8 Pay for Divided Loyalties Is Utter Shit

"-. 273 AC .-"

Most days, Martyn Cassel understood well enough why his brother laid everything down for the Young Lord. On some of them, he even figured he caught a glimpse of whatever it was that made Rodrik do that when the boy was just five name days old. It was never enough to relieve his misgivings. Much as he hated to think about it, his brother had vastly overstepped his authority and been derelict in his sworn duty. Still, it was what it was, and the Fair had just taken a spot at the outmost top of the knight's regard.

But then there were times when his charge went and did something so out of nowehere that the knight was hard-pressed not to dream about a simpler life where their family had never been ennobled at all.

"Martyn's known about Rodrik all along!" Brandon Stark blurted on seeing him, when he and Lord Stark finally emerged from his chambers the morning after. "I told him before I would let mother take him on. I thought it would change his mind about wanting to take up where Rodrik left off but, well… Shit, I can't believe I forgot about that! I even told him I'd tell you, but I forgot. For five years. Fuck."

Rickard Stark came to a dead stop and looked between them both with visible disbelief. Then he pointed the way he came. "… Inside. Both of you. Now."

They went.

Once in Lord Brandon's rooms, Rickard Stark glared at them both. "This. Is not. Acceptable."

"This is my fault," the Young Lord groaned, his face sunk into both hands dramatically. "I'm sorry, father, I'm an idiot."

Lord Rickard Stark pinched his nosebridge with all the stress of a man suffering every last opposite problem that came with fatherhood. "Son. Five name days you was an idiot. You are not." Dropping his hand, the Lord then glared at Martyn outright. "But you. I don't know what you are. Completely disinterested in doing right by the brother whose wishes you claim to be holding up? Did you never even once follow up on my son's guarantees? Or are you such a fool that it never occurred to you that perhaps wisdom would dictate not indulging the judgment of a stripling not even half grown. To say nothing of the tragedy of errors that had resulted from it already!" Lord Stark's countenance turned frighteningly cold then. "Or perhaps you kept silent out of spite in a bid to pretend you still had grounds for your misgivings against me. Have I been entrusting my son's safety to a man with divided loyalties all this time?"

"Mr Lord!" Martyn Cassel took a knee, drew his sword and offered it up by the blade. "I swear to you my vows are true. My loyalty has ever been to House Stark and the Young Lord."

"But not me."

"You are House Stark, now and until your death."

Martyn didn't know how long he knelt there, feeling like a sword's edge was pressing down the back of his neck. The worst part was that he wasn't sure what all had led to this, exactly. At first he'd assumed the discussion had happened without the Lords deeming him worth following up with. When he eventually realized otherwise, he just… thought the Young Lord was putting it off because of everything else he had going on. Like he didn't think it was all that important anymore. Martyn himself had eventually come to think the same.

"Gods, you Cassels really are all fools. Get up."

Martyn Cassel obeyed, re-sheathed his blade and tried not to show the dread he felt within.

Rickard Stark showed no such restraint in his affront. Or his disappointment. "You have kept critical things from me. Seemingly with no malice aforethought, but this speaks even more in your disfavour." The Lord sighed and rubbed shortly at his temple. "It's things like this that have me convinced knighthood is a shit institution. It's like the oaths you swear completely drain your brains out through your ears. Why my forebears ever let that Andal tripe seep into the North is beyond me. Especially when we already have masters."

Martyn Cassel was hard-pressed not to gape at the sudden forthright turn that his stern and unreadable lord had suddenly taken. Admittedly, he had just witnessed Lord Stark become ten times as sanguine as he used to be over a single day just from spending time with his heir. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to have undone any of the Lord's increasingly harrowing skill at making you feel like an utter imbecile.

"Well? Do you have nothing to say in your defence?"

"… My loyalty and service are and always have been yours, My Lord."

"How unfortunate that I cannot believe you, seeing as you have such a keen secret-keeping ability but completely lack the judgment to know when to keep them and from whom." Least of all me rang like death bells over the sound of the hearth fire.

That… that stung. Having his loyalty questioned would have been bad enough. To be told he was not untrustworthy but just too incompetent to uphold his oaths made to a worthy lord…

"I haven't the time nor patience to resolve this matter at this moment. Until I do, your service to my heir is suspended. You may reprise your post in the guard rotation, but that is all. Dismissed."

Martyn nodded stiffly and spared his lords of his presence as quickly as decorum allowed. He had much to think about.

The days that followed gave Cassel a lot of time to do just that. He tried to explain himself. To himself. In hindsight. Then in spite of it. He told himself it was because it wasn't the place of a knight to speak out of turn. It didn't work. He had been working on the belief that his job was merely to protect and serve. Follow. Obey. It was exclusively the place of those above him to judge matters. All matters. That was why he served and why they ruled. In the end, his conclusions didn't change.

Save maybe with regards to the particulars of Lord Rickard's words to him. The knight blamed the Maester for it. Lord Rickard had been nowhere near as backhanded as all that before that southron came along.

Then again, maybe it was just stress. Gods knew the Young Lord tested everyone's wits even when he wasn't having an off day. Even indirectly. Like when his Lord Father now called on him at feasts to 'give his opinion' on this or that matter. As if he were learning as much as sharing what was being discussed. As Martyn sat near the doors with the other guards on such occasions, the knight imagined he should feel affronted on his charge's behalf. But the Young Lord seemed to appreciate it. Especially when certain visitors had their own children ask the questions as a way to avoid displaying their own ignorance.

Specifically, Lord Robard Cerwyn. And his son too. And their men. They ended up staying in Winterfell for a whole sennight while the locals taught them all about the new games and dishes and contraptions and traditions. All of whom seemed to have started breeding. Carvers and fishermen begat game peddlers, farmers and artisans conceived new recipes, hunters and stonemasons devised new ways of snow and ice building, there were even a bunch of youngsters working on a gigantic snowman that was hollow inside. A mite titan of Winterfell, mad as it might sound. Amidst it all, the children of everyone had turned the retrieval of the sky lamps into an impromptu scavenger hunt. One that the newcomers – and Winterfell's own guards once the younger Starks found out – got roped into as soon as Lord Cerwyn's fire scare was allayed on account of 'hot air goes up', don't you know. There was something in there about 'air funnels' and 'currents' and how hot air going up sucked in everything from around it, but only after it goes and expands. The talk honestly went over Martyn's head. Alas that the same couldn't be said about certain other parties on the other end of that conversation. Like Medger Cerwyn, whose thinly veiled annoyance at being lumped in with the anklebiters gave way to bemused deference far too quickly for Martyn Cassel's taste. He could easily have lived his whole life without knowing exactly why it took so little time to smell a fart.

It was a mixed blessing that Martyn only learned most else second-hand, busy as he was teaching skiing to the entire Winterfell guard. On Lord Stark's orders, which were also delivered second-hand through the keep's steward. Master Annard Poole had given no hint that anything ill had been said about him, but it still cut him. The knight dedicated himself to the task in an attempt to bury his dismay at being kept at such arm's length. Even then it was slow going, but he managed to get a dozen of the men near enough to his level by the time the visiting Lord and his retinue were to leave. It would allow him to delegate and get it done by the end of the moonturn even if he resumed his prior duties.

Thankfully, he wasn't outright barred from contact with his charge in the meanwhile. In fact, there was even one development that opened entirely new opportunities.

"Ooof!" Went Medger Cerwyn as he kissed the ground for the third and final time. "Unh! Agh… What do they feed you guards in Winterfell? Fuck!"

"Cheese and porridge." With the occasional side of sweets and meat on special occasions. None of which was as important as protecting his charge. The visiting noble didn't really think he'd let the Young Lord fall into the hands of a substandard teacher, did he? Or that Lord Rickard would entrust his heir's martial training to someone who wasn't worthy? Two out of three indeed!

Medger Cerwyn picked himself up, wincing all the while. "I'll get you next time."

After a year or three to train up first, maybe. Even if he did, though, Martyn wasn't worried. Whether or not he beat him, the man would still have to basically come first in what had become Winterfell's unofficial master-at-arms competition. The previous one had died to the same wasting sickness as the older Stark generation, and Lord Rickard didn't rush to replace him. Instead, he began training the guards himself. One on one, then in pairs, then in threes and droves. He beat them black and blue and made them eat dust, then he took to drilling them for hours every other day. Later, he started assigning training partners, teams and even held random melees with the ones who landed strikes on him. The only man who ever managed it reliably without a team of two backing him up – at least– had been Rodrik. But even he'd never scored clean points more than once every few days.

Since the Fair, though, the Lord had cut some of his drilling time in the yard in favour of training Lord Brandon. Which was about three years overdue in Martyn's opinion, even with his knowledge of why. And it showed. The Young Lord's scattered mind never seemed to make an appearance once he had a weapon in hand – wooden or not – but he showed no special fighting talent. Seemed like they were finally finding out where the Young Lord wasn't preposterously gifted. Somehow, though, Martyn had never really entertained the notion that it would be in this. Might be why the Maester spent so much time watching from his tower when Lord Brandon was out there. Maybe he shared everyone's disbelief. But it was true.

"He really is only just starting, isn't he?" Lord Robard Cerwyn grunted from where he stood next to the bench where his son had just sat down. "Let's pray time is all that was lost to this mysterious sickness."

Martyn stayed quiet as he waited for the rest of his blood to settle. Obvious as the attempt was to fish for information, it wasn't his place to speak unless called upon. Even when he would have liked to. Like now. Because that old saying about 'like father like son' in this case could also well be true. Lord Rickard himself had been just a tad above average when he first took lordship. Even though he'd served in a war. But so many years never lapsing from this routine had made him an utter terror in the ring. Even when he wasn't using his favoured weapon. And it wasn't like Lord Brandon was going out of his way to prove anything. Especially since they hadn't begun to figure out his favoured weapon either. Which may or may not have something to do with how very visibly perplexed and offended the Young Lord seemed to now be turning with every form and practice swing that his father-

"Workout high is real!?" Lord Brandon shrieked all of a sudden and wait, what? "Are you serious? A lifetime and a half and this is the first time I get one? This is a croc of dog shit!"

Needless to say, the Lords Cerwyn were taken aback. So was everyone else. Even Lord Rickard, going by how high his eyebrows climbed. "Do you have something you wish to say, my son?" The Lord of Winterfell's voice had seldom been so flat.

"Oh I heave reams of curse words lining up," Lord Brandon spat disgustedly, getting back in the beginner stance. "But they're not worthy of you so they can suck it. Baelished by my own damned brain, I swear. One more."

"And how is this worthy of me? Or you for that matter? One set is the least of what you still have in you."

"No," Lord Brandon said. "One more hour. And however long even afterwards. I want to see how long this lasts."

Now Martyn was as surprised as everyone else. And when the Young Lord managed to power through three times as long as he did at that age, Martyn could admit to being taken aback as well. The general astonishment of everyone else may or may not have had something to do with two of the actual decent fighters losing spars to young Walder of all people. They got their own back and then some once they snapped out of their stupor, but still!

At least the Young Lord was left a sweaty, trembling mess barely able to stand by the end – and he'd certainly feel it for many days even with stretches. But as he heaved for breath and sweat dripped off his face despite the cold, Brandon Stark looked absolutely exhilarated. If this was any indication of the endurance he could build up to…

"Well now," Lord Robard Cerwyn said as he pointedly looked between his own son and the wobbly-legged heir of his liege lord. "If only we all could consistently show this kind of dedication."

Medger Cerwyn flushed with a mix of embarrassment and determination, and Martyn Cassel pointedly didn't think about what it meant that he and those above him thought the same damn way.

The next morn, after Lord Cerwyn and his retinue left with a promise to hold a fair of their own in a moonturn's time – to which House Stark would be invited and given the place of highest honor of course – the knight was finally summoned into Lord Rickard's presence once again.

"Seeing as you are so good at keeping secrets but lack the judgment to know from whom not to keep them or what all to do with them, I will be deciding from now on what confidences you get to keep. The matter of your divided loyalties would normally make even this impossible, but since it involves my heir – whom I do trust – I am willing to handle things through him while you use this last opportunity to resolve whatever this is. But there is a condition: you will swear your sword directly to him. I trust that is a reasonable way to settle this matter. If you refuse, neither you nor your family will directly serve House Stark any longer. Decide now."

Martyn Cassel imagined it could have felt shameful. Perhaps humiliating. At the very least discomfiting, if nothing else. But as he knelt and swore his new oaths, he only felt relief.

Well, that and a glimmer of amusement at Lord Brandon wearing a permanent grimace of pain courtesy of how far he'd pushed himself.

Said amusement vanished like the wind not a day later, however, upon a message from Lord Stark that he escort Lord Brandon to the Heart Tree after the mid-day meal. Then the relief also gave way to outright disquiet on arrival.

Lord Stark was waiting for them, back turned and hands clasped behind him. The sword Ice stood erect to his left, driven tip-first into the earth. A wide, covered bowl of wood sat next to it, white and old and weathered.

"For years I've thought of chopping down this thing."

Lord Brandon practically stumbled and Martyn came to a halt as well. The world seemed to waver sinisterly at the impossible claim.

"Ever since you fell. I was convinced the Gods were what hurt you. That this Tree was what hurt you. But now you say it's what will save you."

The Young Lord hesitated, then forced down all the pain he still felt since the yard and walked to stand next to his father. Lord Stark briefly laid a hand on his son's head the moment he was in reach, but just as soon withdrew. He did not look away from the face of the weirwood. And as they stood there amidst red leaves and fallen snow that gleamed under strewed sunrays, they looked like Kings of Winter come again newly ordained, strong and firm and perfectly reflected in the pool of black water.

"…Father?"

"What do you know about the Pact of Ice and Fire?"

It didn't take seeing his face to know Lord Brandon had been blindsided, but he rallied quickly. "It was the alliance arranged between Houses Stark and Targaryen when Prince Jacaerys flew to Winterfell on behalf of Queen Rhaenyra during the Dance of Dragons."

"That's what Cregan demanded of Prince Jacaerys, yes. Jacaerys secretly married Lord Cregan Stark's bastard sister Sara Snow. Then it was agreed that a firstborn Targaryen princess would marry into the main branch of House Stark. At the time, that meant the firstborn daughter of Jacaerys would marry Cregan's heir. It would have served House Stark well, but I didn't summon you here for that particular jar of worms. Can you tell me what all doesn't fit in this picture that septons and maesters love to pretend not to deride?"

The Young Lord thought about an answer. He thought for quite some time. "I guess not."

"It's in the name, my son. Targaryens have ever been in bed with their own drama, but we are not like that. And yet it was Lord Cregan himself who gave it the name it has. Do you know why? The answer lies in the words by which Torrhen turned back the dragons. The answer lies in the words by which all Northern Lords swear fealty to House Stark. The answer is that Cregan was just the latest in our line who thought the Pact's words might not have to remain so starkly empty. Empty as they've been since the Pact's first and only lasting embodiment was broken six thousand years ago and we were left forsworn."

Martyn Cassel felt rooted to his spot even as he thought the faintest breeze would blow him away. Where once there was relief in his continued duty, now there began entirely new dread.

"The Storm Kings defeated the Andals and even forced those who settled their lands to swear fealty, yet House Durrandon converted to the Seven despite their victory. The Gardener kings and Hightowers were among the first to welcome the invaders with open arms afterwards. And yet no great misfortune or divine retribution descended on them despite what this would have meant under the Pact. Despite the Andals' crimes against the forests and the Children, with whom the Reach had been closely allied until the generation immediately preceding the Three Sages. Indeed, The Gardeners and Hightowers kept their lands and their power. Even expanded them and their wealth almost constantly until the Targaryens came swooping in. What does that tell you?"

Lord Brandon slowly turned to look up at his father even as Rickard Stark never broke his stare with the face on the tree. "… You said we were left forsworn."

"Oh yes, and it happened much earlier than those times, nearly at the beginning of the Andal migration." Rickard Stark's voice was flat and heavy with six thousand years of disdain and recrimination. "The legend of King Tristifer IV Mudd is wholly true as written, up to and including the entirely unchallenged and untroubled alliance of seven different Andal kings and their respective hosts. Precisely the sort of conspiracy that greenseers were supposed to see and undermine from its inception. Even a bloody skinchanger could have done it, what with the Andals so very conveniently suborning our own maesters' ravens to coordinate. And yet not only did that not occur, but Tristifer wasn't even warned about the seven-fold assault until the very end. How very convenient for the invaders, wasn't it? What an end to the Pact that must have been. The Pact that had seen Westeros survive and thrive through the Long Night and over four thousand years!"

… Secret keeper, Martyn thought faintly.

Rickard Stark finally turned from the tree to his son, but his voice only grew harsher with scorn and ill will borne of old. "It was the Children of the Forest who broke the Pact, my son. Not the First Men. Not us. The reasons are lost to time. They could have been as serious as a mass plague that drove them to insanity. Or it could have been as petty as to begrudge Mudd's 'failure' to break the Andals despite winning nine and ninety battles for our side almost unaided. In the end it matters not. They are the ones disgraced. They are the oathbreakers."

The shadows of leaves played on the Lords Stark's faces. The Godswood gleamed grimly in the sun and snow. And as a breeze wafted midst red leaves and white branches, the Gods of Earth, Stone and Tree seemed to whisper TRUTH.

"… Father," said the Young Lord, realizing… realizing something that skittered at the edge of Martyn's thoughts like some terrible damnation that- "Why did the Children of the Forest retreat beyond the wall?"

"It does sound poetic, doesn't it?" The lord's voice was as stark as his name. "The most disgraced of our friends, gone to wallow with the most disgraced of our enemies. Or perhaps the Children of Summer set themselves in league with the Fell Ones of Winter once no longer strong. But life is no song or story. Your answer is in front of you. You know it already."

"… They were oathbreakers…" Brandon Stark murmured. "And they were treated like oathbreakers. Weren't they?"

"The Isle of Faces is as much a refuge as a prison these days. There were all too few oathkeepers among the Children and Green Men. The Red Kings sought to sell the North to the Andals, so we broke their power and slew the oathbreakers who'd sought refuge with them. The Crannogmen didn't inherit the Neck from the Children, they took it in our name. That and much more took place over the many centuries. It was a long, drawn-out enmity. Terrible and unrelenting. 'Oathbreakers are damned in the eyes of the gods' it would be said. 'Punishment must fit the crime,' they said. There has never been a shortage of men willing to become instruments of divine damnation. More so upon those they see as cowards and traitors. Likewise, there are always those who would climb chaos like a ladder to seize what they consider greatness for themselves." The lord's voice changed then. Grim rather than spiteful. Somber more than cruel. "It was our House's burden to pull our people back out of the depths of hatred, blood rites, barbarism and cannibalism they sometimes descended in. We didn't always carry it well, but we carried it all the same. On the whole, I'd say we did well more than we didn't by the end. The Direwolves came to us all by themselves. The North united under us, we who upheld the oaths broken even by the gods' emissaries. And men both North and South built a world with no place for the Children in it."

The deathly quiet of an upturned lifetime of beliefs descended upon the glade as Rickard Stark moved to his sword. The man turned to face his son, knelt down, picked up the bowl and removed the sheet of linen on top before setting it on the ground between them. There was a knife sticking out of it, but the white paste inside didn't tell Martyn anything, and yet Lord Brandon was left speechless at the sight.

"It turns out there are certain books that Starks of the main line are supposed to transcribe every generation, to ensure that the knowledge inside is not lost to time. They've been left to rot since before Cregan's time. I can only assume the knowledge of them was lost during that whole succession debacle against his power-hungry uncle. I almost didn't find them. I didn't even know to look for them. Turns out it's enough that I searched for anything, though, now that I recognize what's in front of me." Lord Stark's voice grew soft then, his eyes weighed with something Martyn couldn't fathom. "In truth they are just stories and legends that ancient Starks gathered and wrote down. But recent events have me believing some of the things between the lines. I doubt I understood well enough everything implied there, especially the parts in the Old Tongue. But one thing sticks out. Men and Children cannot interbreed, and yet somehow we've taken their powers unto ourselves. I don't know by what means. Right of Oath. Right of Blood, Right of Conquest. All three. Or perhaps none. I don't know. My eyes can't see clearly enough. But all this is probably clear as day to yours. Isn't it?"

The Young Lord stared at the white paste as if spellbound. "I… don't think I understand as much as you think I do."

"Don't you?" Lord Stark echoed, warm and loving. "When magic comes again to stand right in front of me? When, more than any rite wreaked in the past, it is in whole already mine. Don't you really?" The man held out an arm entreatingly while his other reached down to grab the knife.

Martyn Cassel jerked where he stood and a noose seemed to strangle him at the sight of his Young Lord walking towards the man holding the knife-

"Cassel."

Breath seemed to stick in the Knight's throat at being addressed so suddenly. "Y-yes My Lord?"

"Do not interfere." Said the man who'd just finished talking about barbarism, hatred, blood rites and cannibalism- "You may see to it we don't fall into the black pool or otherwise injure ourselves unduly, but that is all."

"I…"

Rickard Stark spread his son's hand and raised the knife… but it never came down. The tip hovered there above the pale smooth skin until Lord Brandon gently pried it from him. The older man gave no resistance, and Martyn couldn't grasp the depth of feeling that passed between the two before the Young Lord grit his teeth and sliced his palm himself.

All breath seemed to leave Martyn's lungs in a gust. He didn't kill him. Lord Rickard didn't kill him. He never meant to kill him. Or eat him. What was he thinking, of course Lord Rickard wasn't going to kill his son and eat him, the Lord adored him-

Rickard Stark nodded tightly and wrapped his son's hand closed inside his, blood pooling in. "Who comes before the Old Gods this day?"

"I am Brandon of House Stark." The words started with a waver, but they steadied and flowed as the Young Lord decided what to say. If it really was him who decided anything. "Winter's heir, trueborn and noble. I come… to heed and be heeded. Who heeds me?"

"I am Rickard of House Stark." The Lord slashed his own palm open then clenched his fist. "Lord of the North. King of Winter. Steward of Vows Ancient and New." Their hands clasped together above the vessel then, father and son letting their lifeblood mix and flow and drip into the wooden dish as they spoke as one. "To Winterfell we pledge our faith, the faith of First Men and Green Men and the Children true. Hearth and harvest I promise you, my own. Our swords and spears and arrows I ever will command in service of our peace and kinship. We shall grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail. I swear it by earth and water. I swear it by bronze and iron. We Swear It by Ice and Fire."

Martyn's heart stalled. The Godswood teetered suddenly as if weighed down by the weight of the world. The two lords' eyes seemed to mist over with white fog. The sun flew across the sky. Its scattered beams moved and winked out as shadows took their place the more each disappeared from amidst the branches. A brother slain seemed to stand protectively above the son and father in the pool of black water. Then, suddenly, the calls of snow shrikes snapped the knight out of his stupor to find that hours had passed and the moon was out in the night sky.

He could see it through the leaves where he lay. He'd faltered and stumbled. Fallen down onto the ground. He barely remembered it happen. It was vague and distant, like a dream.

"Accursed oathbreakers, you'd worm your way even into the Greendream if you could. Begone, Begone, Begone From My Demesne!"

A gleam of rippling steel was all Martyn glimpsed before his left eye seemed to burst inside his skull. The agony faded in the same instant, but as he flinched and rolled through the snow, clutching his face, it felt like the pain bled out more than anything else. Seeped away like the red sap that poured out of the face on the weirwood, once Lord Rickard wrenched his sword out of its left-most eye. The eyes and mouth all seemed to bleed despite that it'd only been stabbed once.

Madness. It had to be. Blasphemy, his mind wanted to scream. But even as crows called out in triumph at the edge of his hearing, the red sap seemed to wash away along with the dried up streaks that used to be there since the ancient days, leaving the face stark clean.

Lord Rickard Stark beheld the Heart Tree for a time. It looked serene now, somehow. Almost at peace. Then he turned away, sat down next to the pool, covered the bowl back up – the shape of a weirwood seemed to have drawn itself up in the blood – and tucked his sleeping son next to his side under his cloak of bear fur. Then he quietly cleaned Ice of the sap and polished it with a white cloth while waiting for the Young Lord to wake up. Of pain or even traces of injury on either of their hands, there was no sign.

Later that night, after the Godswood was finally left behind with its new peace and quiet, Martyn stood vigil outside the Crypts while the Lords Stark descended in its depths and didn't emerge for hours. After that, he trailed after them all the way to the Lord's Solar, feeling less like a guard and more like an unprepared initiate into some high mysteries as he watched Lord Rickard set down three tomes before his heir. Rights, author unknown. Rites, also unknown. And The Self and Its Parts, by Brandon Snow.

A sennight after, the Stark in Winterfell rode out of home and hearth, his heir at his front and the Crown of Winter on his brow. Martyn and his best skiers were called as honour guard. They rode the kingsroad north for a day. Skied east for another. Then Lord Rickard had them build snow huts and set up a camp in the middle of nowhere while he and his son went on alone. Six days they waited there while winds grew biting and murders of crows hounded their days and nights. A distant sky lamp raised once in the morning and at eve was their only sign that the two Lords were still alive. Then a thundersnow broke out on the eve of the seventh, loud and furious and almost red inside when lightning burned the sky. It lasted through the night. It would have buried them alive. Did bury them alive, but the snow huts kept them safe and the air lasted long enough that they dug themselves out with no man lost.

They didn't wait for the lamp to rise. They skied with all haste on. Then they trudged. First on bear paws and then without them when the snow seemed to inexplicably thin out and stop entirely. No one seemed to care, at least at first. Martyn himself didn't. Not as long as they found them. But they certainly did care by the time they did. They cared very strongly.

Lord Rickard sat with Ice over his knees, quiet and eyes closed as if denying right of guest to some fell thing. Facing him knelt Lord Brandon, steady and content and settled amidst papers filled with drawings and words, each in a different tongue. He was drawing something even now. The leaf of paper was set on the bottom of the upturned bowl of paste and blood, now emptied out. What had been their snow hut was spread in a field around them, uneven in span and shape but not in height. It was level and immaculate and if Martyn was a betting man, he'd wager all his coin on what it would likely look like from above. He knew a raven when he saw one. A raven in flight. An island of white in the sea of deep black surrounding it on all sides for a hundred yards. A sea of crows. Crows to the last struck dead.

Martyn didn't speak. Wouldn't have. But he wasn't alone.

"My lords, what…"

"Crows don't do well when you glare, turns out. Now when you have more eyes. A thousand eyes and one."

All of which told Martyn and the rest of them absolutely nothing.

"I don't suppose you saw any extra eyes on any of the crows you passed by?" asked the Young Lord, not looking up.

"…We didn't check," Martyn said, completely lost. "We… could do that now?"

"Please do. You can do it to all of them while you gather their wing and tail feathers. I'm thinking a cloak. A big one for when I grow up. Yes, that will be just perfect."

It was confusing, ghoulish work that lasted the rest of the morning, but they did their job as quickly as they could. They found no third or extra eyes on any of them.

"Lovely," the Young Lord grumbled. "Well, I'll get him next time."

"No you won't." Lord Rickard finally spoke, startling everyone. "You seem to have no issue putting things on paper anymore at least. Does this mean this has done what you needed?"

Lord Brandon looked concerned but nodded confidently despite that. "Yes. More and better than I'd hoped even."

"Good. Because there won't be a next time." The man finally stood up, sheathed his sword and sent everyone but Martyn away to burn the crows' remains. Then he had him set up a tent to give them privacy. To his surprise, he was invited inside once he was done. There, Lord Rickard turned to his son again. "Strip to your waist."

Lord Brandon looked as thrown as Martyn felt, but did as ordered. Then they were both equally shocked at the long scar that stretched from navel shoulder, front to back. The skin below the cut was pale as well, paler than the rest. And when ordered by Lord Rickard, Martyn reached out to touch Lord Brandon's arm. His skin was cold to the touch.

"This happened on day three. You lurched and thrashed violently for half the day. I all but roasted your right side over the fire for the rest of it, then I buried you in the snow naked when you started to burn up. Not that either did much good." The amount of control Lord Rickard was forcing upon his voice… Martyn couldn't even imagine it. "Do you recall any of what you dreamed that would have caused this?"

"… No." Lord Brandon had seemed almost jubilant up to then but now he almost looked afraid.

"That's that then," Lord Stark said, and Martyn finally thought to look more closely at his face. He looked exhausted. "Until and unless that changes, you will not do this again."

They gathered what all could be gathered and left, quiet and thoughtful and wary on the part of the guards Martyn had brought with him. Questions and thoughts spun in his mind, about what all Lord Stark intended by letting even this much slip out. He never failed, though, to circle back to one, big fact.

Secrets, Martyn thought grimly as Lord Brandon called a halt to their party on the second day back, so they could dig through the scraps from an old limestone quarry. Secret keeper. Him and him alone. If even a word of what he knew got out, his life would be forfeit, his family disgraced and his entire House would be attainted.

Somehow, though, as he watched his charge grouse and rant and wax poetically about heat and lye and how he'd just need one year to make a fortune from scraps, Martyn Cassel didn't feel all that worried about the future.