Winterfell — The Solar of the Lord of Winterfell, Late Evening
The hearthfire crackled gently, casting flickering shadows across the stone walls of the solar. Eddard Stark sat by the fire, cloak still on his shoulders though he had long since dismissed the cold. He nursed a cup of mulled wine, untouched. His greatsword, Ice, leaned against the nearby table—never far from hand now.
Maester Luwin entered without knocking, as was permitted, though even he tread softly these days. There was a tension in the castle since Jinx's arrival—something that settled in the bones, like a second, colder winter.
"You wished to speak, my lord?" Luwin asked, setting a small bundle of parchment and ink on the table.
"Aye." Eddard's voice was low, quiet, but the weight in it was unmistakable. "Close the door, Maester."
Luwin did so, then took the chair opposite the Lord of Winterfell.
For a long moment, only the crackle of fire.
Then: "What do you make of him?"
Luwin raised his brows slightly. "You mean… Jinx."
Eddard nodded once, curt. "His words today—about the forms, about mastery, about potential. It all feels like something from an Essosi tale, not a man laid in our godswood, claiming to know my daughter's soul."
Luwin folded his hands. "I've never encountered a being like him, my lord. His knowledge of war, of the Force as he calls it… it's unlike anything in our histories. Even the stories of the Children and the First Men seem small in comparison."
"That's what worries me," Eddard said, staring into the fire.
Luwin tilted his head. "You're afraid of what he can do?"
"No." Eddard's jaw tightened. "I'm afraid of what he'll leave behind."
There was silence. Luwin gave the Lord of Winterfell space to speak—he had known Ned long enough to recognize when the man was weighing more than just words.
"He's testing them," Eddard said at last. "All of them. Arya most of all. But Jon too. And Robb. Even… me."
"You noticed, then," Luwin said softly. "He favors Arya. The way he looks at her—like a smith seeing the perfect steel."
"He claims to be her father," Eddard said, voice sharper now. "In some twisted, foreign sense. He says it wasn't blood, but something else. A ritual. A… connection through this Force."
Luwin looked down, troubled. "Such a claim… I've pondered it since you first told me. I've studied the old accounts, the obscure texts from before the Andals came. There were tales—of children touched by spirits, born with strange gifts. But even those are vague and riddled with superstition."
Eddard exhaled through his nose. "And yet when I look at Arya… gods help me, I see it."
"She has changed since meeting him," Luwin admitted. "She listens now. She focuses. That's not nothing."
"And she looks at him as a pup would look at her first wolf," Eddard murmured. "Loyal. Hungry to please."
Luwin leaned forward. "Do you believe he means her harm?"
Eddard was silent for a long moment.
"No," he said at last. "That's the gods-damned problem. He doesn't want to hurt her. He believes he's helping. And I don't know if that makes him better… or worse."
Luwin considered that in silence.
"The North is old," Eddard said, rising and walking to the window. "We've endured kings, dragons, long nights… But this man—this Jinx—he comes not as a conqueror, but a storm. One you let into your hearth because he promises warmth."
"And you fear," Luwin said quietly, "he might burn the house down instead."
Eddard looked out toward the courtyard where his daughter now dreamed of glowing swords and cosmic wars.
"I fear," he said, "he might teach them to burn it down themselves."
Winterfell — Training Yard, Early Morning
The rising sun had not yet broken through the clouds. A cold mist hugged the stone walls of Winterfell, and the yard—normally alive with the clang of steel and the shouts of sparring men—was quiet.
Eddard Stark stepped into the courtyard and paused.
Only two figures were present.
Arya sat cross-legged near the wall, wrapped in a thick cloak, her violet eyes locked with unblinking focus on the figure at the center of the yard.
And there stood Jinx, motionless, as if he'd been carved from shadow. Clad in his dark armor, his hands folded behind his back, his ever-grinning mask aimed directly at Eddard.
The Lord of Winterfell frowned.
"Where are the others?" he asked, walking forward. "Robb, Jon, Rodrik, Jory?"
"I sent them away," Jinx said plainly. "Today's lesson is for you, Lord Stark. Arya will observe."
Eddard halted, one hand gripping the wolf's-head pommel of his sword. "You sent them away without my leave?"
"I did," Jinx replied without apology. "Because this lesson is not for them. Not yet. They are branches, Eddard. You are the root. If the root is rotten, no branch will grow strong."
Eddard's jaw tightened. "And who are you to determine that?"
Jinx raised his hand and a wooden training sword floated from a rack beside the yard and landed at Eddard's feet. Another soared into Jinx's hand.
"I'm the man who knows."
For a long moment, there was silence between them.
Then Eddard sighed and picked up the training blade. "So be it."
Jinx walked to the center of the training yard, the worn stones crunching beneath his boots. The sky began to lighten, and the faint sound of crows echoed from the walls.
He turned and looked toward Eddard. "Let's begin by shaking the dust off that wolf blood of yours."
They began to spar.
At first, the strikes were measured. Calm. Traditional. Eddard held the high guard of House Stark's preferred sword style—measured, heavy, deliberate. Jinx, by contrast, moved like flowing ice. Effortless. He wielded Form II—Makashi—with flicks and counters designed to humiliate.
He danced around Eddard's swings.
"Too stiff," Jinx muttered, parrying a blow lazily. "You move like a statue pretending to be a man."
A crack of wood echoed through the yard.
Eddard's blade scraped off Jinx's. Arya leaned forward.
Another strike.
"Your stance reeks of honor," Jinx said. "You fight with shame on your shoulders. Let me guess… you still carry the weight of promises never kept?"
Eddard's teeth clenched. He struck again, harder.
"Was it Brandon's death?" Jinx continued, casually dodging. "Was that when you decided the world wasn't worth fighting?"
A growl escaped Eddard's throat. His strikes began to grow wilder.
"No… not Brandon," Jinx mused aloud. "Was it Lyanna? Or…"
He paused just long enough to sidestep a blow and whispered—
"Ashara?"
Eddard lunged.
The rage surged like fire through his veins. His hands gripped the hilt of the training sword so tightly his knuckles went white. His strikes came fast—clumsy—but powerful. For the first time since they began, Jinx stepped back.
Arya gasped as her father's eyes shimmered—not grey—but bright gold, with a red outline.
Sith eyes.
Jinx knew them well.
But despite the burst of strength, Eddard was not a trained Force user. He was a man whose grief had been prodded like a festering wound—and that wound had burst.
Jinx smoothly shifted into Form VII — Vaapad, his body now moving with crackling energy. He allowed the fury of his opponent to fuel his precision. A counter-strike. A sweep.
And then—he kicked Eddard square in the chest.
The Lord of Winterfell flew backward, crashing into the snow-dusted stone. His breath left him in a single painful grunt.
Arya leapt to her feet.
"Stay," Jinx commanded her with a raised hand.
She obeyed—though visibly trembling.
Jinx walked over and crouched beside Eddard, who lay on the ground, chest rising and falling, stunned and panting.
"Do you know why you lost?" Jinx asked, voice low, but firm.
Eddard turned his face, eyes narrowing. "No," he muttered through clenched teeth.
"Because your swordsmanship is too clean. Too noble. Too… shackled."
He stood and paced slowly.
"You've tried to bury what you are. The pain, the anger, the grief. You've buried it in duty. In honor. You've wrapped your scars in wolf fur and steel, thinking that made them disappear."
Jinx stopped and looked at him again.
"But they never went away. They festered. You lost your father. Your brother. Your sister. Ashara. You were never supposed to be Lord Stark. You were just a second son with dreams of a quiet life."
He sat down next to Eddard and looked at the sky.
"Do you know what pain does, if left to rot?" Jinx asked softly. "It kills you—but slowly. It becomes a part of your decisions. It makes you afraid to change. Afraid to feel again."
Eddard remained silent, his head bowed, snow falling lightly around them.
"I once thought I'd lost the woman I loved," Jinx said after a long silence. "I burned down everything I knew for the hope of getting her back. I became a monster. A Sith Lord. I believed that power would bring me peace."
He looked down at his gloved hands.
"It didn't. Not until I had someone who helped me realize I was still human."
Jinx turned to Eddard. His voice was gentler now.
"You can't be what the North needs until you face your ghosts. Lyanna. Brandon. Ashara. And even Jon."
Eddard blinked at that last name. But Jinx just placed a hand on his shoulder.
"When you confront your pain—not bury it, not smother it, but face it—you'll become something more. Not just a lord. Not just a Stark. But a light in this frozen world."
Another long silence.
Eddard's voice cracked slightly when he finally spoke. "How do I begin?"
Jinx's reply was quiet. Almost tender.
"Start… by remembering her laugh."
And beside them, Arya, tears silently trailing down her cheeks, realized for the first time that her father had never stopped hurting.
But maybe now, he was learning how to heal.
The sun had barely risen over Winterfell, yet the godswood was already bathed in the cold blue light of early morning. Frost clung to the branches like crystal webs, and the breath of the living came in pale clouds. Beneath the Heart Tree, where the old gods watched in silence, Arya Stark sat cross-legged before Jinx.
Jinx knelt across from her in the snow-covered clearing, his black and magenta armor muted beneath the drifting flakes, the smiling mask fixed upon his face. To any observer, he might have seemed motionless, even cold. But Arya could feel something more—something beneath the stillness. A storm restrained by iron discipline.
"You're fidgeting again," Jinx said calmly, his voice cutting through the quiet like a blade through silk.
Arya froze mid-wriggle. "Sorry. It's just cold. And I can't feel my toes."
"Good," Jinx replied, and Arya blinked at him.
"Good?"
"You are beginning to feel," he said. "But now you must learn to feel with more than your skin. I am going to teach you how to see without your eyes. To listen with more than your ears. To sense the world around you with your mind. That is the first step."
Arya squinted suspiciously. "This isn't some weird riddle, is it?"
Jinx tilted his head slightly. "No, child. This is training. Close your eyes."
Reluctantly, Arya obeyed.
"Breathe in," Jinx said softly. "Now out. Let your thoughts settle. Let the noise go. There is no Septa Mordane here. No Sansa. No swordplay or chores or lessons. Just you… and the forest."
The silence stretched on. Arya fidgeted again. "I don't feel anything."
"You're trying too hard." Jinx's voice remained patient. "Stop reaching. Let the world come to you. Breathe again."
Arya inhaled, then slowly exhaled.
"The snow beneath you," Jinx murmured. "It bites your skin. Feel its texture… cold, but not cruel. Beneath that, the frozen earth. Roots like veins stretching deep. Now… listen."
Arya furrowed her brow.
"The trees creak," he said. "Not from wind, but from age. Old as your gods, old as the stones beneath Winterfell. Hear the whisper of ravens overhead. The heartbeat of the godswood… the stillness of peace and the breath of the wild."
Something shifted.
Arya's breath slowed. The cold no longer bit; it pulsed. She could feel the snow, yes—but also the moss on the roots behind her. She could sense the tree beside her—even without touching it. A faint pressure in her chest rose and fell, like the world itself was breathing with her.
"I think I… feel it," she whispered.
"Good," Jinx said. "That is the beginning."
When Arya finally opened her eyes, the godswood looked the same—but it felt different. Richer. Deeper. As if the forest had eyes of its own and had finally chosen to look back.
She stared at Jinx in awe.
"Is this the Force?" she asked.
"No," Jinx replied gently. "This is your doorway to it."
The wind howled outside Winterfell's ancient stone, but below, in the crypts where the air was forever still and cold, it was silence that ruled. Eddard Stark descended the long steps alone, his torch casting flickering shadows on the grey faces of long-dead kings and lords, their stone eyes watching him with silent judgment.
He passed his father, Rickard, the flames of the torch making the carved sternness of his face seem more lifelike. He passed Brandon, who had died with fire in his throat and vengeance in his heart. Further still he walked, deeper than most dared to go, to a section of the crypts where no torches had burned in years.
At the very end, nestled in the wall, was a narrow corridor that seemed to lead nowhere—just a blank wall of sealed stone and ancient dust.
Eddard stood before it, breath heavy.
No one else in Winterfell knew this passage. He had it built quietly, during the long years after the rebellion. A private madness he never explained. A monument not to duty or honor… but guilt.
He set the torch into an iron bracket on the wall and picked up the heavy sledgehammer he had carried with him. The stone seal before him bore no sigil, no words—only a faint line, as if the wall itself tried to forget what lay behind it.
Eddard lifted the hammer.
CRACK.
The first blow echoed like thunder in the quiet.
CRACK.
Dust rained down from above. The webbing of cracks began to spread.
CRACK.
On the fourth strike, the stone buckled inward with a rumble, and a cold breath swept out of the opening like a sigh.
He stepped inside.
Cobwebs clung to the ceiling like shrouds, and centuries of dust blanketed the floor like ash. The air was still—but not stale. It was the quiet of memory.
There, at the far end of the chamber, stood a lone statue. Unlike the others in the crypt, it bore no direwolf at its feet. No sword. No sign of Northern tradition. Just a simple, smooth likeness of a woman standing in silent repose.
Ashara Dayne.
The woman he had buried not just in the ground—but in the deepest recess of his soul.
Even in stone, her beauty lingered—though the sculptor had failed to capture the light in her eyes or the graceful tilt of her smile. This statue was only a ghost of her true radiance. And yet, seeing it now, after all these years, made something crack inside him far louder than any hammer to stone.
He dropped to his knees, breath caught in his throat.
"I should not have come," he whispered, more to himself than the stone. "But I had to."
His hand trembled as he reached out and brushed his fingers along the stone hem of her gown.
"I had to remember. Because forgetting you… didn't take the pain away. It only dulled the blade long enough for it to rot inside me."
He closed his eyes and bowed his head.
"For years I've worn a face carved of duty and ice, but behind it... I am still that boy who watched you fall. Still that man who made the wrong choices to save the right people."
He sat in silence for a long time.
Then, finally, he opened his eyes. And they were no longer distant. They were alive—haunted, yes, but burning with a strange new fire.
"What would you say to me now?" he asked the stone. "Would you curse me for leaving you? Or forgive me, as I've never learned to do for myself?"
The statue, as always, gave no answer.
But for the first time in nearly a decade, Eddard Stark allowed himself to grieve—not silently in his solar, not in whispered dreams, but openly, here in the crypt where memory lay thick and heavy.
And when he finally stood and left the hidden chamber, sealing it once more behind him… he walked a little taller.
Still broken.
But no longer hiding from the cracks.
Elsewhere in Winterfell, high within one of the quieter towers overlooking the courtyard, Jinx sat cross-legged atop a stone platform. His armor lay beside him, his mask resting against a wall like a serpent's discarded skin. He wore a black robe now, simple and silent, as he meditated.
The air around him hummed faintly, a ripple in the unseen. His eyes remained closed, but the Force—the true Force, raw and eternal—flowed through him like a tide. A web of countless strands connecting life, death, memory, and pain.
And something just stirred in the deep.
Jinx's brows furrowed ever so slightly.
A spike of grief. Not new, but old… finally unburied. He could feel the tremor of emotion as if it were thunder beneath the ice. A scream not of sound, but soul. Controlled. Contained. But real.
"Good," he whispered, lips barely moving.
He followed the thread like a phantom spider, through stone and dark and legacy, all the way down to the crypts—where the fire had finally cracked the wall of winter within the Lord of Winterfell.
Jinx smiled faintly.
"Ashara," he murmured, the name spoken like a snowflake drifting into flame. "Even now, your echo shapes him."
He opened his eyes, which glowed dimly with violet fire.
"She was your heart," he muttered, rising to his feet, his robe gently swaying in the silent tower. "And you smothered it. No wonder your roots never took hold in the soil. A tree does not grow with rot in the trunk."
Then he turned, picked up his mask, and placed it back upon his face.
He walked toward the window and stared out across the snowswept courtyard below. The children were not training today. Arya had gone off early, no doubt searching for more answers she was not ready for. Jon and Robb were likely still digesting what they had learned about their Force potential. Sansa—she remained the most distant.
But it was not the children he was concerned with now.
It was the father.
The wolf who had never howled for his lost pack.
Jinx exhaled, breath fogging behind the mask. "You've begun your journey, Eddard Stark. Don't turn back now."
Then he turned toward the door. With a sweep of his hand, it opened on its own.
"Time to see if the root can finally grow."
The snow crunched under boots as Robb Stark and Jon Snow stood at attention across from Jinx in the courtyard. The morning was colder than usual, and the sky above Winterfell hung grey and brooding. The light dusting of frost did little to dull the tension in the air. Jinx stood before them, arms behind his back, masked and silent, the same unreadable presence he always carried.
Sansa sat off to the side, arms wrapped around herself, uncertain but present. Robb looked eager. Jon… apprehensive. Jinx regarded them quietly.
"Today begins the first step in true growth," Jinx intoned. "Not with a sword. Not with fire. But with silence. Feel everything. Not with your eyes—but with your senses."
Just as he was about to raise his hand to begin the meditation, the castle doors burst open.
"Robb! Sansa!" Catelyn's voice rang out, her tone laced with both outrage and maternal panic. She stormed across the yard with Septa Mordane hurriedly in tow, skirts flaring, cheeks flushed from both cold and fury.
Robb flinched slightly, but Jon only lowered his head, expecting the worst.
Catelyn's eyes were sharp and cold, aimed like daggers straight at Jinx. "What is the meaning of this?! Why are my children being trained with him? With that—bastard?" She spat the last word like venom.
Jinx tilted his head and stared at her. His mask revealed nothing. His body didn't twitch. He simply stood there, silent and unimpressed.
"You overstep," he finally said, voice flat and devoid of emotion. "These lessons are not political. They are survival."
Catelyn marched straight up to Robb and Sansa, standing protectively in front of them. "Sansa. Robb. Come with me. Now." Her tone left no room for debate.
Sansa hesitated, glancing toward Jinx, then back to her mother. She stood and quietly walked over, head lowered. Robb, however, remained still.
"Robb," Catelyn said, more forcefully this time.
"I want to learn," Robb said softly but firmly. "I need to. If the North is to rely on me someday… I have to be ready."
"Don't be ridiculous—" Catelyn began.
But before she or Septa Mordane could speak further, Jinx raised a hand.
"You have no say here," he said. His voice was no longer flat—it was edged with warning. "You don't understand the power they hold. Nor the responsibility that will fall upon them. You are from the South. Your ways are softer. More… decorated. But this is the North."
His mask shifted ever so slightly in their direction. "And the North is harsh. Your children are not ornaments to be groomed—they are wolves. And they must grow teeth."
"You're no Stark. You're not even kin," Catelyn snapped, her voice cracking. "This is heathen work!"
The word echoed in the courtyard like a crack of thunder. Jinx's masked gaze lingered on her for a long moment. He didn't move. But somewhere deep within the layers of cloth and steel, he committed that word to memory.
Catelyn. Heathen. Noted.
She turned, yanked Sansa by the wrist, and stormed off back into the keep. Septa Mordane followed, giving one last glare to Jon, who looked down in quiet shame.
Silence lingered after their departure, broken only by the wind and the creak of distant wood.
Jon's jaw clenched. Robb stared at the gate for a long moment.
Then Jinx spoke.
"Forget her words," he said without ceremony. "They were born of fear."
He walked to the center of the yard again and gestured to the ground before him. "Sit. Close your eyes."
Jon and Robb obeyed.
"Feel the air. The way it moves around you. The vibration of the stones beneath your knees. Listen. Not with ears—but through your soul. There is something beneath all of this. Let it in."
Robb frowned. His brow creased. But nothing changed. His breathing was shallow. Distracted.
Jinx nodded slightly. Expected.
Then his attention shifted to Jon.
Jon's face twitched. His breathing slowed. Then—just for a second—his eyes widened. Something brushed against the edge of his mind. Something vast. A whisper. A ripple. It vanished as fast as it came.
Jon's head snapped up. He looked to Jinx, confused.
"That…" Jinx said softly, "was the Force."
Robb opened one eye in disappointment. "I felt nothing."
"You will," Jinx said without judgment. "But not yet."
Jon looked back at his hands. He hadn't seen anything. But he felt it. Like the brush of a ghost's hand across the skin.
Jinx turned and began walking away.
"We continue tomorrow. Come rested. Come ready. And Jon—tell no one what you felt. Not yet."
Eddard Stark's Solar – Late Afternoon
The fire in the hearth crackled low, casting long shadows against the stone walls of the solar. Eddard sat behind his desk, hands steepled beneath his beard, eyes fixed on the flickering flame. He had been expecting this conversation.
He just didn't expect it so soon.
The door creaked open with no knock. Of course it didn't. Jinx never knocked.
The masked man stepped in with his usual eerie grace, his armor faintly clinking with each step. He closed the door behind him with a flick of his fingers—without touching it. Then he leaned back against the wall near the fire, arms crossed, as if debating whether to speak.
"I assume this isn't about the boys' training," Eddard said flatly, not bothering to look up.
"No. Though Jon surprised me," Jinx replied. "Today's concern is your wife."
Eddard's eyes narrowed. "What of her?"
Jinx's voice dropped into something colder. "She called me a heathen."
That made Eddard sit back. He blinked once, then let out a weary sigh. "You frightened her. She fears for our children."
"She fears what she doesn't understand. That is natural. But left unchecked, it becomes poison." Jinx's tone was neutral—but the weight in his words landed like stone. "She would rather pull them back into southern comforts and blind tradition than let them grow. She believes herself a judge of what should and should not be taught. That must end."
Eddard's brows furrowed, jaw tightening. "She is the Lady of Winterfell."
Jinx uncrossed his arms and walked toward the desk, stopping just short of it. "A title. One given, not earned. I don't care what she is called. I care what she does. And right now, what she does is weaken the roots of House Stark every time she opens her mouth about the South being 'better' or 'civilized.'"
Eddard's hand clenched slowly on the edge of the desk. "Speak carefully."
"I always do," Jinx said without hesitation. "I'm not saying she must be banished, nor humiliated. I'm saying she must be… reined in. She believes she is more than she is. That her opinions carry the weight of truth rather than southern bias. She poisons the air with it. I don't need whispers or rumors to tell me that—"
He paused and placed one gloved hand over his chest.
"I can feel it. The resentment. The tension. The irritation of your servants, your retainers, even some of your guards. When she belittles the North—when she praises the Faith or Southern culture or her Riverlands customs as superior—it makes House Stark look weak. Fragmented. Like it bows to another's way."
Eddard stood slowly. His voice was low but firm, like a growl beneath the surface. "She is my wife. The mother of my children. Mind your tongue."
"I am," Jinx replied with equal calm. "But someone must speak the truth to you. I don't do this to insult her—I do this because she's becoming a liability. Not to you, but to them—to Robb. To Arya. To Jon. She's already poisoned your view of him, hasn't she?"
That one stung. Eddard turned away.
"That's not her fault," he muttered.
"Isn't it?" Jinx pressed. "You're the Lord of Winterfell, but she makes you hesitate in your own home. Makes you question the instincts of your bloodline. Of your children. And I see it—I feel it—how you grit your teeth every time she tells Arya to be more like Sansa, or speaks to Jon like he's a stain."
Eddard exhaled sharply, trying to temper the storm rising in him. "You're not a Stark. You don't know the weight we carry."
"No, I'm not a Stark," Jinx admitted. "But I am something older than her customs and higher than her pride. I've broken kingdoms with less conviction than she has when saying the words 'bastard' or 'uncouth'."
Eddard finally turned around, eyes sharp. "So what would you have me do? Silence her? Command her tongue like a sword?"
"I would have you lead her," Jinx replied calmly. "Not follow her will in the shadows of your own hall. Talk to her. Confront her. Remind her this is not the Riverlands. This is the North. Winter comes—and wolves don't survive by pretending they're lapdogs."
Eddard stared at him, breathing slow. Then finally, he said:
"You talk like you've never loved someone."
Jinx was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, the edge in his voice had dulled. "I did. Once. And she died. Because I hesitated."
The two men stood in silence for a time, the crackle of the fire the only sound between them. Finally, Eddard sat back down, rubbing his forehead.
"I will speak to her," he said. "But not because you command it."
Jinx nodded and turned toward the door.
"No," he said. "But because your house depends on it."
And with that, he left the solar, leaving Eddard alone with a hearth that no longer seemed warm.
Eddard and Catelyn's Chambers — Late Evening
The room was quiet save for the soft crackle of a dying fire and the distant howl of a lone wolf. Catelyn sat near the hearth, brushing Sansa's cloak, lost in her thoughts. Eddard entered silently, shutting the door behind him. He leaned against it for a moment, gathering himself.
She didn't look up.
"So," she began coolly, "has our guest demanded more of your children today?"
Eddard didn't respond at first. Instead, he walked slowly toward her and sat across from her, resting his forearms on his knees. His gaze was tired. Burdened.
"He says you called him a heathen."
That made her pause.
"I said it under my breath," she admitted, unapologetic. "And if he heard it, good. Perhaps it will remind him he is not welcome to teach our children dangerous madness."
"You said it in front of our children," Ned countered, voice edged like frost on steel. "You undermined me. You challenged what I allowed. What I sanctioned."
Catelyn set down the cloak. "He's filling their heads with strange ideas, speaking in riddles, pushing them into unnatural things. You saw what he did to you in that fight. You could've been killed, Ned!"
"And yet I'm not." He gestured toward himself. "Because he held back. That wasn't to humiliate me. That was a lesson."
"A lesson?" she snapped, standing now. "Is that what you call it? That... masked thing throwing you like a ragdoll while your daughter watched? While Jon Snow trains at the side of your trueborn son as if he's their equal? Tell me, my lord husband—is that what you call parenting now?"
The venom in her voice wasn't new. But this time, it stung differently.
Eddard stood slowly.
"Jon is my son. He has Stark blood, and if Jinx believes he has potential, I will not deny him that. And neither will you."
Catelyn's jaw clenched. "He is not mine. He never was."
"Nor did he ask to be," Eddard snapped. "But he lives here. Under our roof. And he deserves more than to be treated like a ghost in his own home."
There was silence.
Finally, Catelyn looked away, her voice softer but no less angry.
"Do you not see what this man is doing to us? He's bewitching Arya—speaking of destinies and powers and the Force—as if he's her father. And she listens to him. Obeys him. She used to listen to you."
"I know," Eddard admitted, the pain in his voice raw. "I know she does. Because he's offering her something I never could. A sense of purpose. Of power. And she sees someone who doesn't ask her to change who she is. Just as she is."
Catelyn sat back down, folding her arms tightly.
"He is dangerous."
Eddard nodded. "So are wolves. So is winter. So is truth. And yet we survive them. We adapt."
He sat beside her, eyes locked on the firelight dancing on the stone wall.
"You've brought the ways of the South into this hall for years. I let it be. But now I see how far the gap's grown between what you believe is right... and what is right for the North."
She turned sharply. "You mean to choose him over me?"
"No," he said, and this time his voice cracked slightly. "But I won't let fear raise our children."
Catelyn looked away, blinking back something she didn't want him to see.
"You're changing, Ned," she whispered.
"I have to," he replied. "Because if I don't… this house won't survive what's coming."
He stood, walking to the window, watching the snow fall silently across the castle courtyard.
"I need you to trust me, Cat," he said at last. "Not because I ask it—but because you know I would never let harm come to our family."
And then, in a softer voice that reminded her of the man she fell in love with:
"And because I still love you."
Catelyn didn't reply right away. But she didn't rise either.
She only stared at the dying fire, its embers fading.