III.

Thirteenth day of the Fifth moon of 297 AC. Winterfell, The North

"Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses." AGoT Eddard XV

'This day seems to have no end.'

Eddard sighed as he went through the letters to and from his northern bannermen that he had on his desk. It was terrible enough to think every day about the situation the boy had to live in, but Jon's name days were the worst days of the year in Eddard Stark's life for the last five and ten years.

"Others take you Rhaegar Targaryen." Ned muttered in the solitude of his solar.

The memory of the cursed Tourney came back to haunt him as vivid as a dream, while Ned gazed

at the shadows cast by the candles on the objects on his solar.

It was the year of the false spring and he was eighteen again. Ned still could see the deep green of the grass blowing in the wind. Warm days and cool nights, and the sweet taste of wine.

He remembered Brandon's laugh and Robert's bravery in melee. The way Robert laughed made some compare him to the Laughing Storm, as he knocked down men to his left and right with his massive hammer.

Ned remembered Jaime Lannister, the golden lion who, after kneeling in the grass in front of the king's pavilion and taking his vows to protect and defend King Aerys, became the white lion. Subsequently, Ser Oswel Whent helped Jaime to his feet, and Lord Commander Ser Gerold Hightower himself, draped the snow-white cape of the Kingsguard around his shoulders. The six white swords were there to welcome their new brother. He remembered the smile of a fallen star as they danced in Harrenhal's Great Hall of Hundred Chimneys...

However when the joust began, the days belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen.

The crown prince wore the armor in which he would die: a shiny black plaque with the three- headed dragon of his house wrought in rubies on the chest. A scarlet silk feather fell from his helmet topped with the three-headed dragon in red. During that tournament it seemed that no spear could touch him. He beat Brandon, Bronze Yohn Royce, and even the extraordinary Ser Arthur Dayne.

Robert had been joking with Jon Arryn and old Lord Hunter when the prince circled the field after dismounting Ser Barristan in the last joust, to claim the champion's crown.

Every time Ned remembered the moment, he tensed again as if he were reliving it. The moment when all smiles died. When Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his jet black destrier to bypass Rhaegar's own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martel, to place the crown of the queen of love and beauty on the lap of Lyanna.

Ned could still see his sister as in front of him; her smoky eyes like Valyrian steel shining, smile on her face, on her lap a wreath of winter roses, blue as frost.

After that, madness. Madness and stupidity spreading like wildfire throughout Westeros.

And it all ended on this day, fifteen years ago. Seven fought three and only two remained. And a memory that would never leave him and that haunted him at night. However, these were not ordinary three.

They were waiting before a round tower, with the red mountains of Dorne behind them, their white cloaks blowing in the wind.

And these were not shadows; Their faces were clear before Ned's eyes even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, The Sword of The Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn, forged from the remains of a fallen star, loomed over Dayne's right shoulder. Ser Oswel Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Through Whent's white enamel helmet, the black bat of his house spread the wings. With them was old Ser Gerold Hightower, the legendary White Bull. All of them with their resplendent steel armor with silver enamel and the three heads of the dragon in red engraved over their chests.

"I looked for you at the Trident," Ned told them.

"We weren't there." Ser Gerold replied.

"Woe to the Usurper if we had been." said Ser Oswell.

"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime killed your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were."

"Far away." Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would still sit on the Iron Throne, and our false brother would have been tried and executed instead of dying with undeserved glory." spat the last part.

"I was at Storm's End to set up the siege." Ned told them. "The Lords Tyrell and Redwyne surrendered their banners, and all their lords and knights bended the knee to offer fealty. I thought maybe you would like to do the same now."

"Our knees don't bend easily, Lord Stark." Ser Arthur Dayne answered Ned's question.

"Ser Willem Darry has fled to Dragonstone with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you

could have sailed with him."

"Ser Willem is a good and loyal man," said Ser Oswell.

"But not from the Kingsguard." Ser Gerold noted. "The Kingsguard does not flee."

"Then or now," Ser Arthur said.

"We swore a vow for life." explained old Ser Gerold with all the simplicity in the world.

Ned's specters moved beside him, shadow blades in hand. It was seven against three.

"And now it begins." said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the morning.

Dayne's drew Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade forged from the material of a fallen star glowed pale like a milky crystal, alive with light.

"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice as he had to face who could have been his brother-in-law if the world was a fair place. "Now it ends."

When they came together in a torrent of steel and shadows, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" She yelled.

A storm of rose petals blew across the sky, as a fallen star bathed in blood fell into the shadows of the Red Mountains.

Since then, Jon's name days served as a reminder of the death of his sister and a war based on lies that cost the lives of so many, and so much within his family. Add to that the daily problems of being the Warden and lord protector of the north.

'Which Brandon or my father would have been able to cope with much better than me.' Ned thought to himself while letting out a sigh from the depths of his being, which he didn't even know how long he had been storing.

'At least he's intact and whole. I keep fulfilling the promise Lya, I will never fail you. What would you tell me if you saw me now? Would you forgive that I usurped your precious son and kept from him who his real parents were and his true heritage?'

That question haunted Ned permanently. It was one of the main reasons Ned hid who his mother was from Jon. Knowing Lyanna's response through her son. But Ned was sure he took the right path. Robert was his brother in everything but blood and the Targaryens were doomed one way or another.

'The boy did not deserve to lead that life in the snake's nest that is the south. No. He is better here with his family, who love him. Without Targaryen influence he can never be like his grandfather.' Ned reflected

'And when Jon would have taken the Night's Watch vows, I can tell him who his parents were. On

the Wall he will not be able to claim anything because he will have forfeited all titles, and therefore it will not be a problem for Robert or his descendants. They will have no reason to go after him. There he will be able to rise through the ranks without being judged for his supposed bastardy, and could even become Lord Commander.' It was the only thing Ned could do he always told himself when contemplating Jon's future.

Ned had never had too much love for the Targaryen. And to grew at the side of someone who had them a hatred as deep as Robert, since his parents died at the wreck back from look for a wife of Valyrian blood for the Crown Prince in Essos, did not help to increase Ned's esteem for the dragons. To Ned they were just distant figures, almost more from the lessons of the maesters and legend, than people with whom he would have contact, and he did not care what they did as long as they left his family aside. Of course, rumors of Aerys's madness reached him too, but he always thought that the Crown Prince would be a good king when he had to rule. The people adored him and had never heard a bad word, not even from Robert other than that he had no fighter's dough, which considering his hatred of the Targaryens was almost a compliment. All that changed with the seven-time cursed Tourney at Harrenhal.

'When I rose up arms against The Mad king for the murder of my father and my brother, late I realized that the rebellion would had broken out, even had not been Lyanna involved, ending with the death of all Targaryen in Westeros.'

It did not do well for Ned to think in dead Targaryens. Ned's body turned as he remembered as if he were seeing it at that moment; the semi-charred body of little Rhaenys, the shattered head of baby Aegon next to his mother split in half, wrapped in a crimson Lannister banner.

'At least that day there was a Lannister who had some honor.' Ned thought with certain sarcasm.

'What I would have given to see Tywin Lannister's face when he was told that his son, his Golden Lion, after killing Aerys, the king he had sworn to protect, fought as the reincarnated Warrior to try sterilely to save the Mad king granddaughter.'

Ned did not see the body of the Kingslayer, but the Great Jon Umber, Mark Ryswell and Martyn Cassel swore to him by the old gods that there should be no more terrible death than dying burned by wildfire, because it was not normal the way the armor had melted into the remains of what was once Jaime Lannister.

'The Kingslayer who died defending the Princess.' A song for the bards would think his daughter Sansa.

'Tywin's bane I would rather say'. Eddard thought jokingly to himself. But he was interrupted in his thoughts when someone knocked on the door of his lot.

"Knock, knock, knock." The massive black Ironwood door rang, as old and made of the same material as the doors found in the Godswood and the crypts. He had no idea who could want something with him at the hour of the wolf.

"Come in." Ned said in his neutral voice, trying not to show the fatigue accumulated during the day.

"My lord."

Ned was greeted by his wife, who after opening the door made a small bow with her head asking for permission to enter the solar.

"Tell me my lady, what do you need? If you're here asking why I haven't been to our joint room, it's because I'm getting everything ready for the next meeting with the west shore banners. I need their defenses to be strengthened in case the Ironborn are tempted to revert to their old ways. Not to mention the constant raids of wildlings south of the Wall and Bear's Island." Ned told his wife, surprised by the cold voice of a great lord that over the years he had managed to develop, with which he addressed his wife. A voice that showed no fissures or emotions, only coldness.

'During the Tourney of Harrenhal I was called the cuddly wolf. They called me the silent wolf during the Rebellion, but after it, they should have come to call me the cold wolf, because that is how that seven times damn war left me inside.' thought bitterly to himself, while with a gesture of the head he invited to Cat to sit in the chair that was in front of his desk. Looking at his wife's expression, Ned saw that she exuded concern and annoyance.

'What has Jon done now? Make noise when breathing? Wasn't my promise this noon enough for Cat that sooner or later the boy will go to the wall and never have to see him again? 'Letting out all the air he had in his lungs, while resting a hand on his desk, he asked without beating around the bush.

"What is that expression Cat? I told you I was going to talk to Jon about the Night's Wacht and I have, but you can't expect him to leave on the same day. You have to give him time to accept it and enjoy a little more innocence with his brothers and sisters. He will not have my name, but he has my blood and I am not going to send it to the wall against his will." Eddard said sharply.

In hindsight something inside Ned told him that it had been a mistake that he was the one to suggest the idea of Jon carving a future in the Wall, just on Jon's name day.

'What a gift I have given him! And on top of that, I've ended up having to re-navigate around why he doesn't even know who his mother is! The others take Maester Luwin and Cat!'

If it hadn't been for Jon's demonstration of swordplay during training, the maester would never have mentioned the need for good men to the Watch. And his wife. Ned's wife soon saw the option she had been waiting all her life to get rid of the boy. And watching Jon fight that way reminded him so much of the Last Dragon on the Trident...Ned shivered thinking someone could put all the pieces together if they saw the boy fighting like that.

'Rhaegar was not the last Dragon.' thought Ned with panic and a strange pride. 'Although i don't want to admit it, but not for the reasons that Cat thinks, the safest thing for the Starks is that Jon goes to the Wall.'

Catelyn was already sitting in front of him and her tension had decreased, but she still gave the feeling that she would jump anytime.

"I'm glad to hear that the bastard is finally leaving here. You've seen that he almost killed Robb today, but no Ned, it's not because he goes to the wall immediately, it's because of what he told me this afternoon before dinner" Catelyn replied quickly and sullenly.

Although Ned wanted to defend Jon, there was no point in insisting Cat that she not refer to the boy that way. Ultimately it was Ned's fault that the boy might be taken for a bastard.

Ned's wife's gaze oscillated between her hands that she had in her lap tracing patterns on her skirt, to look at his face, to look at her lap again, as if looking for a way to say her next words. The turquoise eyes of his wife, which in so many moments had been a source of peace and comfort, seemed to look at him with disdain.

"Ned, the bastard has not had enough to humiliate your first-born,your heir in front of all of Winterfell, but also has had the audacity to humiliate me in front of the servants." His wife's gesture was one of poorly contained indignation. Interlocking her hands over and over again, making the nervousness clear.

'By the gods, what happened this afternoon between Cat and Jon?' Seeing Cat's attitude and the outrage oozing from every pore on Cat's skin, it must have been something big.

'And explain why Jon hasn't shown up in the Great Hall for dinner.' Now Catelyn had all of Ned's attention. Leaning his elbows on his desk to rest the chin on the back of his hands, while straightening his back, Ned looked coldly at his wife.

"What humiliation have you suffered at the hands of the boy?" Ned asked, pronouncing the end with certain sadness and the beginning with a certain sarcasm. Catelyn seemed to notice, for she was instantly furious.

"My lord, I see that even without knowing what happened, you are already defending the bastard before your real family." The acidity and the tone in which Cat had said the words left Eddard totally out of place, and before he recovered, Cat decided to hit the hot iron.

"While I was going about my duties as Lady of Winterfell, doing an account of the necessary repairs on the door of the Godswood with Beth Cassel and Vayon Poole, your bastard knocked me to the ground because he was looking at his wolf and not straight ahead. But that's not the worst, my lord." Ned's wife said, spreading her arms pompously towards him, as if she were presenting the case in front of a court. Ned sometimes couldn't quite understand Southerners and their detours to deal with things, instead of going straight to the point they wanted to discuss.

With a wave of his hand, Ned urged her to continue with what had happened.

"When I asked him what he was doing in a section that could only be accessed with permission from the Stark family, the boy replied that he only wanted go to meditate with the old gods and that he had never been aware that he needed to ask permission to access the sacred forest. At the reminder if his status, he told me that I was the least indicated to talk about who could access the Godswood, since at least although a bastard, he had wolf blood in his veins and I was a Trout, the dinner of the wolves." finished Ned's wife putting her hands to her face as if she were about to cry.

"Cat ..." Ned tried to speak, but his wife wasn't going to let him.

"The boy can't stay here anymore." Catelyn said dryly, cutting Ned off. "He is your son, not mine. I never want to see him again, nor do I want to see him approach our children."

The look in answer that Ned gave her was one of pure anguish "By the gods, Cat, are you going to forbid a motherless child, who barely has five and ten days of his name, not to speak or have contact with his family? Don't you have a heart?" Ned implored with more compassion than conviction.

"Motherless ... Ned, is the boy's mother dead?" Catelyn asked with a surprised face.

'Oh shit, in getting carried away by my emotions I've said more than I've ever said about Jon's mother. Others take me!' Ned thought heartily, as he sighed deeply.

'I wish Brandon was here.' Ned thought bitterly as he watched how Cat shifted nervously in the chair, waiting for some response. The silence in the solar was beginning to be deafening,

'Brandon would have already made up some excuse and changed the subject. Or he would have

changed the subject outright and taken Cat into the bedroom to perform marital duties.' The way to distract women from Ned's late brother was always the same. Make up excuses to get out of trouble and distract them to fall on them when they were unprepared

'A true wild wolf, who never thought about the consequences of his actions.'

Like Ned's sister, he remembered sadly. Not like Ned. He did not know how to break the rules. Honor and Duty were his two pillars in life. He couldn't lie to Cat any more than he had lied to her. His duty was also towards her and he had stained it enough. Just like his honor, though not because of Jon, never because of Jon.

A tear began to fall down Ned's face without him being able to control it.

"Yes. She is dead. She died just before the Rebellion ended and I swore to her on her deathbed that I would take care of the boy. It's all you need to know. Never ask me about her again. I have loved only you and our family for fifteen years." Ned said, cold as ice and with infinite sorrow as he stared at Cat, making it clear that it was not a subject that would be discussed again. "He is my blood, and that is all you need to know."

Catelyn relaxed her posture a little when she saw the pain on his face and surely knowing there was no other woman alive that Ned wanted to be with.

'And it was true, the only woman I loved more than Catelyn died when she thrown herself into the sea. But she did not love me at first, nor was she the mother of any Stark.' thought Ned sadly, as he reflected on life with his wife.

Ned had married Cat in Brandon's place, as custom decreed, but it was a marriage born in the shadows of Ned's dead brother, just like in the shadows of someone else's. The shadow of a woman Ned would not name. The woman who had given birth to Jon.

"Ned, I never imagined she was dead. I always thought ... I thought ... I thought he was the son from some whore or servant who lived in the south, and that she was blackmailing you by revealing to the world with whom Eddard Stark had broken his honor and that's why the boy had to be here ... Or that she was someone that you continued to love and that was a danger to me and my children." Ned's wife told him as she got up running from her chair, to go around the desk and throw herself on his lap to hug him.

Before Cat could say anything more, Ned wrapped his arms around her, letting all the tension and sadness that he had stored in his body give way.

'If it is not with my wife with whom I can vent, I can not do it with anyone.' Ned thought with a mixture of happiness and fatigue.

"Now I can understand why you brought the boy here. It would not have been honorable to leave him to his fate at such a young age. But Ned, that doesn't mean he has to stay any longer. You have already given more than many parents to their bastard children." Catelyn said, looking into his eyes from below, with a look that Ned had to shield his heart against the silent attractiveness in his wife's eyes.

"They say that your friend Robert has been the father of more than a dozen bastards and does not know where they are or what their lives are. You have already fulfilled your promise Ned, the boy has to go." Cat said again, looking at his eyes, but with a hardness that was not present in her previous gaze, as she withdrew from his embrace.

"Blam!!"

Before Ned could answer his wife, the ancient wooden door clanged against the wall of his lord stays, appearing a congested Jory Cassel. Jory was agitated and in the wrong clothes, as if he had just got out of bed and had been awakened by some emergency. Ned's captain of the household guard face expressed concern, confusion and 'fear?'

"Lord Stark, I am very sorry for my abrupt entrance, but a situation has arisen that surpasses my status." Jory said in a resigned but sure tone. Something important must be, if the captain of the castle guard cannot deal with it, Ned thought as his wife rose from Ned's lap, to allow him to get up.

"What happened?" Eddard asked Jory in a concise and direct way, while in five steps he stand in front of the fireplace that gave heat from the center of his solar.

"We don't know very well. The only thing we know is that one of the lamps on the door of the crypts is missing, whose door is not visible and from whose entrance smoke is coming out ... but it is not a natural smoke, my lord." Jory told Ned in a lower and lower tone, finishing the sentence almost in a whisper.

Between the expression, the nervous look, and what Jory had just said, the captain of his guard had Ned's undivided attention. He could then argue with Cat about Jon's future.

"And how someone hasn't went to investigate what happened, ehm?" Eddard growled reproachfully.

"My lord, after what happened this afternoon with the bast ... with the boy and Lady Stark, the household staff don't want to go to any area restricted to the family without express authorization from you or your lady wife." said the captain of Ned's guard. Jory's brown eyes darted between his feet and where Ned knew his wife stood behind him.

Turning to see Ned's wife's contrite face, he shot her a disapproving look and went for his cloak.

'For the old gods! The only thing missing thing rigth now is that the tensions between Jon and Catelyn impede the proper functioning of my castle.' sighed Eddard.

Arriving at the door, where Jory was still standing, he began to give him concise instructions to act until he was able to assess the situation.

"Gather about five men with torches and begin to choose as many to form a chain of buckets of water from the main well to the crypts. If there's a fire down there, it won't be easy to access it, although it's possible that..." but Ned's orders were interrupted by Jory Cassel's nervous voice.

"My lord, you don't understand. You have to see it. The Smoke.... that smoke is not natural. The men who were on watch at the north gate have said that suddenly the red star appeared in the sky, and when they looked again at the north courtyard ... well, it was submerged in the smoke that came from the crypts. No one has dared to approach beyond the barracks and the servants' wing. People are afraid that it is an omen from the old gods and the Winter Kings. A bad omen"

"Red star? Bad omens?" Ned said, almost choking, in a voice that conveyed all his disbelief at what they were telling him. "By the old and new Gods Jory, what relationship has a star in the sky, no matter what color it has, with whatever is happening in the crypts of Winterfell, probably that the wind has thrown the lamp and has burned the door." Ned spoke firmly, trying to show the ridiculousness of the situation that the young Cassel was relating to him, while he recovered his facade and tone of lord.

"I'm just telling you that you must see it to understand it, my lord." Jory settled.

In view of the stubbornness in the captain of his guard, and since Ned did not really want to continue the discussion with his wife, he decided to take command of the operations personally.

"Fine Jory, you will accompany me." Ned said fixing his gray eyes on the son of his old friend Martyn Cassel. Sometimes he regretted that the brave Northerners who accompanied him to Dorne could not have received a better eternal rest.

Ned turned towards where Cat was and with a look that didn't admit of argument, he said. "My lady, you go to the family wing and summon our entire family to the Great Hall."

After that, Ned's wife Catelyn bowed briefly and left the solar before him and Jory.

Eddard and his captain of the guard began navigating the maze of corridors that formed the ancient Castle of Winterfell. As he went out into the main courtyard, Ned could actually see a red star soaring through the sky that it seemed to leave a bleeding wound on the veil of night. Surely Jory was right about something. This was not just another star, and if it really was an omen of something, it could only augur one thing. 'Dragons'

As Ned crossed under the bridge connecting the Great Keep and the armory, he began to see the smoke that Jory had been so nervous about.

'If I have to be honest, it doesn't inspire me any sense of tranquility either.' Ned meditated internally, while having a bad feeling about what was happening.

Of course, that vaporous and ethereal whitish smoke that thickened as they approached the north courtyard and the entrance to the crypts did not give the impression of being from this world. It seemed magical.

When they reached a few meters from the crypts the only thing that could be seen among the white smoke, almost misty, was the semi-darkness of the only lamp that remained in the entrance and the abnormal shadows that Ned and Jory Cassel cast when they were reflected by the reddish light from the star that was just above the First Keep.

Before they could continue advancing a thud began to come out of the bowels of the earth.

A noise that seemed to be the echo of the blow of the magical hammer of the Children of the

Forest against the Neck.

"VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!"

"WHAT'S GOING ON?" Ned barely heard a puzzled Jory.

Ned didn't know what to answer to the young Cassel, because the only thing he was able to establish was the noise that was increasing, beginning to be deafening.

Suddenly the noise stopped. But just as quickly as it disappeared, it came back, but multiplied infinitely. It seemed like the noise that a collision between mountains would make.

'Is this what the lasts of Valyria experienced during the Doom? So did the Fourteen Flames resound before they forever and ever destroyed the Lands of Eternal Summer?' wondered a terrified Eddard Stark now. It was true that you can only be brave when you are afraid, but what he had now was not fear, it was panic, anguish and the inability to move a single fiber of his body.

"VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!" The noise was driving Ned crazy, and looking at Jory it seemed that it was affecting him too,

because suddenly the Cassel fell to the ground.

Without knowing why, suddenly Ned also lost his vertical. And there, when he felt the ground shake under his body, Ned understood that the noise was a consequence of the earth shaking, the castle shaking, and surely the whole North shaking.

In an instant, all the smoke was sucked in through the crypt doors like the lungs of a person after drowning. The noise and shaking stopped. There was only a deathly silence in the entire castle. The north courtyard, completely bathed in the reddish glow of the star that was in axis with the old fortress and courtyard completely deserted except for him and Jory, who now was the color of the Weirdwood that was in the Godswood.

'If I had to bet on a dragon, I'd bet I'm not much better than him. What the hells just happened?? What...'

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!"

Was the uproar that heralded a column of fire arising from the bowels of the earth. In the place where less than a blink ago were the ancient crypts and the old First Keep, now evaporated by dark fire.

It was like being in front of a red-hot lava geyser that rose as if trying to climb up to the sky where the star was, staining the entire northern sky in a bloody red between both of them. Bathing all of Westeros, all of Essos and the Lands beyond the Wall in red.

'May the old gods have mercy on us.' prayed Eddard Stark.