[The Dreadfort, 4th week, 3rd moon, 295AC]
The chamber was close and heavy with the smell of damp parchment, tallow smoke, and iron. Roose Bolton sat hunched over a battered oak table, his long, pale fingers methodically turning the pages of the ledgers before him. His face, as ever, was a mask of cool disinterest, though his lips thinned with each fresh line he read.
Reports from Maester Tybald of Stoutstead, from Ser Mallador of the Weeping Water, from steward Harlon of Barrow Hill, all the same miserable refrain.
"Another twenty-five left for Winterfell with their families, my lord."
"Village still in ruin, little progress made, my lord."
"Smallfolk say Lord Alaric Stark will give them land and shelter, my lord."
Roose tapped one finger against the table, tap, tap, tap, a soft, steady beat like a dripping leech. His pale eyes, near colorless in the firelight, moved from ledger to ledger, absorbing the slow bleeding of his strength.
He had not thought it would come to this.
When he unleashed Ramsay upon the low villages after his 'failed' capture of the little beast, he had imagined it a lesson, a reminder to the smallfolk that the Red Kings' justice still ruled in the Dreadfort, that terror could keep order where love and loyalty failed.
But the boy had been too eager, too clumsy.
Whole settlements turned to ash and bone, crofts abandoned, the earth salted with sorrow. Now the people fled like startled hares, not into the barren lands eastward as he had intended, but west, toward the wolf's lair. Toward Winterfell.
And Alaric Stark, that brooding giant of a boy now almost grown into a man, had welcomed them.
Welcomed them.
The words tasted bitter in Roose's mouth.
He had misjudged the Starks. He had thought the line weakened, diluted after Rickard's death and the Southron ambitions that came with it. But Alaric was no weakling, no naive pup mewling for the love of knights and bards. He ruled with a cold hand, and when he spoke, men listened. Smallfolk spoke of him already with the same reverence once given to Rickard Stark, a reverence Roose had long thought dead.
Wintertown was swelling, a slow, monstrous tide, drawing men, women, and children like driftwood into its ancient walls. And with them went labor, taxes, swords.
"A thousand cuts," Roose thought, his face as still as ice. "And no blade drawn against me."
A lesser man would have flown into a rage. Roose merely made a note in the margin of a ledger: "Investigate measures. Stem flight if possible." His hand was neat and bloodless.
He turned the page.
A soft knock came at the heavy ironwood door, but Roose ignored it. His clerks and stewards knew better than to disturb him at his work unless summoned.
The knock came again, sharper, frantic.
Roose closed the ledger with a quiet snap. "Enter," he said without raising his voice.
The door burst open, and Maester Harmund stumbled inside, his robes askew, his bald pate shining with sweat.
"My lord!" the maester gasped, clutching at his chain. "It is your lady, Lady Bethany, the fever—"
Roose did not move.
The maester swallowed audibly, flustered. "She worsens by the hour. The illness... it will not stop. I have tried every poultice, every draught, leeching, willow bark, feverfew, but—"
Roose rose slowly, setting the quill neatly beside the ledger. His movements were deliberate, economical, without urgency.
"Have you called for the wet nurse?" he asked.
"I have, my lord, but the babe," Harmund shook his head helplessly. "There is no babe. Only the fever now."
Roose stared at him, the silence stretching thin and cold between them. At last, he brushed an invisible speck from his sleeve.
"The Ryswells will not be pleased."
It was not Bethany's life that concerned him. She had been a vessel, a connection to the Ryswells of the Rills, stout blood of the North. A useful alliance. Her beauty had been incidental; her laughter an irritant he tolerated.
Without her, the tie weakened.
"Unless I act swiftly."
"Send word to Lord Ryswell," Roose said, already turning back to the ledgers. "Prepare condolences. Offer him recompense."
The maester gaped at him, horror written plain across his soft face. "My lord, she… she may yet live if we—"
Roose fixed him with a flat, unwavering stare.
"If," he said. "But she will not."
He left the maester standing there, mouth working soundlessly, and returned to his work.
[Two days later]
The fever broke two days later, but only in the final sense.
Bethany Bolton, née Ryswell, was dead.
Roose stood beside the bier in the great hall, watching as the serving women washed and wrapped her body in linen, their hands trembling. She looked small now, almost childlike, her fine flaxen hair damp with sweat. Her skin had gone the color of candle wax.
The hall was cold, the great hearth fires reduced to embers. Snow drifted against the arrow slits, the wind a low, constant moan like mourning.
Roose felt nothing.
The maester wept openly. The steward, too. Even a few smallfolk women sobbed quietly into their aprons. Ramsay's wet nurse clutched her shawl tight around her shoulders and muttered prayers to the Seven, though she knew full well that the Dreadfort was an old gods' hall.
Roose watched it all with mild distaste.
He thought of the Ryswells. They would demand explanation, recompense, perhaps even retribution if their grief soured into anger.
He thought of Domeric, his only living heir now. A Bolton in only name and blood. An ill-trained, soft-tempered boy more fit for the South than Northern rule. Yet unless Roose remarried, quickly, wisely, the future of House Bolton rested in those soft, weak hands.
"Unacceptable," Roose thought.
He would need a new bride. One of good stock, obedient, fertile. Someone who understood the necessity of bloodlines over affections. Perhaps one of the younger Hornwood girls, if any remained. Or even a daughter of House Karstark, if they could be persuaded.
Bethany's cooling body lay silent before him.
Roose dipped two fingers into the small stone cup of blood that sat on a pedestal beside the bier. He marked her brow with a thin line, as custom demanded.
"Blood of mine," he murmured, the words hollow.
"Bone of mine."
"Returned to the earth, whence we all came."
He said no prayers. The gods knew what they had made of him.
The funeral would be small, as Winter tightened its grip on the North. They would bury her beneath the Dreadfort's cold, gray stones, far from the smiling godswoods of her youth.
Roose turned and left the hall without a word.
In the days that followed, Roose returned to his ledgers.
The exodus continued.
The fields near the Weeping Water lay fallow.
The village of Iron Hollow had been entirely abandoned, its people gone west, to Winterfell.
Alaric Stark's strength grew like a slow, relentless river, cold and wide and patient.
Roose felt it seeping into the cracks of his domain. No army marched against him. No banners rose. Yet piece by piece, stone by stone, the Dreadfort's grip weakened.
He would need to act. Quietly. Carefully.
"A blade in the dark," he thought. "Not a war."
Roose dipped his quill and scratched out a single line at the bottom of the day's ledger:
"Consider new marriage. Strengthen ties. Weaken Stark influence by alternate means."
He sanded the ink and closed the ledger with a soft thud.
Outside, the wind howled through the empty fields, carrying with it the scent of snow and distant wolves.
Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort, listened.
And planned.
[The Gates of the Dreadfort, 1st week, 4th moon, 295AC]
The gates groaned as they swung open, the thick iron-bound wood reluctant against the cold northern wind. Roose Bolton stood alone atop the worn stones of the courtyard, a solitary figure in drab gray and leech-dark leather. His pale eyes, near colorless in the overcast light, watched impassively as two riders approached, cloaks snapping behind them like wounded banners.
Domeric Bolton led the way, his horse a spirited young courser of Ryswell stock, sleek and fine-boned. He rode with the easy grace of a boy trained in the courts of the Vale, polished by southern manners and knightly pageantry. Behind him came Rodrik Stark, clad in dark riding leathers too plain for a true lordling, his Stark-gray cloak pinned by a simple wolf's head brooch.
Roose's gaze slid from his son to the Stark boy, lingering. Rodrik sat his horse warily, his hand never far from the hilt of his sword, though he wore no open threat. The boy had his father's hard looks, Ser Torrhen's square jaw and cold sea blue eyes, and something else Roose recognized at once: caution sharpened by a life too often exposed to hidden knives.
Domeric dismounted first, the motion quick, almost eager. He pulled back his hood, revealing dark brown hair damp with melting snow. His face, young, fair, too earnest, brightened with a flicker of emotion Roose could not, or would not, name.
"Father," Domeric said, his voice cracking with youth and strain, the boy, no, man now he supposed, his son turning 6 and 10 last moon. "I came as soon as I heard."
Roose made no move to embrace him, nor did he offer his hand. He merely inclined his head in a slow, mechanical gesture of acknowledgment.
"You are welcome," Roose said, though his tone suggested otherwise.
His pale gaze flicked again to Rodrik.
"And you, Stark."
Rodrik dismounted more carefully, never letting his eyes leave Roose's face. He bowed, short and stiff.
"My lord Bolton," he said.
Roose let the silence stretch, cold and brittle as ice.
"You come to bury a woman," Roose said at last, turning back toward the main doors of the Dreadfort. "See it done quickly."
Domeric flinched as if struck, but followed without protest. Rodrik trailed behind, his boots crunching in the thin crust of snow, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.
The Dreadfort loomed above them, a grim maze of stone and shadow. No torches were lit within the hallways; the only light came from the pale, corpse-colored sky, leaking in through narrow slits in the walls. Roose led them without word or glance, his passage silent as a specter's.
They came at last to a heavy oaken door banded in black iron. Roose pushed it open with one hand and stepped aside, allowing Domeric and Rodrik to enter first.
The chamber was cold as a tomb.
Bethany Bolton lay upon a stone bier, wrapped in simple linen shrouds. Her hair, once golden as ripe wheat, had dulled to a lifeless yellow. Her hands, folded over her breast, were thin and rigid, the nails blue with death. Around her feet lay offerings of winter flowers, withered, browning, from the few smallfolk who had dared to bring them.
Domeric let out a broken gasp and stumbled forward, falling to his knees beside the bier.
"Mother…" he whispered, his voice shaking. Tears welled in his eyes, spilling down his cheeks in hot, helpless streams.
Roose stood in the doorway, unmoving, watching with a detached, clinical interest. Rodrik shifted uncomfortably, the grief and vulnerability in his friend striking him with unexpected force.
Domeric buried his face in the folds of his mother's shroud, his shoulders trembling. After a moment, Rodrik stepped forward and placed a steady hand on his friend's back, grounding him.
"She loved you, Dom," Rodrik said softly, his voice low and rough. "She always did."
Roose said nothing.
He turned away from the scene without a sound, leaving them alone with their sorrow.
[That Evening, The Great Hall of the Dreadfort]
The hall was dimly lit by a scattering of tallow candles, their flames guttering against the drafts that seeped through the cracked mortar walls. The air smelled of smoke, old meat, and the metallic tang of damp stone. At the high table, Roose sat at the center, his food barely touched, his goblet of watered wine resting untouched at his elbow.
Domeric spoke brightly, almost desperately, trying to fill the silences with tales of his time in the Vale.
"...and you should have seen the Redfort tourney last spring," Domeric said, a smile struggling to life on his young face. "Rodrik unseated Mychel Redfort himself! No small feat, given how Mychel preens about his prowess."
Rodrik shifted uncomfortably on his bench, stabbing at his trencher of stew. He felt Roose's eyes on him again, heavy and unblinking as a serpent's gaze.
"I imagine the Redforts were... dismayed," Roose said at last, his voice soft and expressionless.
"They were good-natured about it," Domeric said quickly. "Lord Horton himself gifted Rodrik a fine sword, after. Said it was good to see Northern blood showing the Southrons how to ride."
Roose sipped from his cup without comment.
Rodrik's fingers tightened around his spoon. He forced himself to keep eating, though each bite seemed to almost hurt the boy, much to Roose's amusement.
Domeric pushed on, oblivious or unwilling to notice the growing tension.
"And the lessons, father, you would have been proud. Lord Horton had us trained by Ser Vardis Egen himself! I bested even the Vale boys in the tilts by the end of the season."
"Pride," Roose said flatly. "Is for fools and singers."
Domeric's smile faltered.
Rodrik coughed into his hand to break the silence, but it was Domeric who spoke again, his voice quieter, more hesitant.
"I heard... of my brother," he said, eyes flickering toward Roose. "Ramsay. Maester Harmund wrote to me after the... trouble at Iron Hollow."
Roose did not look up from his plate.
"A bastard," Roose said. "A mistake, best forgotten."
Domeric's face paled.
"But he was your blood," Domeric said, almost pleading. "Surely he deserved... better than—"
"He got what he earned," Roose interrupted, his voice cold enough to freeze the very air.
The finality of it rang across the hall, louder than any shout.
Rodrik saw Domeric swallow hard and lower his eyes to his plate, the light dimming from him like a snuffed candle. Rodrik said nothing, only reached out beneath the table to grip his friend's forearm, steadying him once more.
Roose rose without ceremony, leaving half his food untouched.
"Your mourning ends at sunrise," he said. "The living have duties the dead cannot hinder."
Without waiting for reply, he stalked from the hall, his boots soundless against the stone.
The two boys sat in silence after he left, the cold seeping deeper into their bones.
[One Week Later, The Dreadfort Courtyard]
Snow fell in light, lazy flakes, dusting the hard-packed ground and the slate-gray battlements with a thin white skin. Rodrik cinched the last strap on his saddle, while Domeric oversaw the servants loading the small train of pack horses with provisions.
The Dreadfort's men stood sullenly by, a few casting resentful glances at the pair of young riders.
Rodrik could feel Roose's eyes on him even now, from some unseen window. It made his skin crawl.
Dom approached, drawing his gloves on with quick, jerky motions.
"Ready?" Rodrik asked, swinging up into his saddle.
"As I'll ever be," Domeric said. His voice was strained, too bright. He looked thinner now, hollowed out by grief and cold and something worse, disillusionment.
They exchanged no formal farewells with Roose. The Leech Lord sent them off with no more ceremony than a stablehand waving away unwanted dogs.
The gates creaked open once more, revealing the long, white-clad road that wound toward Winterfell.
Rodrik spurred his horse forward, Domeric riding close beside him. Neither of them spoke for a long while, the only sounds the steady clop of hooves on frozen earth and the soft whisper of falling snow.
It was Rodrik who finally broke the silence.
"You don't have to come," he said, his breath misting the air. "You could stay. Make your peace here."
Domeric shook his head, eyes on the distant horizon.
"There is no peace to be made in the Dreadfort," he said simply. "Not for me."
They rode on, two young men leaving behind a house of silent stones and colder hearts, toward a future that waited with wolves at its gates.
And behind them, high atop the battlements, Roose Bolton watched their retreating figures until they disappeared into the white.
Only then did he turn away, the shadow of a thin, mirthless smile on his lips.