale birch wood, carved with familiar runes. The sálþyrja stepped closer, slowly but without hesitation, and her fingers reached to hold the Harclay amulet in her hand for a moment. She had gifted it to him on his nameday, and had not noticed it around his neck before. Gods knew if this was the first time he wore it, or if the protective amulet had been there before, concealed, perhaps since that night.

“then we are alike in that,” he said at last, voice low, deliberate. “i’ve no wish to see the north bent into southern shape. not by crown, not by coin, not by any man who believes our winters can be softened by parchment.” his thumb tapped once against the table before stilling again. “but i know this, clinging to what has been without shaping what comes next will break us faster than any southern law. survival alone is not enough. the north must hold together, or we’ll be carved apart.”

he leaned forward slightly, the weight of the dreadfort’s cold walls behind him, the ghosts in the stone lending their silence. “tell your father this: if he sits at my table, it is not to bow, but to stand. when the king looks northward, when southern ways creep across our borders dressed as counsel, harclay and bolton will answer together. not as rebels. not as beggars. as northerners loyal to their king, but unyielding in what the north is.” his gaze lingered on her, unblinking. “if he seeks to preserve our way whilst guiding the king’s hand away from southern rot, then we are aligned. if he seeks only to survive, then he will find no shelter here.”

Clansmen were proud in a way that was different from the lords of the North, even more so from the nobles of the Southron realms. One thing remained true for all: none liked to bow. “The Harclay will be pleased to hear that,” the sálþyrja answered with a slight nod. It didn't sit well with how similar the Bolton lord and her father appeared to be, but that forebode a good partnership for the Harclay clan and the house of the flayed men. “When you speak with him, I'm sure you'll be content to find your minds are more alike than not. Like I said, I know the Harclay is not only thinking about survival”. What shape that would take, Vilde didn't know. That was a conversation for her father and Lord Bolton to have.

naelys velaryon’s lips parted as if she meant to answer clearly, but what slipped free was little more than a soft, uneven breath - her mouth momentarily drying as she thought quietly about how best to piece her words together, almost hearing the sounds of her oldest brother's voice reminding her to speak louder. she could not hold vilde’s gaze for long; those eyes reminded her too much of frozen seas, endless and merciless, and yet she found herself tethered to them - was this what it felt like to be a fish, gutted by a hook?

“i do do not think i could feel death approaching,” she murmured, her voice light, dreamlike, as though she were speaking not to vilde but to the empty air between them. her fingers pressed against her skirts, smoothing folds that did not need smoothing; almost imaginary, and for a moment it almost appeared as though naelys velaryon was more some glass doll, floating within the space between them. it was then the renements of a small smile crossed her lips, eyes momentarily brightening as though she had caught onto something legendary - and then it slipped from her mouth, something cryptic and bittersweet all at once.

"oh, wouldn't that would have saved us all some trouble."

how best to ask her questions, and to further contemplate the prospect of death: if she were to smudge her fingers with ink writing on it with each short story and poem, she would like to know it better. it were not as though it had already clasped its jaws around driftmark and all the souls who inhabited it like a madman already - no, rather she wished to sit across from it beneath a frozen sun and contemplate on all the other impossible facts of life. a frozen sun, and to allow the dead to walk again.

naelys’s voice carried with it that lilting softness she often fell into when her thoughts slipped untethered, as though she were reciting some half-forgotten charm, something whispered at the edge of candlelight. her lilac eyes did not quite settle on vilde but rather moved just past her, chasing shadows that did not exist.

“i like to imagine your old friend is a black cat,” she said, the words leaving her lips in a slow, deliberate hush, as if shaping them might summon something that ought not be summoned. “sometimes it crosses your path and sometimes it doesn’t...comes and goes as it pleases.” her tone lingered on the last phrase, curling around it like smoke, until the air seemed heavier for it. there was a strange rhythm to her words, not unlike a lullaby sung off-key, and though her voice was calm, there was an undercurrent of unease—as though she herself could sense how the cadence of her speech might make the air prickle. "i think it best if we all ignore the way it creaks outside the bedroom door."

she almost smiled then, the faintest ghost of one, a flicker gone as soon as it appeared, her gaze returning to vilde with a softness that belied the spell-like edge of her words - the sounds of the sea snake's steps creeping into her rooms, creaking as she would keep her eyes squeezed shut, half scared - but she knew it would be him returning. and now he was dead. naelys did not feel it; not really - it’s like ink spilling across parchment, but it would not stain her fingertips. her lilac eyes lifted again, half-curious, half-lost, and another ray of sun seemed to creep upon her lips. “you must feel it, though. more than anyone.” naelys shifted, the motion so slight it was almost invisible, like a ripple in still water. when she spoke, her words came soft and uneven, as though falling from her tongue without her permission.

Vilde took a sip of her drink, finding it no better than before. She continued to watch Naelys as she gathered her thoughts, her questions. The álþyrja tilted her head a little, ash blonde curls falling across her shoulder. There was a particular air about the Velaryon lady, a sort of dreamlike rhythm in how she navigated the conversation through pauses and extended silences. Vilde, for her part, was in no rush to fill those moments of quiet.

When the lady spoke again, she gave an embodiment to death as something small, dark and familiar. A cat. This notion made Vilde hum softly, a light smile crossing her lips for a second. “That is a kinder image than most give it,” Vilde remarked. She had no intention to preach or share a singular viewpoint about death with the other woman. However she wished to view it, it was fine by her. Death was understood in many ways, after all. “Ignoring it does not make it go away, or come any slower,” she did mention plainly, not seeking to issue a warning or chastise her for wishing to ignore it. It was just a simple fact. When death was bound to come, nothing would stop it.

The Northerner paused, considering the lady's words when she stated that Vilde felt death more than anyone. An interesting thought. Some might say she felt it less, that the nature of her duties had desensitized her to death. Others might agree with Naelys' conclusion that, in dealing with so many dead people, cleansing them, and unburdening their sins, she felt it more deeply than anyone else. “No,” she said at last, and she meant it. “I only feel it differently”.

he squinted at her as the words left her mouth—foreign, raw, guttural. they sat ill on his ears, like something clawed out from an old wound. the sound of it stirred something faint and half-formed in his chest, like the ghost of recognition, but nothing he could grasp. her voice had weight, yes, but to his mind it was all theatre. like so many of the northfolk—full of ritual and riddles, convinced that curses meant more than consequence. he didn’t flinch.

instead, his lip curled faintly, and he tilted his head, brows lifted in faint disdain, as though watching a wild thing try to speak like a person. "oh aye," he said, voice low and thick with the cadence of the vale, whiskey-laced and weather-worn. "that’ll be some northern curse, then. say it like ye mean it, at least. might even work better." he drew a breath in through his nose and cast a glance past her shoulder, as though already losing interest. but he didn’t move away. not yet.

she said harclay, and something in him pulled taut—not memory, not truly, but that familiar itch behind the ribs that came when danger was near and unspoken. he repeated the name under his breath, slow and unsure, like tasting bad wine. “harclay… harclay...” he narrowed his eyes at her now, proper, studying the line of her jaw, the northern bone in her brow. she wasn’t pretty in any usual sense, not in the way highgarden liked its women: soft-faced and sweet-mouthed. no, she had the look of stone and smoke. old blood, ill-tempered. "don't know the name," he muttered eventually, more to himself than to her, and with a shrug of his shoulder, he almost meant it.

yet her stillness irked him more than shouting ever could. she didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. he hated that. people were supposed to wither a little when he stared them down. especially those from the north, from the cold and the fringes, not tethered to courtly rot. she should’ve turned heel the moment he opened his mouth. instead, she stood like she’d been waiting for him all her life. and that bothered him.

“aye, well,” he said at length, adjusting the lay of his collar, the linen stuck to the line of his throat from the late summer heat. “if you’re waitin’ for some great reckoning, you’ll be waitin’ a good long while. i don’t remember you, and i certainly don’t remember any harclay worth the salt to stick in the teeth.” he let his gaze drag over her once more—long, slow, dismissive. “you come down here for your curses, or just to gawp like a bairn at the fair?” his tone was idle but edged, a blade dulled just enough to seem casual, filled with the usual air of arrogance that a valeman had - those who believed themselves untouchable.

She didn't reply immediately. Those eyes of ice bore into him before she finally spoke. “I’ve spoken it in the only way it can be spoken,” she said in a cold, steady way, “Time will carry it now. It will settle. It will take root. And it will happen”.

His disdain was both sword and shield, she noticed. He was well-armed in that regard. Every shrug, every idle insult, every refusal to acknowledge sins as something important was a way to disarm her, and those around him in general, she imagined. And when that dawned on her, it suddenly stopped being an effective way of provoking her. He said he didn't remember the name Harclay, and rather than offend her and lead her to clarify, Vilde stared at him with quiet intensity. She didn't give him Asger's name, nor did she bother to give her own. Instead, she chose to let the uncertainty of it all remain with him.

Then Graham Royce spoke of a reckoning, and the Northern sálþyrja smiled. It wasn't a warm gesture. It wasn't kind. It came slow and quiet, as she looked at him without blinking. “I did not come to this place for you,” Vilde said. “But I am satisfied that fate set you in my path”. Because she didn't seek justice on her terms, or his. Time and death would do their work, as steadily as they always did. And her prayer, her curse, was that he departed burdened and bitter.

the rolling of the word sálþyrja had left the tip of her tongue time and time again in the run up to this moment, never among the company of those who shared the same gaze as her own, or the same foreign blood that seemed to run cold within her own veins - no, her company were of another lineage, more ancient than her own in this world. the northern court seemed to appear some sort of unintentional buffer between naelys and the reality of what it was to be of house velaryon, a veil she could easily hide behind as though she were five summers old again, hiding in some dusty corner of driftmark.

"you are the sálþyrja of the north." her words were not direct, despite the fact her sentence was not a question; there was an air of uncertainty in her words, despite the fact she knew she was speaking to the right person. the sin eater of the north; who was supposed to help in allowing souls to rest.

the concept of home was an abnormal, strange one; if home were a place, it could easily be destroyed - burned to ash, the roof caving in upon itself, becoming empty of any signs of life. the endless snow of the north felt much like a home; but one day even that would be no more, for nothing was ever permanent. naelys did not consider herself a pessimistic or gloomy individual, and yet, looking through the view of endless rolling hills for days on end on their route to highgarden made her feel strange - to know only some years ago this was enemy land, the most fearful area in the whole continent...and now here they were. with her gaze looking upon dandelions that had withstood flames, or regrew from the ashes.

and within the smallest of breaths, there came the crushing realisation of how pointless it had all been. all the blood that got stuck beneath the nails, the sacrifice of children's innocence for the sake of upholding a blade on their back, the lives forced into poverty...only for them all to have continued. whilst so many did not.

naelys hadn’t meant to feel bitter. she told herself that often—that she was above bitterness, too glass-hearted to carry it properly. and yet, watching the velaryons smiling in the reach, garlanded in flowers and raising cups as though there had never been a war, something inside her curled and hissed; something startling, and something she did not think existed. her mother had died in the skies, her mother had burned for them. rhaenys velaryon, queen who never was, who held herself proud above the world even when it did not love her back—was now just a name they toasted in passing.

and meleys, her scarlet fury, reduced to a story told in whispers. what had they died for?

and then her grief turned, sharpened into something more pointed; shaded in hues of black rather than deep indigo or blue. the rogue prince. daemon targaryen, who had sworn to ride beside her mother—who swore he had loved her in the strange, selfish way only family could—and yet had flown off with ceraxes, crimson wings stretching across the clouds, leaving rhaenys to fight alone. to die alone. naelys clenched her jaw, the burn of it bitter in her throat - feelings she did not fully understand she was ever feeling. songs were worth nothing. it took too long to gather men from harrenhal; and in the end, her mother had been the one to pay the price.

Her ice-blue eyes studied the younger woman before her with the same quiet patience she observed falling snow or the frosting of the lakes in her homeland. There was more to it. The Northern detected the thoughtful little pauses, the way the lady's gaze seemed fixed on something that wasn't fully material in front of her. The silence stretched, and Vilde did not break it. She recognized in the other woman someone who, similarly to her, could inhabit her thoughts more naturally than what transpired around her. She wondered if the Velaryon girl paused to listen to something else too, or if it was her thoughts alone that gave her pause before she spoke.

When the Valyrian lady spoke of having something to ask, Vilde's tight lips curved into a subtle smile. It was a ghost of a gesture, really, barely there. She tilted her head slightly, her tone remaining matter-of-fact. “You want to ask me about death”. Few sought a sálþyrja for anything else. Few had those momentary, quietly haunted looks in their eyes that revealed death had left something unresolved for them. “A death that has passed, or one you feel approaching?”

he did not drink either. his fingers rested on the carved edge of the table, still, save for the slight movement of his thumb. the lord studied vilde harclay for a breath longer than most would find polite, then inclined his head, not in deference, but recognition.

“so he sends his daughter,” he said quietly. not surprise, not condescension. merely observation. his gaze remained fixed on her, pale and unblinking. “not a raven. not a spear. but you. that tells me more than any oath would.

his fingers tapped once against the table, a soft sound against ancient wood.

“a king is only as strong as the silence of the men behind him. if the clans grow restless, if the north tears itself open again, he won’t survive it. none of us will. and what comes after... may be worse.” his tone never rose, but there was steel in it now.

“i do not seek a banner war. i seek something quieter. firmer.” he leaned back slightly, the chair groaning under his weight. “i want harclay at this table. not as vassals. not as followers. as voices. when the next law is passed, when the next southern edict creeps into our soil, i want men who remember the old ways standing beside me, not sharpening knives in the dark.”

his gaze flicked to her hand where it brushed her breeches, then returned to her face. “your father is wise to send you. you're clear-eyed, and you speak without fear. that tells me harclay still remembers who it is.”

“The Harclay is as true as the North has been for centuries,” she said, her voice calm but certain, repeating the words her father would have chosen himself. “He cares not for the changes the King in the North has brought and seeks to keep bringing”. Her gaze held on Edrick’s, conveying the message the leader of her clan wished to relay to the Lord of the Dreadfort. Vilde herself did not believe firmly in any of it. Everything changed, always, regardless of how steadily a man wished to cling to something. She had no quarrel nor loyalty to the vision of the King in the North, nor did she have it for her father's stubborn reluctance to see the world shift around him. The long winters and the short summers would continue, people would die and be born through them, and no one truly held the reins in any of it. Death was the only certainty in their world.

When the Bolton lord spoke of wanting The Harclay at his table, more an equal than a vassal, she thought that was well enough. The Harclay would never bow. “The Harclay wishes to see the North remain as it has been, not melt into Southron ways”. The words were her father’s, but she spoke them as if they were her own. “If that is what you wish as well, he will sit at your table,” she added, knowing her father was simple in that way. “He, too, wishes for more than only his clan's survival”.

He nodded his head, steel grey eyes flickering to the purse before meeting the blue eyes. "Pride is a fickle thing, man can strength or, if it's hurt too badly, it deepens the weakness." The king smiled as he focused on her, blocking out the world around them. A pretty face was the kings greatest weakness. He liked to bed southron women, to charm them with his rough edges but when in the presence of Northern women, something else dragged him, pulled him close, perhaps it was the boldness.

"Let us see if the old Gods keep me in their favor." Owen did not care much for the sport happening any longer, he wanted more than coin but he respected her and once again it was an odd position for a King to find himself in. It wasn't that he didn't respect women. It was just, who did not enjoy the soft touch of a woman. But, instead of letting his mind linger he looked back toward the fight, tightening the leather cord as the fighting started.

Over the past weeks, Vilde had found herself watching the Stark king more closely than she expected. She was intrigued by him. For better or worse, she was naturally inclined to see the man behind the crown, and Owen had not hidden himself from her thus far. More than that, every now and then, his attention carved a space for her amid the nobles and royals that surrounded him. Even on a night like this, in which the king was supposed to be the center of all attention, he diverted some of his attention to a Harlcay of Moon Circle.

The fight began, and she turned back to watch it unfold. The match seemed to go as the king had predicted, with the larger fellow dominating initially. Vilde took a sip of ale before she glanced at Owen, and something unspoken passed between them. She noticed that he also appeared to be only half-paying attention. Her own mind was registering the closeness. Their eyes met —ice and steel— and somehow the silence was more alluring than any temptation to break it.

The match in the ring shifted, the smaller man gaining ground. Vilde caught the moment because the crowd’s mood changed. She didn’t cheer for the man she bet on, but the corner of her mouth tugged up a little. Then the smaller man made his winning move, securing the victory, and the crowd erupted with both cheers and disappointed groans. At least this time, she'd made the right bet. “We have our answer,” she murmured and turned to Owen. She raised her hand between them, palm open, a gesture that wasn't gloating but simply expectant. A bet was a bet. Even with a king, and even on his name day. “One would think today you were meant to receive, not give away, King in the North,” she said with a light smile, and yet there was no malice in the comment.

he caught her watching him. it was faint at first—little more than a prickling on the back of his neck, that sense a man develops after too many years with blades drawn behind smiles. she was standing near the vendor’s stall, eyes like mountain frost, hair like wheat in the wind—unbrushed, half-plaited, too stubborn to be southern. northern. highlander, more like. he recognised the look. not the woman—no, she was a stranger—but her bearing. proud, half-wild, as though she’d bite your hand before she let you kiss it.

he didn’t like being stared at. not by lords, not by peasants, and certainly not by women who stood like they didn’t fear consequence.

graham turned to face her, slow, deliberate, a flicker of disdain already curling at the edge of his mouth. the verdant concord was busy, but not enough to mask intent. he stepped forward. his boots pressed into the soft grass, and a few bystanders shifted out of the way as they sensed the change in air. he paused, shifted his weight as if to study a cart of fruit, but really to draw her closer into view. she was standing by the edge of the market, near the tent where the grain sellers had gathered. arms crossed. watching him like a crow does a corpse—neither drawn nor repelled.

“you’ve got a look on you, woman,” he muttered, just loud enough to know she would hear it; his tone inherently dismissive. there was nothing she would have to say to him that would be of any genuine use; and therefore he knew there would be little reason for the two to interact. even for the two to know one another; no, he was sure he did not know this woman. perhaps she simply was twisted in the mind, or had something wrong with her eyes. and so when he spoke, he spoke in a tone that was dismissive, as though she were a mere fly he would swat away. “like you’ve something to say but no sense to say it.”

Seeing her brother's killer made her stop in her tracks. For a moment, it almost felt like the world drew quiet in her ears, and the only sound that existed was the echo of her own heartbeat. Vilde Harclay stood there, her posture tense, her jaw steady. And the consort king of the Vale turned to her unburdened, disdain laced in every word he uttered.

He spoke, and she did not flinch. Gods, how she wanted to scream, to weep, to bloody her knuckles until his face was broken and her rage burned out. But Vilde only exhaled, and her voice came low and steady when she finally spoke. “Må du og dem, du holder af, være forbandet til at bære dine byrder selv efter døden,” she said, her words eerie, as they were something plucked from a cold, bitter land deep in the North. May you and those you hold dear be cursed to carry your burdens even after death. It was the curse she'd held close to her chest when Asger died, and she was finally able to release it.

The Great Hall of Winterfell roared with life. The longtables groaned under the weight of roasted boar, venison pies, and trenches of steaming stews thick with barley and herbs. Horns of ale and spiced cider passed from hand to hand, and the music—pipes, drums, and old Northern fiddles—rolled through the rafters like a storm threatening to never end. The fires were high in the hearths, casting golden light across the faces of warriors and lords, ladies and singers, even the occasional knight who bore no love for snow yet found themselves drawn north for the name day of a king.

King Owen Stark stood at the center of it all, shirt discarded, sweat at his brow, and a grin spread wide across his face. A goblet of dark beer was raised in one hand, while the other was being shaken by a red-faced northern knight who had just been bested in a wrestling match.

“Next time, Ser Harwin, keep your knees under you!” Owen laughed, clapping the man on the back with enough force to stagger a lesser soul. “You almost had me before your arse kissed the flagstones!”

Owen Stark had sent invitations far and wide. To bannermen and strangers, allies and rivals—even the lion’s kin, should they dare enter the heart of the wolf’s den. His message had been clear:

"All are welcome, if they come in peace. I was born in winter. Let’s see if fire and frost can drink from the same cup."

There was no crown on his brow tonight, no heavy cloak about his shoulders. Just the man, the king, and the wolf in him all laid bare for the feast. His dark hair was tousled, his beard damp with drink, and his laughter came easily—too easily, some might say, for a man with enemies watching from the shadows of his hall.

Her ice blue eyes tracked the two new fighters entering the cleared space. She stood steady, quietly relishing her presence in this hall, even if she didn’t quite belong among the noble and the crowned. Vilde continued to feel a wicked satisfaction going against her father's wishes and having remained in Winterfell for the past weeks. The Harclay would never approve of having a daughter stand with the Stark king. Yet had stayed. Not for politics. Not for alliances. She stayed because the man had asked for guidance —for himself and his people— and the sin-eater of the clans agreed.

As if invoked by her thought, Owen Stark appeared by her side. She too held a horn filled with ale and glanced at the Northern king as she took a sip. “I’ve got mine on the smaller one,” she replied, her voice low but unhesitant as she turned toward the man celebrating his nameday. “He lost earlier, so his pride’s been pricked,” she said with an air of certainty. She'd seen that amongst her clanspeople: a man with a wounded ego fought harder. She couldn't know for sure, though. Even if others regarded her as some kind of seiðkona or sorceress, Vilde did not have the gift of prophecy. What the future held was a mystery for her, too.

"fair enough," he said, his voice soft. "not for the likes of me to question it then, is it?" he leaned back, gaze drifting to the expanse of sky above him. no, it wasn't for him to poke at what cleverer, more devout men than he had already determined, but a part of him did anyway. it was the vulnerabilities he tried not to show, that little need for reassurances nobody could truly give him that when his time was done, it would be all right. "things don't last so long for no reason," he said, more to himself than to vilde.

he glanced back at her then, his expression showing what he did not say out loud - that he'd never once considered the possibility of outliving vilde harclay. for a moment, he remained quiet, before the faintest hint of a smile tugged his lips. "you'd do a good job of it, though. if it came down to it, i mean. you know me. you'd know what to do."

She let silence stretch between them for a minute or so. The noise of the festival around them continued, distant yet vibrant. The sounds of joy, of food and fire, of summer, did not belong to her, and she didn’t pretend they did. “And if I do outlive you,” she added after a moment, “I’ll see to it that you’re remembered rightly. I won’t let your sins be louder than the rest of you”.

cassana hesitated just beyond the tree line, the familiar scent of pine and cold earth filling her lungs. the godswood had always been a place of solace for her, a refuge from the weight of expectations and the noise of the world. but lately, even here, the quiet was no longer comforting. it pressed in on her, thick and suffocating, filled with whispers she couldn’t shut out.

vilde was already there, standing beneath the weirwood’s bleeding leaves, looking as though she belonged to it more than any person did. cass had known she would be here. she’d felt it, the same way she felt the pull of her visions, dragging her toward something inevitable. “vilde” her voice calling out to her. calling out to the friendship she had, she needed now.

“you hear them too.” the words left her lips before she could stop them, barely more than a breath of air between them. she stepped closer, boots crunching over the frost-hardened ground, her voice steadier this time. “i know you do.” she said glancing up to the trees

there was no accusation in her tone, only a quiet certainty. vilde had always understood. before everything—before the war, before mira’s death, before the lines had been drawn in blood between the starks and the harclays—vilde had been the one person cass could talk to about this. the only one who didn’t look at her like she was losing her mind even when she explained things that seemed impossible.

cass swallowed hard, her fingers curling into fists at her sides. “the day brandon saved me,” she said, forcing herself to say it aloud, to make it real. “the woods were screaming. it wasn’t just the wind, it wasn’t just in my head. the trees—” she exhaled sharply, shaking her head. “they were telling me to run. they wanted me to move, to listen. and i did.”

she met vilde’s gaze then, searching for something—reassurance, validation, anything to ground her. “tell me i’m not going mad, vilde.” her voice wavered, the strength she had been trying so hard to hold onto slipping through her fingers like snow. “tell me you hear them too.”

Them, Cass said with confidence. But who were them? Vilde wondered. Her eyes flickered to the face in the bark, to the streaks of weeping red. “You think it's the gods,” she said, wishing to hear what the Stark princess could confirm, that which the sálþyrja couldn't “How can you know it is them?” Vilde asked then. It wasn't a challenge of the belief, but a request for guidance, for she didn't know if it was the old gods, the dead, or maybe something else entirely that whispered to them.

Her hand lifted, her fingers gingerly brushing against the weirwood’s rough surface. She knew she wouldn't pull an answer from its silence, but it was grounding somehow, to root her senses in something tangible. “You are not mad, Cassana,” Vilde murmured, but there was no comfort to be offered in that reassurance. “What whispers to us is real. But whether they are gods pressing their will into our thoughts or if they're the echoes of something else, I do not know”. Her voice remained steady, but the admission unsettled her. Sálþyrjur were meant to guide others toward understanding death, toward the quiet inevitability of fate, yet Vilde herself had found long ago that being a sálþyrja never meant she had all the answers. If anything, it meant learning to live with the questions and be the bridge that stretched taut between what was and what remained.

Perhaps that was the purpose of people like the two of them, who for one reason or another, listened. Not to find certainty, but to stand at the threshold, bearing witness to what so many others would never know.

She spoke without hesitation, without fear of title or crown, and there was something in that which made Owen uneasy. Not because he was unused to honesty—he had men who told him hard truths when they must—but because she spoke as if she had already seen the marrow of him. A man stripped bare, standing in the wake of grief, holding onto things he did not yet know the weight of.

"Our children". His thoughts turned to them then, to the legacy he would leave behind. He did not think of crowns, nor banners, nor the wars history would tell of his reign. He thought of their laughter, of small hands reaching for his, of stories told in candlelight when he still had Rosalyn to share in the telling. "They will rule this kingdom one day, and their mother’s kindness will make them true". They would know the weight of duty, yes, but not at the cost of the goodness Rosalyn had instilled in them. She had carried it with ease, where he struggled, where he let the crown make a creature of him instead of a man. If there was any kindness left in their father, it would be because of their mother.

His gaze lifted from the snow, and he found Vilde watching him, sharp and knowing, waiting.

“I would have you stay,” Owen said at last, the words coming without forethought, as so many of his choices did. “At court.” His tone was steady, but something flickered beneath it. “There are those in this keep who seek answers, those who wish to understand the journey from this life to the next, the path to the old gods and what waits beyond.” His breath curled into the cold, and he studied her as he spoke. “You could guide them.”

“It is a kinder fate,” she murmured after a moment of silence, her voice somewhat softer, lacking some of the usual sharpness in her Northern accent, “To have them carry that love instead of burdens”. The burdens stayed with her, as was a sálþyrja's fate, but they also stayed with men like Owen, who survived loved ones time and time again. Her eyes drifted past him for a fleeting moment, thinking about the king's children, sleeping inside Winterfell and blissfully unaware of the weight their father bore.

His next words, however, drew her focus back to him, sharpening her gaze once more. He spoke a request, not a command. At least he did not speak it like one. There was a quiet pull toward something unknown. “The Harclay would not approve,” she murmured, though there was something unreadable in her expression then, the faintest flicker of amusement buried beneath cool detachment. Her father had made his stance clear in the past months, claiming his people did not belong at the feet of kings. He would hate the idea of having a clan member, his own daughter of all people, stand close to someone who had forsaken the True North.

Yet here she was tonight, and here was King Owen Stark, offering her a place in a world so different from her own. The Harclay had his ideals, the King in the North had his. And Vilde served only the journey of death, and honored her place as part of it. A quiet hum left her lips, considering. “All people deserve to find the answers they seek when death comes,” she said at last, “I would never deny them that”.

"lady vilde," he said, his voice low, but his tone warmer than expected for a bolton. "i’m glad to see the harclay stand firm in these uncertain times. i had wondered how long it would take before one of your clan would come to speak with me directly." his smile deepened slightly, but it was tinged with the cold logic of their situation. "a wise choice, given the instability in the north. there's little time for subtleties when the winds are shifting like this."

he gestured toward the long table set in the center of the hall, where a few flickering candles and a jug of dark wine sat. "please, sit. we can speak of your father's words and the current state of the north," he added, after a moment, his gaze steady. "it seems there's little room for neutrality now. i’m glad you came. it seems the true north has a few allies left. but we must decide where we stand soon."

Her fingers brushed the rough fabric of her breeches, a subtle grounding gesture as she studied the man across from her. “The North has always been divided in one way or another”. As a woman of the clans, she knew. “Now, it is merely more visible for all”. That was a sentiment her father had spoken, and so she was simply repeating the message.