SANSA
The bamboo garden in the godswood had become Sansa's refuge over the past few weeks. Unlike the rest of Winterfell, with its ancient stone and familiar patterns, this space felt like stepping into another world—a small piece of the East nestled within the heart of the North. Water trickled gently over smooth stones, creating a musical backdrop to the rustling of bamboo leaves in the light breeze.
Ruyan knelt before the small stone table, arranging pieces on what Sansa had learned was called a "Go" board—black and white stones placed in a strategic pattern that seemed both artful and deliberate. Unlike the chaotic clash of cyvasse, this game emphasized subtlety and slow encirclement rather than direct assault.
Three days had passed since the tense confrontation with her mother—three days of polite meals, sidelong glances, and measured words. Sansa had continued her lessons with Ruyan, but they had kept to safer topics—Yi Tish poetry, Eastern embroidery techniques, and the proper preparation of jasmine tea. Today, however, Sansa sensed a shift in the air as she took her place opposite the princess.
"You've completed the reading I suggested?" Ruyan asked, not looking up from the board. Her fingers continued to arrange the pieces in a pattern Sansa couldn't decipher.
"Yes, Princess," Sansa replied, setting a leather-bound notebook on the table beside the Go board. "The Northern houses, their current situations, and their heirs."
Ruyan nodded, satisfied. "And what have you learned?"
Sansa hesitated, her mother's warning about getting too involved in politics echoing in her mind. But Lady Catelyn wasn't here, and Sansa's growing curiosity demanded the answers Ruyan alone seemed willing to offer.
"My marriage will shape the North's future," she said at last, the words unfamiliar on her tongue—true, yet somehow incomplete.
Sansa opened her notebook, though she hardly needed to reference it for this conversation.
Ruyan poured the tea slowly, her movements precise. "You've reviewed the houses, their heirs, their resources," she said. "You've read what each alliance might bring to House Stark."
Sansa nodded. "Yes, Princess."
Ruyan looked at her evenly. "Then by that measure—military strength, economic gain, political security—into which house can get more advantage for House Stark"
Sansa hesitated. "House Bolton, they come in with two western Houses, an alliance with them can help heal old wounds with Lady Dustin." she admitted. "But..."
"But the claim to Winterfell they would gain through you," Ruyan finished, her voice neutral. "Yes. Many would whisper it. And what happens if they marry a Karstark or a Manderly instead?"
Sansa blinked, the implications unfolding rapidly. The Boltons would grow stronger—military alliances, wealth, influence—without any Stark anchor to temper it.
"And for which of these futures do you hope, Lady Sansa?" Ruyan asked, her tone revealing nothing of her own thoughts on the matter.
The question caught Sansa unprepared. In all her reading and analysis, she had approached the task as an academic exercise—cataloging strengths, weaknesses, and political implications. She hadn't considered her own preferences in any serious way.
"I... I'm not sure it matters what I hope for," she admitted. "My father will make the final decision based on what best serves the North."
Sansa sat back, momentarily overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of what she was beginning to understand. The intricate dance of marriages and alliances she had been reading about was not merely about individual matches or personal ambitions, but about the distribution of power throughout the North for decades to come.
"And what of my happiness?" she asked finally, voicing the question that lingered beneath all these political calculations. "Does that factor into any of these considerations?"
Ruyan's expression softened fractionally—not quite a smile, but a momentary lessening of her usual precision. "That," she said, "depends on how you define happiness, Lady Sansa."
She thought then of her mother, of her father. They would never have wanted her to see the world like this—not so early, not so coldly. They would have chosen a lighter path for her if they could. But that world no longer existed. Ruyan was not stealing her innocence—she was showing her where it had already begun to break.
"I used to think it meant marrying a handsome knight or a gallant prince," Sansa admitted, a touch of her old romanticism coloring her voice. "Living in a beautiful castle and having beautiful children."
"And now?" Ruyan prompted.
Sansa considered the question seriously "Now I think… understanding is how you stay whole. Even when you're traded." She looked down at the Go board, with its complex territories and strategic placements. "In knowing my value and using it with purpose, rather than being used without awareness."
Something flashed in Ruyan's eyes—approval, perhaps, or recognition. "There is power in understanding," she agreed, "even when understanding brings no comfort."
"My mother fears I'm losing my innocence," Sansa said quietly. "That you're taking it from me."
"Innocence is the luxury of the protected," Ruyan replied, neither gentle nor harsh but matter-of-fact. "It is beautiful and temporary, like the first snow of winter. It cannot last, and those who cling to it too long are destroyed when reality finally breaks through."
Sansa watched as the princess's hands moved over the board, erasing the complex patterns they had created.
"Why tell me all this?" Sansa asked finally. Ruyan closed the wooden box containing the Go pieces, her movements deliberate and precise. "So you can have an informed choice." She then met Sansa's gaze.
"Now that you know all of this, will you simply be a piece to be moved, an instrument to be claimed? Or be a player where you can claim your own piece."
DOMERIC
Domeric Bolton sat motionless atop his red roan stallion, watching the abandoned mill through the screen of birch trees. The Weeping Water churned nearby, its surface glinting like weathered iron in the late afternoon light. He had chosen this position with care—close enough to observe, far enough to remain undetected.
Six men waited with him, hand-selected from the Dreadfort's most reliable guards. None of Bolton blood, but all Bolton-loyal for generations. Men who understood that some matters required discretion even after they were settled. Steelshanks Walton led them, his weathered face betraying nothing as they watched the scene unfolding at the mill.
Three village elders from surrounding settlements waited further back, summoned as witnesses to what would follow. Their presence had been Domeric's most careful calculation—necessary for legitimacy, yet a significant risk. One that had required a fortnight of meticulous preparation.
Over the past moon, he had assembled the evidence piece by piece. Statements from smallfolk about missing daughters. Ledgers documenting unusual hunts. Dogs trained not to track game, but women. The pattern had emerged with disturbing clarity once he knew to look for it.
"They're coming," Steelshanks murmured, his voice pitched low enough that only Domeric could hear.
Three figures emerged from the treeline opposite their position, two holding struggling shapes between them. Even at this distance, Domeric could identify his half-brother by his broad shoulders and characteristic swagger. Ramsay walked ahead of his companions—two men Domeric had identified as the bastard's closest allies, both with reputations nearly as dark as their master's. Between them, they dragged two young women, bound and hooded.
"Positions," Domeric said quietly.
The men moved with practiced efficiency, spreading into the formation they had rehearsed. No hasty ambush, but a carefully coordinated encirclement. Domeric had left nothing to chance.
He remained still, watching as the scene at the mill unfolded. Ramsay's laughter carried across the clearing, sharp and eager as he ordered one of the women tied to a post. The other was dragged toward the mill door. Domeric could intervene now, but his case would be strongest if the crime was in progress when justice arrived.
The delay was brutal—but necessary. Proof bought at the price of another scream.
When the first woman's cries cut through the autumn air, Domeric raised his hand. The signal rippled through the trees as his men moved forward, emerging from three directions to surround the mill clearing. Domeric himself urged his stallion forward, emerging from the treeline with deliberate visibility.
"Ramsay Snow," he called, his voice clear and carrying. Not raised in anger, but pitched to command. "You stand accused of abduction, rape, and murder."
The reaction was immediate. Ramsay's companions froze, hands moving instinctively toward weapons before stopping at the sight of Bolton men emerging from the trees. Ramsay himself turned slowly, his pale eyes widening momentarily before narrowing with calculation.
"Brother," he said, an insolent smile spreading across his face. "What an unexpected visit. Come to join our hunt?"
"This is no hunt," Domeric replied evenly. "It is a crime. One of many."
He dismounted, handing his reins to the nearest guard. Maintaining precise, measured movements, he approached to within ten paces of Ramsay, maintaining a distance that would give him adequate reaction time should the bastard attempt something desperate.
"Release the women," he ordered, voice still level.
Ramsay's smile didn't break. "You misunderstand what you're seeing."
The men complied. When the hoods were removed, the girls' tear-streaked faces said more than any testimony could.
Domeric gestured, and two of his men led the women away to the village elders.
"Witnesses have come forward," he said. "Seven disappearances over the past year. Distinctive wounds. Your dogs matched to tracks. Parchment with sworn marks."
Ramsay's smile flickered. "Smallfolk blame their betters. Surely a lord understands that."
"I understand patterns. And consequences."
The name Stark never passed his lips. It didn't need to.
"You've overstepped, brother," Ramsay muttered. "Father won't—"
"You are not my kin," Domeric said, voice cutting clean. "You are Ramsay Snow, accused of crimes against the smallfolk under Bolton protection. Nothing more."
The words severed blood in the eyes of the witnesses. No kinslaying. Just law.
"Take them."
His men moved. Ramsay fought, snarling, until his wrists were bound.
"This ends nothing!" he spat. "There will always be—"
"No," Domeric said. "There won't."
He turned to the witnesses. "They were caught in the act. The pattern is proven. The sentence is mine to give."
A block was brought forward. Domeric drew his sword. No ceremony. No words.
"Any last words?"
Ramsay smiled. "He'll never forgive you."
Domeric didn't answer. He stepped forward and swung the blade down through Ramsay's neck—one clean, practiced stroke.
The head hit the dirt. The body slumped.
The girls wept quietly behind the line. The elders bowed their heads. No one asked questions.
"Burn the body," he said. "Scatter the ashes."
Three days later, a box arrived. Inside: a flaying knife. Roose's. No note.
Domeric locked it awaSANSA
The bamboo garden in the godswood had become Sansa's refuge over the past few weeks. Unlike the rest of Winterfell, with its ancient stone and familiar patterns, this space felt like stepping into another world—a small piece of the East nestled within the heart of the North. Water trickled gently over smooth stones, creating a musical backdrop to the rustling of bamboo leaves in the light breeze.
Ruyan knelt before the small stone table, arranging pieces on what Sansa had learned was called a "Go" board—black and white stones placed in a strategic pattern that seemed both artful and deliberate. Unlike the chaotic clash of cyvasse, this game emphasized subtlety and slow encirclement rather than direct assault.
Three days had passed since the tense confrontation with her mother—three days of polite meals, sidelong glances, and measured words. Sansa had continued her lessons with Ruyan, but they had kept to safer topics—Yi Tish poetry, Eastern embroidery techniques, and the proper preparation of jasmine tea. Today, however, Sansa sensed a shift in the air as she took her place opposite the princess.
"You've completed the reading I suggested?" Ruyan asked, not looking up from the board. Her fingers continued to arrange the pieces in a pattern Sansa couldn't decipher.
"Yes, Princess," Sansa replied, setting a leather-bound notebook on the table beside the Go board. "The Northern houses, their current situations, and their heirs."
Ruyan nodded, satisfied. "And what have you learned?"
Sansa hesitated, her mother's warning about getting too involved in politics echoing in her mind. But Lady Catelyn wasn't here, and Sansa's growing curiosity demanded the answers Ruyan alone seemed willing to offer.
"My marriage will shape the North's future," she said at last, the words unfamiliar on her tongue—true, yet somehow incomplete.
Sansa opened her notebook, though she hardly needed to reference it for this conversation.
Ruyan poured the tea slowly, her movements precise. "You've reviewed the houses, their heirs, their resources," she said. "You've read what each alliance might bring to House Stark."
Sansa nodded. "Yes, Princess."
Ruyan looked at her evenly. "Then by that measure—military strength, economic gain, political security—into which house can get more advantage for House Stark"
Sansa hesitated. "House Bolton, they come in with two western Houses, an alliance with them can help heal old wounds with Lady Dustin." she admitted. "But..."
"But the claim to Winterfell they would gain through you," Ruyan finished, her voice neutral. "Yes. Many would whisper it. And what happens if they marry a Karstark or a Manderly instead?"
Sansa blinked, the implications unfolding rapidly. The Boltons would grow stronger—military alliances, wealth, influence—without any Stark anchor to temper it.
"And for which of these futures do you hope, Lady Sansa?" Ruyan asked, her tone revealing nothing of her own thoughts on the matter.
The question caught Sansa unprepared. In all her reading and analysis, she had approached the task as an academic exercise—cataloging strengths, weaknesses, and political implications. She hadn't considered her own preferences in any serious way.
"I... I'm not sure it matters what I hope for," she admitted. "My father will make the final decision based on what best serves the North."
Sansa sat back, momentarily overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of what she was beginning to understand. The intricate dance of marriages and alliances she had been reading about was not merely about individual matches or personal ambitions, but about the distribution of power throughout the North for decades to come.
"And what of my happiness?" she asked finally, voicing the question that lingered beneath all these political calculations. "Does that factor into any of these considerations?"
Ruyan's expression softened fractionally—not quite a smile, but a momentary lessening of her usual precision. "That," she said, "depends on how you define happiness, Lady Sansa."
She thought then of her mother, of her father. They would never have wanted her to see the world like this—not so early, not so coldly. They would have chosen a lighter path for her if they could. But that world no longer existed. Ruyan was not stealing her innocence—she was showing her where it had already begun to break.
"I used to think it meant marrying a handsome knight or a gallant prince," Sansa admitted, a touch of her old romanticism coloring her voice. "Living in a beautiful castle and having beautiful children."
"And now?" Ruyan prompted.
Sansa considered the question seriously "Now I think… understanding is how you stay whole. Even when you're traded." She looked down at the Go board, with its complex territories and strategic placements. "In knowing my value and using it with purpose, rather than being used without awareness."
Something flashed in Ruyan's eyes—approval, perhaps, or recognition. "There is power in understanding," she agreed, "even when understanding brings no comfort."
"My mother fears I'm losing my innocence," Sansa said quietly. "That you're taking it from me."
"Innocence is the luxury of the protected," Ruyan replied, neither gentle nor harsh but matter-of-fact. "It is beautiful and temporary, like the first snow of winter. It cannot last, and those who cling to it too long are destroyed when reality finally breaks through."
Sansa watched as the princess's hands moved over the board, erasing the complex patterns they had created.
"Why tell me all this?" Sansa asked finally. Ruyan closed the wooden box containing the Go pieces, her movements deliberate and precise. "So you can have an informed choice." She then met Sansa's gaze.
"Now that you know all of this, will you simply be a piece to be moved, an instrument to be claimed? Or be a player where you can claim your own piece."
DOMERIC
Domeric Bolton sat motionless atop his red roan stallion, watching the abandoned mill through the screen of birch trees. The Weeping Water churned nearby, its surface glinting like weathered iron in the late afternoon light. He had chosen this position with care—close enough to observe, far enough to remain undetected.
Six men waited with him, hand-selected from the Dreadfort's most reliable guards. None of Bolton blood, but all Bolton-loyal for generations. Men who understood that some matters required discretion even after they were settled. Steelshanks Walton led them, his weathered face betraying nothing as they watched the scene unfolding at the mill.
Three village elders from surrounding settlements waited further back, summoned as witnesses to what would follow. Their presence had been Domeric's most careful calculation—necessary for legitimacy, yet a significant risk. One that had required a fortnight of meticulous preparation.
Over the past moon, he had assembled the evidence piece by piece. Statements from smallfolk about missing daughters. Ledgers documenting unusual hunts. Dogs trained not to track game, but women. The pattern had emerged with disturbing clarity once he knew to look for it.
"They're coming," Steelshanks murmured, his voice pitched low enough that only Domeric could hear.
Three figures emerged from the treeline opposite their position, two holding struggling shapes between them. Even at this distance, Domeric could identify his half-brother by his broad shoulders and characteristic swagger. Ramsay walked ahead of his companions—two men Domeric had identified as the bastard's closest allies, both with reputations nearly as dark as their master's. Between them, they dragged two young women, bound and hooded.
"Positions," Domeric said quietly.
The men moved with practiced efficiency, spreading into the formation they had rehearsed. No hasty ambush, but a carefully coordinated encirclement. Domeric had left nothing to chance.
He remained still, watching as the scene at the mill unfolded. Ramsay's laughter carried across the clearing, sharp and eager as he ordered one of the women tied to a post. The other was dragged toward the mill door. Domeric could intervene now, but his case would be strongest if the crime was in progress when justice arrived.
The delay was brutal—but necessary. Proof bought at the price of another scream.
When the first woman's cries cut through the autumn air, Domeric raised his hand. The signal rippled through the trees as his men moved forward, emerging from three directions to surround the mill clearing. Domeric himself urged his stallion forward, emerging from the treeline with deliberate visibility.
"Ramsay Snow," he called, his voice clear and carrying. Not raised in anger, but pitched to command. "You stand accused of abduction, rape, and murder."
The reaction was immediate. Ramsay's companions froze, hands moving instinctively toward weapons before stopping at the sight of Bolton men emerging from the trees. Ramsay himself turned slowly, his pale eyes widening momentarily before narrowing with calculation.
"Brother," he said, an insolent smile spreading across his face. "What an unexpected visit. Come to join our hunt?"
"This is no hunt," Domeric replied evenly. "It is a crime. One of many."
He dismounted, handing his reins to the nearest guard. Maintaining precise, measured movements, he approached to within ten paces of Ramsay, maintaining a distance that would give him adequate reaction time should the bastard attempt something desperate.
"Release the women," he ordered, voice still level.
Ramsay's smile didn't break. "You misunderstand what you're seeing."
The men complied. When the hoods were removed, the girls' tear-streaked faces said more than any testimony could.
Domeric gestured, and two of his men led the women away to the village elders.
"Witnesses have come forward," he said. "Seven disappearances over the past year. Distinctive wounds. Your dogs matched to tracks. Parchment with sworn marks."
Ramsay's smile flickered. "Smallfolk blame their betters. Surely a lord understands that."
"I understand patterns. And consequences."
The name Stark never passed his lips. It didn't need to.
"You've overstepped, brother," Ramsay muttered. "Father won't—"
"You are not my kin," Domeric said, voice cutting clean. "You are Ramsay Snow, accused of crimes against the smallfolk under Bolton protection. Nothing more."
The words severed blood in the eyes of the witnesses. No kinslaying. Just law.
"Take them."
His men moved. Ramsay fought, snarling, until his wrists were bound.
"This ends nothing!" he spat. "There will always be—"
"No," Domeric said. "There won't."
He turned to the witnesses. "They were caught in the act. The pattern is proven. The sentence is mine to give."
A block was brought forward. Domeric drew his sword. No ceremony. No words.
"Any last words?"
Ramsay smiled. "He'll never forgive you."
Domeric didn't answer. He stepped forward and swung the blade down through Ramsay's neck—one clean, practiced stroke.
The head hit the dirt. The body slumped.
The girls wept quietly behind the line. The elders bowed their heads. No one asked questions.
"Burn the body," he said. "Scatter the ashes."
Three days later, a box arrived. Inside: a flaying knife. Roose's. No note.
Domeric locked it away.
He returned to his ledgers, the ink drying slow beneath his hand.
He had made his move. Not for victory. Just to keep the board from burning.y.
He returned to his ledgers, the ink drying slow beneath his hand.
He had made his move. Not for victory. Just to keep the board from burning.