The cold always clung to Harwin's cloak longer than anyone else's. Even now, as we stepped into the dim light of a roadside tavern near the outpost, he didn't shiver. The man wore frost like second skin.
The innkeeper knew him. Didn't smile—just nodded, slid two mugs onto the counter, and said, "You'll want the dark one. Stronger. For the road."
Harwin gave a quiet thanks, and we took a corner seat by the fire.
The tavern smelled of pine smoke, old ale, and hard meat. A hound snored in the corner. The kind of place where men remembered their sorrows but never dared speak them.
I didn't touch my drink. I just stared into the mug, watching the ripples settle while Harwin drank slow, like the bitterness soothed something old in him.
"You ever lose someone?" he asked suddenly.
I flinched. "Back home? A few friends. But it wasn't like this. Not blood in the mud."
Harwin didn't nod or frown. He just stared into the hearth. "My brother died ten years ago. In the North. On this same road, not far from Moat Cailin."
I turned to him, surprised.
"He was a caravan guard too. Like me. Only better with a spear. Taller. Smarter. Didn't speak as much. He was guarding a grain run from Torrhen's Square to the Neck. They were ambushed near a dried-up creekbed. Raiders came down like ghosts. Took everything. Burned the carts."
He took another slow sip.
"I found him a day later. Or what was left. We never found the ones who did it. No justice. Just wind and ash."
He leaned back, eyes half-lidded. "I took his place in the next caravan. Same company. Same cloak. Told myself I'd protect what he couldn't."
A long silence stretched between us. The fire cracked softly.
"Is that why you came with us?" I asked. "To guard merchants like him?"
He nodded faintly. "Every cart we lose, it's him again. Every boy who dies with a blade in hand—it's him again."
I couldn't speak. I had no wounds like that. No brother slain. No frozen road lined with ghosts. I had only the guilt of watching and doing nothing.
Harwin turned his gaze on me. "You're not from here. Anyone can tell that. But I've seen the way you look at the world. You still think it can be changed. That's rare."
I scoffed. "Change it? I can't even control what I'm allowed to do in it."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
I looked down. My palm clenched beneath the table, the one that once summoned berries from nowhere and changed numbers like a dream. The cheat engine. My cheat engine.
But it wasn't a god's gift.
It was a cruel joke.
Gold that wasn't gold. Food that spoiled if it sat too long. No steel. No men. No castle walls.
Just swampberries.
Swampberries.
I had tried again last night—tapping into the engine, focusing hard, willing something new to come. Wood for construction. Stone slabs. Even rope or nails.
Nothing.
Only the berries. Always the berries.
And now I wanted to scream.
Because how could I build a home? How could I take Moat Cailin and raise a banner of my own, when all I could summon was fruit? When others had swords and keeps and histories etched into the bones of their land?
"You're a First Man like no other." That's what I told myself.
But what use was being first if you didn't even have a foundation?
"I'm trying to build something," I finally muttered. "Something that will last. A real home. Not a roof over my head, but a place people remember. Like the First Men did."
Harwin looked at me a long time. "Then you'll need more than hope. You'll need fire. And steel. And pain."
I swallowed.
"I've got plenty of the last."
Later that evening, a courier from the Winterfell outpost arrived. He didn't waste words.
"Lord Rickard Stark requests a witness from the Bogwater caravan. The boy. The quiet one."
Harwin rose from his stool. "He's not a fighter."
"Not asking for a fighter," the soldier said. "Just someone who saw what happened."
Harwin glanced at me. "You'll be fine. Just speak truth."
I nodded, heart thudding against my ribs.
The road to Winterfell was shorter than I imagined.
And yet when the great walls rose before me, they looked like the bones of a god.
The grey stone was old—older than time itself, older than the names carved into its towers. Frost kissed every crevice. The gates yawned open like the mouth of a giant wolf, and above them, the carved direwolf banner swayed in the wind, not fierce but eternal.
I stepped forward like a dreamwalker, slow and dazed.
Even the air changed.
It smelled of snow, steel, and smoke—but behind it all was something deeper. Something ancient.
I paused just inside the archway, eyes wide, jaw slack.
"Winterfell," I whispered.
The weight of its name settled into my bones.
Words were etched into the stones. Runes faded with centuries. I could almost hear voices whispering through the walls—battles spoken in silence, lords remembered in the chill.
It wasn't just a castle.
It was memory.
"Boy," a voice coughed behind me.
I jolted. A guard in dark grey armor stood beside me, amused. "You're not the first to lose your breath at the gate."
"Sorry," I muttered, face flushing. "It's… bigger than I expected."
"Aye. That it is. Come."
He led me past courtyards and towers, barracks and forges. The snow was thin, the ice crunching beneath our boots. Every guard we passed looked sharp and quiet.
Eventually, we reached a stone chamber near the training yard.
"Wait here," the man said. "The master-at-arms or the maester will come for you."
I nodded and stood still, the cold sinking into my boots.
Outside the window, Winterfell stood firm. Timeless.
And I, a boy with nothing but stolen gold and a pocket full of berries, had just walked into the heart of the North.