The snow had been falling since dawn, soft at first, but now thick enough to weigh down the pine branches and bury boot tracks within minutes. Winterfell moved more slowly under snow this heavy. The blacksmith's hammer rang less often, the training yard was empty, and even the guards on the wall leaned into their cloaks and spoke little.
Elias preferred it this way.
He crossed the courtyard alone, boots crunching softly. The heat from the keep's stone walls bled into the air near the doors, but each step toward the godswood stole it away again, replacing warmth with the sharper, cleaner cold that always seemed to cling to that place.
The path wound through skeletal trees whose bare branches scraped faintly against one another in the wind. Underfoot, roots bulged up through the snow like frozen veins. The godswood smelled different from the rest of Winterfell—damp earth, old bark, and the faint copper tang of the heart tree's red sap.
The heart tree stood at the center, tall and pale as bone, its leaves the deep red of fresh blood. The face carved into its trunk was solemn, its weeping eyes fixed on Elias as if they could see past his skin.
He stopped a few feet away and let the silence sink in. Most people found the godswood unsettling. Elias found it… grounding. Here, the petty noise of the hall, the constant movement of servants, the politics of lords and ladies—they all felt small.
But today, the silence was not just stillness. It was heavy. Expectant.
He felt the prickle at the back of his neck before he heard anything.
A faint shift in the snow to his right. The sound was so slight it could have been a squirrel leaping from branch to branch, but Elias knew better.
He turned slowly.
From the shadowed gap between two pines, a figure emerged. Small—no taller than a boy of six—but every movement carried an unhurried grace. Skin the soft green of moss, golden eyes large and unblinking, hair braided with twigs, leaves, and small beads of carved bone. She wore leather sewn with bark and sinew, and a curved dagger at her hip that looked older than Winterfell itself.
A Child of the Forest.
Elias's breath caught. He had seen one before—when he was five, the night the Three-Eyed Raven died—but only for a heartbeat. This time, she walked toward him deliberately, as if the space between them already belonged to her.
She stopped a few paces away, head tilted. "The blood of the wolf," she said, voice soft yet carrying, "and the blood of the sun."
Elias's jaw tightened. "You've been watching me."
"Yes." She blinked slowly. "Since the night the roots defended you from the Three-eyed crow."
The memory came back sharp: the black-feathered figure, the crushing roots, the rush of shadow-creatures. "You were there."
"I was." Her golden gaze shifted to the heart tree. "The Old Gods chose you that night. They do not choose often. They do not choose lightly."
Elias stepped closer. "Why me?"
"Because you are more than man, yet still man. You carry two legacies—the wolf of the North and the sun-blade of the South. You will live in both worlds, but belong to neither. That makes you dangerous."
Her words were neither praise nor condemnation. They were fact.
"What do they want from me?" Elias asked.
"They want you to restore the balance that was broken." She gestured to the trees. "Once, men and the land walked together. The rivers ran clean, the forests thick, and every creature knew its place. Then men forgot. The South builds and burns, stripping the land. The North holds, but does not grow. That will change with you."
He thought of the maps he'd studied in Maester Luwin's library, the animal diagrams, the mineral charts. "You mean for me to make creatures."
Her eyes glinted like sunlight through autumn leaves. "Yes. You will make them as the Old Gods made the first wolf, the first elk, the first hawk. Predator and prey, hunter and hunted—bound to the same root. No creature without its counter. No life without its cost."
Elias folded his arms. "And if I refuse?"
"You will not," she said simply.
He frowned. "And people? Where do they fit in this balance?"
"Some will walk with you," she said. "Some will feed the roots."
The way she said it was matter-of-fact, but it landed like a blade in his gut.
He took a step closer. "Tell me about the crow—the Three-Eyed Raven. Why did he want me dead?"
"Because you will have what he never could—the whole of the Old Gods' gaze." Her voice lowered. "He saw the shape of your shadow, and it frightened him."
The words stirred something deep in Elias. Not fear. Determination.
The Child reached into a pouch at her side and pulled out a shard of translucent stone, faintly glowing from within. She placed it in his hand. "A gift. Ice from the first winter. Plant it in a place you wish to preserve, and the land will remember the cold even in summer."
The shard pulsed faintly against his skin, as if alive. "I'll use it well," Elias said.
"You will use it carefully," she corrected, and then, like mist in wind, she was gone—vanishing into the trees without a sound.
Elias stood there for a long time, the cold seeping through his boots, the shard's faint glow the only light in the gloom. His mind was already working. A place that stayed cold year-round could store food longer than any ice cellar, protect certain creatures through the summer, even keep pests at bay.
By the time he left the godswood, the light was fading.
The Great Hall was loud when he entered—laughter, the clink of cups, the smell of venison and bread filling the air. Benjen caught sight of him and waved him over.
"You've been in the godswood again," Benjen said, raising a brow.
"I like the quiet," Elias replied, slipping the shard into his pocket.
Benjen chuckled. "Quiet's rare in Winterfell. Treasure it."
Elias sat and listened to the talk around him—grain stores, hunting reports, repairs on the outer wall—but it all felt small now. The problems of the hall were made of months. His were made of centuries.
Later that night, in his chamber, he spread parchment across his desk. He sketched a valley he remembered from the maps—snow-fed streams, rocky ridges, and thick pines. He added ponds for waterfowl, thickets for hares, clearings for grazing elk. Then he drew predators—the wolves that would cull the herds, the owls that would keep the hares in check.
Balanced. Enduring.
The shard of first winter ice sat at the corner of the desk, its pale glow pooling over the parchment like moonlight.
For the first time, Elias saw the shape of the North he would build—not just a stronghold, but a living fortress.