The Doll began with the blood.
She drew a shallow iron case from beneath one of the stone tables and placed it beside Jinx's head. The clasps opened with two quiet clicks, revealing dozens of glass vials fitted into rows lined with black velvet. Each had been sealed beneath dark wax and marked by thin silver runes that seemed to shift whenever the golden firelight moved across them.
The contents were not identical.
Some vials held blood bright enough to appear freshly drawn. Others contained liquid so dark it bordered upon black, while several carried thin threads of blue, violet, or muted gold that drifted through the crimson whenever the glass tilted.
Xuehara watched the case open with unconcealed distrust, one hand remaining buried in Jinx's blood-matted hair. "How much are you planning to give him?" she asked as the Doll selected three of the largest vials and arranged them beside the silver instruments.
"As much as his body accepts without forcing the hunger awake," the Doll replied as she slid one hand beneath Jinx's jaw and carefully tilted his head, avoiding the swollen flesh around his throat. "We would not want that now, would we? The blood he drank upon the road calmed the immediate frenzy, but much of it was spent keeping his organs functioning through the journey. At present, several are working through little more than sheer will."
Brandon stood near the foot of the table with the dragon egg secured beside him in a nest of folded furs. "He drank enough to put a grown man into the grave," he muttered, his gaze moving uneasily between the vials and the broken body of his younger brother.
"And most grown men have not survived being stabbed through the abdomen, burned, shot, crushed, starved for weeks, and then forced themselves to keep walking," the Doll said without looking away from Jinx. Her voice remained so calm that Brandon could not tell whether she had corrected him or merely stated the obvious. "Jinx has always been stubborn. His needs are unusual to most people, but we are accustomed to them."
"That is one word for it," Rickard said from across the chamber, his arms folded tightly over his chest while Ice rested against the stone behind him.
He wanted to ask what she meant by we are accustomed to them. He wanted to demand how often his son had been brought to places such as this, how many times strangers had fed him blood while his own family remained ignorant, and how many signs had been placed directly before him only for him to dismiss them as laziness, indulgence, or disobedience.
The questions remained behind his teeth.
The Doll broke the wax around the first vial with her thumbnail.
A rich metallic scent spread through the sanctuary.
Jinx reacted despite the depth of his unconsciousness.
His nostrils flared. The fingers held between Eddard's hands twitched, and a faint growl trembled within his damaged throat before fading beneath the steady rush of the underground waterfall.
Xuehara leaned closer immediately, her fingers tightening in his hair. "He is waking," she said, fear sharpening her voice.
"No," the Doll replied as she slid two gloved fingers between Jinx's split lips and gently opened his mouth. "His hunger is."
She poured the blood slowly.
Jinx swallowed on instinct.
His throat worked weakly at first, every movement pulling at the bruised and damaged muscles along his neck. A thin line of crimson escaped one corner of his mouth, but the Doll caught it with folded cloth before it could reach the open puncture beneath his collarbone.
She paused after every few mouthfuls, watching the rhythm of his breathing and the subtle changes beneath his skin.
The effect came gradually.
The grey pallor across Jinx's face eased by a fraction. The tremor in his damaged sword hand lessened, and several of the smaller cuts along his jaw and throat stopped bleeding. The deeper wounds remained open and angry beneath the sanctuary's golden lamps, but they no longer appeared ready to tear wider with every breath.
Rhaegar stood near the carved column bearing the Hunter's Mark, his attention fixed upon the vial as though each swallow revealed another part of a language he had spent his entire life trying to understand.
"What precisely are you doing?" Rhaegar asked as he stepped closer, his voice measured despite the curiosity pressing through it. "That blood is not merely replacing what he lost. The amount he has bled would have killed a hundred men, perhaps more, yet his body continues responding to it as though it carries something beyond nourishment."
The Doll glanced toward Gehrman.
The old hunter had positioned his chair beside a low worktable, where he inspected the heads of several narrow silver instruments before passing them to her one at a time. "You may as well answer him," the Doll said as she opened the second vial. "He will continue asking whether we indulge him or not."
Rhaegar almost smiled.
Gehrman did not, which appeared to be his natural state.
"She is feeding the little lord what his nature has demanded since birth," Gehrman said as he rolled nearer the stone table. His weathered gaze rested upon Jinx's face before shifting toward the Crown Prince. "Blood carries life, memory, emotion, and power. Most men can take nourishment from the first and nothing more. Jinx draws from all of it, and his body constantly demands more."
Rhaegar's brows drew together. "Through sorcery?"
"Magic," Gehrman corrected as he rested both hands over the handle of his cane. "Sorcery is merely one name men give the parts of magic that frighten them, and even that describes only a fragment of what magic truly is."
Arthur remained beside Elia, Dawn sheathed but close enough for his hand to reach without thought. "You speak as though magic is something ordinary," he said while watching the strange glow shifting through the vials.
"Breathing is ordinary," Gehrman replied, the corner of his mouth tightening beneath his beard. "That does not mean every man understands his lungs, the effects breath has upon the body, or why death follows when it stops."
Rhaegar ignored the faint insult. His attention stayed upon Jinx while the Doll continued feeding him from the second vial. "You said the blood answers his nature. What nature is that?"
Gehrman leaned back slightly in his chair.
"Jinx was born able to touch magic in its purest form."
The answer changed the room.
Rickard's folded arms loosened. Brandon looked from Gehrman to his younger brother, while Eddard's fingers tightened around Jinx's hand without conscious thought.
Xuehara did not appear surprised that her son possessed magic.
She appeared furious that another person understood it better than she did.
"What do you mean by its purest form?" Rhaegar asked as he took another half-step forward.
Elia caught the edge of his sleeve and stopped him before he entered the Doll's working space. Gehrman noticed the gesture and gave her a small, approving nod.
"No runes required. No sacrifice, prayer, wand, spoken charm, or pact with a spirit," Gehrman said as he watched the Doll set aside the emptied vial. "Those are methods used to shape power. Jinx can reach for the power itself."
Rhaegar's violet eyes brightened. "As the children of the forest supposedly did?"
"Perhaps," Gehrman said with a shrug. "I have never asked one."
"The Valyrians believed power could be shaped through blood, will, and—"
"Prince," Xuehara said while keeping her eyes upon Jinx, her fingers moving slowly through his tangled hair, "this is my son's sickbed, not one of your libraries. Show some respect."
Rhaegar stopped.
Elia's hand remained looped around his sleeve. "Let Gehrman speak in his own order," she murmured as she gave her betrothed a pointed look. "You may interrogate the foundations of creation after Jinx is no longer leaking onto the table."
Rhaegar inclined his head, though the effort required was visible. "My apologies," he said as he stepped back beside her.
Gehrman's tired amusement faded as he watched the Doll finish the second vial. "The little lord's problem was never his ability to reach magic," he said while the last of the blood disappeared between Jinx's lips. "It was surviving what answered when he did."
The Doll wiped Jinx's mouth, then placed two fingers against the side of his throat and silently counted the pulse beneath them. "His heart is stronger," she said as she set the cloth aside. "The third vial may wait until the metal has been removed."
Xuehara's hand stopped in Jinx's hair as the Doll reached for the curved tongs. "Will he feel it?" she asked, staring at the steel as though considering whether to take it from the woman.
"Some part of him will."
"Then give him more of whatever is keeping him asleep."
"The sleep is not the difficult part," the Doll replied as she selected a small bottle filled with clear liquid and let several drops fall around the broken bolt lodged beneath Jinx's shoulder. "His body may attempt to close around the metal while I remove it. If that happens too quickly, the flesh will tear more severely than before."
Eddard looked toward Gehrman while the Doll began cutting away the blood-hardened flesh surrounding the wound. "You said his power answered him differently," he said as his thumb moved slowly across Jinx's damaged knuckles. "What does that mean?"
Gehrman studied him for several breaths.
"Jinx believes magic has two broad currents," the old hunter said. "Not good and evil, no matter what a septon or frightened maester might claim. He calls them the Light and the Dark."
Rhaegar's attention sharpened again, though he wisely remained silent.
"The Dark draws strength from emotion, particularly the emotions men consider dangerous or shameful," Gehrman continued as the Doll eased the silver tongs deeper into Jinx's shoulder. "Anger, grief, fear, hatred, desire, hunger, even love when it becomes desperate enough to destroy reason. Anything felt strongly enough to burn through restraint. It answers quickly, powerfully, and eagerly. A man using it may accomplish in a heartbeat what calmer magic would demand years to learn."
Jinx's body jerked as the tongs closed around the buried arrowhead.
Eddard leaned nearer, keeping his brother's hand locked between both of his. "I am here, little wolf," he whispered as the Doll began pulling, his thumb pressing gently into Jinx's palm. "You do not need to wake. Stay where you are. I have you."
The arrowhead emerged with a wet scrape.
Dark blood followed it.
Xuehara's face tightened, but she did not turn away as the Doll dropped the twisted metal into a waiting basin.
Gehrman watched Jinx's pulse settle before continuing. "The little lord possesses more potential for the Dark than any person I have known," he said as the Doll packed the wound with clean cloth. "Perhaps more than any person still living."
Rickard's gaze hardened. "And you encouraged a child to use it," he said as he stepped away from the wall, accusation weighing down every word.
"No," Gehrman replied as he met Rickard's eyes without shifting in his chair. "He taught me enough to understand what would happen if no one helped him control it."
The answer held Rickard silent.
Gehrman turned his attention toward Eddard again. "Destruction comes easily to your brother. So do curses, domination, draining life, twisting matter, and every other unpleasant art that answers anger faster than patience," he said as his eyes moved over Jinx's wounds. "That does not mean he is cruel by nature. It means cruelty is the easiest language for his magic to speak."
Eddard looked down at Jinx's bloodied face. "He always hated hurting animals when we were young," he said as memories pushed through the horror surrounding them. "He would complain whenever Brandon caught fish, then eat half of them himself."
"He complained because I took too long killing them," Brandon replied as he folded his arms, though some of the defensiveness faded when his gaze settled upon Jinx.
"He still complained, brother," Eddard said without looking away from his twin. "Why he complained is not important at this moment."
"Because their panic made him hungry," Gehrman said.
Both brothers looked toward him.
The old hunter's expression did not soften. "Fear is emotion. Blood carries life. Pain carries both. Jinx learned early that remaining near suffering made his own instincts worse."
Xuehara closed her eyes briefly. "He did disappear whenever the servants slaughtered animals for winter," she said as an old memory settled into place. "I thought the blood frightened him."
"It did," Gehrman replied. "Only not for reasons any of you understood."
The Doll moved toward the broken crossbow bolt lodged near Jinx's knee. She cut away the ruined leather surrounding it, then pressed both palms along the leg to determine where the wooden shaft had splintered beneath the flesh.
Rhaegar waited until she began working before speaking again. "You called the Dark only one current," he said while watching her fingers trace the path of the bolt. "The other is the Light?"
Gehrman nodded. "The Light answers discipline, clarity, restraint, duty, compassion, and conviction. It favors protection, healing, guidance, and acts performed for something beyond oneself."
Arthur's hand settled more comfortably near Dawn's pommel. "That sounds like virtue," he said, his tone carrying the cautious skepticism of a knight who had spent much of his life hearing similar words attached to duty and honor.
"It sounds like virtue," Gehrman corrected as he glanced toward him. "It is still power, and power does not become harmless merely because the man wielding it believes himself righteous."
Elia tilted her head slightly. "You said Jinx's potential favors the Dark," she said as she watched the Doll begin widening the wound around the broken shaft. "Does that mean he cannot use the Light?"
"He can," Gehrman replied. "He simply finds it harder to remain within the state it requires. Jinx feels too deeply and too quickly. Anger, affection, humiliation, fear, hunger—every emotion reaches him with enough force to become magic before he has chosen what to do with it."
Eddard's brows drew together. "And what of me?" he asked, the question quiet enough that it might have been intended only for Gehrman, though every person around the table heard it.
The old hunter looked at him without surprise. "The little lord has spoken of you often."
Eddard's grip shifted around Jinx's hand. "What did he say?"
"That you are annoyingly suited to the Light."
A short laugh escaped Brandon before he could stop it.
Eddard gave him a tired, irritated look before turning back toward Gehrman. "What exactly does annoyingly mean?" he asked as Brandon's faint amusement lingered.
"It means Jinx once spent half an evening complaining that you could likely become a stronger Light wielder than him without ever realizing you were doing it," Gehrman said as he folded both hands over his cane. "Honor comes naturally to you. Duty. Loyalty. The instinct to protect others before yourself. What southern songs call the behavior of a true knight, though most knights only behave that way while someone is watching."
Arthur's mouth tightened, uncertain whether the insult had been general or deliberately aimed at him.
Barristan looked more thoughtful than offended.
"I have never used magic," Eddard said, shaking his head while unease gathered across his face.
"Not knowingly," Gehrman replied.
The answer made Eddard still.
Gehrman continued before he could press further. "Jinx believes you possess enormous potential for the Light. Not because you lack anger or fear, but because neither rules you easily. You feel, then choose."
Eddard glanced toward his mother and father as everyone's attention settled upon him. "Jinx has always exaggerated when speaking about me," he said, discomfort pulling his shoulders inward.
"Not always," Xuehara murmured as she bent and pressed her lips to Jinx's forehead. "Only when he thought praising you would embarrass you, which it usually did."
A faint tremor passed through Jinx's eyelids beneath her kiss.
The Doll stopped with the half-removed bolt held firmly between the tongs. "Speak to him again," she said without releasing her grip.
Xuehara did not ask why. She lowered her mouth close to Jinx's brow while one tear slipped onto his skin. "You troublesome little beast," she whispered as her fingers cupped the side of his battered face. "You hide armies, hunters, magic, and secret caves from your mother, yet you still expect me to sit beside you when your decisions finally become painful."
Jinx's breathing eased.
The Doll pulled.
The broken bolt came free with a slow tearing sound, carrying splinters, clotted blood, and fragments of burned leather with it. Jinx's injured leg tensed beneath the pain but did not jerk.
Xuehara stayed close while the Doll cleaned the wound.
Rhaegar's gaze moved between the twins. "If the Light is shaped by restraint and the Dark by emotion, could one not simply choose whichever is required?" he asked, his curiosity returning now that the worst of the extraction had passed.
"One can," Gehrman said. "That is what Jinx attempted to teach his Hunters. Neither current is inherently pure, and neither is inherently corrupt. A man may use anger to protect a child, or duty to justify slaughter. The danger begins when the current becomes the master instead of the instrument."
Arthur glanced toward Jinx. "What happens when someone travels too deeply into the Dark?"
Gehrman's expression grew grave. "They become a slave to what they feel," he said as he watched the Doll cut into another wound. "Anger ceases to be something they possess and becomes what possesses them. Fear turns every stranger into an enemy. Love becomes obsession. Grief becomes destruction. Hunger becomes…"
He looked at Jinx's broken body.
"This."
No one spoke for several moments.
The underground waterfall filled the silence while the Doll began removing fragments of mail that had become trapped beneath improperly healed flesh.
Elia looked toward Eddard. "And if someone goes too deeply into the Light?" she asked, her voice quieter now.
"Detachment," Gehrman answered as his gaze remained upon Jinx. "A person begins believing emotion itself is weakness. They silence anger, desire, fear, and eventually love because each might interfere with what they consider the correct choice. In time, they may appear calm, honorable, and even wise."
"But they stop being human," Eddard said as he looked toward Gehrman, unease deepening in his grey eyes.
"Aye," the old hunter replied. "A man without hatred is not necessarily good. A man without love, grief, or joy is merely empty. The Light can turn someone into a perfect judge who understands justice and feels nothing for those crushed beneath it."
Rhaegar lowered his gaze.
The explanation struck something uncomfortably close to thoughts he had carried for years—the belief that duty might require him to stand apart from his own emotions, that destiny could justify whatever distance grew between himself and those affected by his choices.
Elia noticed the shift in his face.
She did not speak, though her hand loosened from his sleeve and settled against his wrist.
Rickard stepped nearer the table. "You said Jinx's connection to the Dark placed a curse upon him," he said as his eyes moved toward the blood-stained cloth gathering beneath his son.
Gehrman released a slow breath. "That was how he described it."
"The hunger."
"The hunger, aye," Gehrman confirmed as he leaned back in his chair. "His potential was too great for the body born to contain it. The Dark found the easiest path through him and left an emptiness that never closes. Ordinary food quiets it briefly. Fresh meat works better. Blood better still. Human life…"
The old hunter's voice roughened.
"Human life satisfies it longest."
Xuehara's fingers tightened against Jinx's cheek.
Rickard looked as though every answer placed another weight across his shoulders. "And this has existed since his birth?" he asked, his voice lower than before.
"Yes."
"You knew."
"I knew enough after years in his service."
"And you told no one."
Gehrman lifted his eyes toward him. "Jinx forbade it."
"He was a child."
"He was also the one forced to live with it," Gehrman replied, his voice remaining quiet while the edge beneath it prevented Rickard from speaking over him. "He feared what lords, maesters, septons, and frightened fathers would do if they learned a Stark child needed blood to keep from losing his mind. Considering how his own father and Greatjon reacted before understanding anything, that fear was not unfounded."
Rickard flinched.
The movement was slight, but Eddard saw it.
Gehrman saw it as well and did not offer him the mercy of looking away.
"He believed he could control it," the old hunter continued as he adjusted his damaged leg beneath the blanket. "Most of the time, he did. He built routines, kept stores of blood, and learned to leave crowded places whenever emotions became too loud. The Hunters supplied what he needed so he would never have to slaughter for it."
Rhaegar's gaze shifted toward the rows of vials. "Where does the blood come from?" he asked, studying the different colors moving through the glass.
"Animals. Hunters. Volunteers. Condemned men when their crimes warrant no gentler end," Gehrman answered as his gaze moved toward Rhaegar before the prince could ask another question. "Not every bottle came from a person, and not every person died. The only requirement is that the blood carries a sufficient amount of magic. That is what the hunger truly craves."
Rhaegar stared at the iron case. "Then ordinary blood would not be enough."
"It would feed the body," Gehrman said. "It would not satisfy what lives beneath it."
The Doll reached for the third large vial and removed the wax seal. "He requires more before I reopen the abdominal wound," she said as she examined the faint pulse moving beneath the torn flesh.
Gehrman nodded.
The Doll slid her fingers beneath Jinx's jaw, opened his mouth again, and began feeding him slowly.
His response was stronger this time.
The blood disappeared almost as quickly as she poured it, his throat swallowing with a desperate reflex while his expression remained strangely peaceful beneath Xuehara's hand. A faint magenta glow moved through the veins along his neck before fading beneath his skin.
Rhaegar watched the dark liquid vanish. "What caused the hunger to overwhelm him now, after years of control?" he asked, though his voice had lost some of its earlier excitement.
Gehrman glanced toward the dragon egg resting beside Brandon. "Prolonged starvation may have begun it," he said after a moment. "Distance from his stores worsened it. Fear and death beyond the Wall would have fed the Dark around him, and then he found something carrying a connection powerful enough to answer his own."
"The egg," Rhaegar said as his eyes followed Gehrman's gaze.
"Perhaps."
"Or Dark Sister," Arthur added as he looked toward the ancient blade resting upon another stone table, its rippled steel now cleaned but not yet sheathed.
"Perhaps both," Gehrman said with a slight nod. "That would be my wager."
Rhaegar studied the sword. "Dark Sister has been carried by men whose lives were steeped in war, ambition, blood, and grief," he said as the history of the blade unfolded within his thoughts.
"Steel remembers less than men pretend," Gehrman replied, "but Valyrian steel is not ordinary, and objects gather meaning through generations of belief. That sword has been loved, feared, coveted, and used to kill for centuries."
His eyes moved toward the egg.
"The egg is another matter. If life remains inside it—or if something once did—then its connection may be deeper. Jinx likely reached for it while already starving and touched something saturated in the same current he spends every day struggling to control."
Eddard looked down at his twin's face. "It overwhelmed him before he understood what was happening," he said, more to himself than anyone else.
"That is my belief," Gehrman replied as his fingers tightened faintly around the cane. "The hunger rose too quickly for thought. By the time he recognized what was happening, instinct had already taken control."
Xuehara wiped the blood from the corner of Jinx's mouth after the Doll withdrew the empty vial. "Then he did not choose this," she said, the words carrying equal parts hope and demand.
Gehrman did not answer immediately.
The delay hurt more than certainty would have.
"He did not choose for the hunger to consume him," the old hunter said at last as he looked upon Jinx with the grief of a man who had watched the boy struggle for years. "But there were choices inside it. Torrhen lived. Rodrik remained untouched. The surviving brothers were allowed to retreat. The egg was protected. He recognized you and Eddard even while half-mad."
Xuehara bowed her head over her son.
"Those choices matter," Eddard said as he kept Jinx's hand secured between both of his, holding it as though he could anchor his brother to the words. "They do not erase the dead, but they matter."
"Aye," Gehrman replied. "They are the reason I believe the little lord can still return to himself."
The Doll placed the empty vial aside and pressed both hands gently around the ragged wound crossing Jinx's abdomen. The blood beneath his skin had begun to glow faintly, not enough to illuminate the chamber but enough for thin magenta lines to appear between the torn muscles as his body slowly responded to what it had been fed.
"He is ready," the Doll said as she selected a narrow blade and looked toward Xuehara and Eddard. "I must reopen what healed incorrectly before it can be properly repaired. Keep speaking to him. Do not allow him to believe he has awakened alone."
Xuehara drew closer until her forehead rested against Jinx's temple. She began whispering to him about Winterfell, his old room, the heart tree, and every foolish place he had ever chosen to sleep, while Eddard kept hold of his hand and quietly corrected her whenever she deliberately misremembered some small detail.
"You were beneath the kitchen stairs for two days," Xuehara murmured as the Doll positioned the blade above the sealed wound. "Not one."
"Three," Eddard corrected as his thumb moved across his twin's palm. "He woke during the second night, stole half a pie, and went back to sleep."
Xuehara almost smiled against Jinx's hair. "Three days, then," she whispered as the Doll made the first careful incision. "And you still owe the cook an apology."