The wind never stopped in Winterfell. It came down from the high crags of the Frostfangs, swept across the snow-swept hills of the Last River, and curled through the ancient stones of the Stark stronghold like an old ghost too proud to leave. Wulfric Snow learned to listen to that wind and its cold whispers.
He was four years old when the wooden practice blade was placed in his hand by the captain of the guard, Darnel, a squat man with a crooked nose and a tongue sharp enough to skin a boar. "Don't look at it like it's your bloody nursemaid, boy," the man growled. "It's a sword. Treat it like one."
The blade was heavy for his small hands. His wrists ached just holding it, and when Darnel barked at him to strike, he did so. He had already been using the weathered and worn wooden sword he had to swing, and while this one was heavier and larger, he still tried his best. The guards watching chuckled. One even muttered, "Stark blood burned away by wild Umber fire. Boy got all brute strength and no aim."
Wulfric did not cry, nor respond. He struck again. And again. Until the laughter faded into silence, and the lightest trace of unease slipped into Darnel's features.
That night, while the rest of the castle settled into slumber, Wulfric dragged the practice blade too long for his frame back to the yard. He struck the post again and dint stop. His teeth clenched and his arms burned, ragged breathing and soaked clothes. Until his palms blistered, and bloodied, until the stars wept through the sky, until the wind turned his sweat to frost.
He did this each night for a week before Maester Walys found him.
The old man watched from the archway, his breath misting in the moonlight. "You'll break yourself," he said at last, his old and weathered frame protesting the night air.
Wulfric looked over, silver eyes pale in the dark. "Then I'll mend myself stronger."
Maester Walys said nothing, but he returned the next evening, this time with salve for the boy's raw hands and a book beneath his cloak. The bindings were thick with dust, 'The Lives of the Warrior-Kings of the North.'
"If you're to bleed, bleed for more than strength," Walys told him, like a soothing rasp of a caring elder. "Let it carve your mind as well as your muscle." A slight turn of Walys's lips as he ran his old hand through Wulfric's hair before turning to leave the night's embrace.
So began the second half of Wulfric's education an uneasy marriage of sword and scroll. In the day, he trained with Darnel and the keep's older boys, many of whom treated him with disdain. He was too quiet, too tall, too strange. He never cried when struck. Never boasted when he won. Some days he'd emerge from the training yard bloodied, bruised, and gritting his teeth.
At night, he sat in the library with Maester Walys, learning of the Age of Heroes, of the First Men and the Pact, of how Brandon the Builder had raised the Wall. He learned his letters and numbers, read aloud from dusty tomes and sometimes listened to Walys recount tales of his time at the Citadel. He learned that knowledge had a weight all its own. A weight that slowly encompassed him more and more.
Benjen Stark, barely ten and already wild with mischief, grew curious about Wulfric's long hours in the yard and library. At first, he would watch from afar, arms crossed, skeptical. One evening, as Wulfric emerged from the library, eyes tired but bright with thought, Benjen intercepted him.
"You really spend your nights with that old man and his books?" Benjen asked, skeptical but not mocking with an up turn of his lips.
Wulfric nodded. "They teach things swords don't."
Benjen raised a brow. "Like how to bore a man to sleep?"
Wulfric didn't smile, but his tone was dry, and tired. "Better to bore a man and know his thoughts than die not knowing his blade." Words so deep and so far that it was a surprise hearing them from a child so young.
That earned a snort of amusement from Benjen. He began accompanying Wulfric more often, sitting in on a few of Walys's lessons, though he fidgeted and groaned during the longer ones. Still, he listened, occasionally, he even asked questions much to Wulfric's growing amusement and acceptance.
Brandon Stark, when present in Winterfell, kept a distant but steady eye on Wulfric. He did not coddle him or speak much, but there were moments. One morning, after a particularly grueling sparring session, Wulfric found a new practice blade resting against the door to his chamber, well crafted, better balanced for his size, and clearly well-cared for.
There was no note, but Wulfric knew who had left it.
Later that week, Brandon appeared in the yard, leaning against the fence to watch his son spar. After the session, he approached Wulfric quietly.
"You swing with hate, hate far beyond your years pup" Brandon said. "That's good in war, but poor in peace. Learn to swing with purpose."
Wulfric blinked at him. "There's peace in Winterfell?"
Brandon chuckled, clapping a hand on his son's shoulder. "Peace is from family, from those you love and care for and from their happiness."
The castle itself seemed to be watching him. The weirwood in the godswood stood in constant vigil, its red leaves whispering in the breeze. Wulfric began spending time there after training, seated beneath the carved face, eyes closed. He didn't know what he prayed for. Only that something in the old tree understood him in ways the living could not. This was his peace if he could count that, a peace of mind and a resting body to follow.
Even the servants and guards began to shift in their opinions. Where once there were muttered slights and pointed stares, now there was wary respect. He was strange, yes, uncanny even but he trained harder than any boy. Read more than many of the castle's occupants even if with Walys the maester, and never complained.
Winterfell was beginning to mold him not just into a fighter, but into something older, colder, and more enduring.
When Eddard returned from the Vale that spring, he found his bastard nephew a few inches taller and far quieter than he remembered. After a long afternoon walk through the inner yard, he sat with Wulfric in the godswood.
"You look like Brandon, you know," Ned said, watching the leaves stir.
Wulfric shook his head. "Brandon smiled more."
"Aye. He did… but you've got more in common with him at least in your face."
They sat in silence for a long while. When they rose to leave, Wulfric looked back at the tree.
"I want to protect this place," he said.
"Then become the sword that guards it" Ned replied. "Just don't let the sword guide you more than you guide it."
That night, as the wind howled like wolves across the battlements, Wulfric stood at the window of his chamber, training sword in hand. His fingers were bandaged, his muscles sore. But his eyes, those silver eyes burned with something deeper than ambition.
Winter was always coming, and Wulfric Snow was learning how to meet it with every step he made. A rare smile crossed his face as he looked out the window and over the sprawling buildings and snow below.
"This… this is my home."