Winterfell rose around him, ancient and cold, its grey walls standing as they had for thousands of years. Smoke curled from the chimneys, mingling with the bite of morning frost. Marcus—no, Ned Stark now—walked the courtyard with his cloak pulled tight against his shoulders. His stride was steady, commanding, though every step reminded him that this was not the body he had been born with.
He had spent hours the night before testing his senses. He could hear the faintest whispers of servants across the keep, the scratch of quills in Maester Luwin's chambers. The scents of hearth fire, steel, horse, bread, and blood layered upon one another until he had to force himself to breathe slowly, to focus. His new body throbbed with restrained power—his wolf, his Lycan, his Alpha essence—kept caged beneath his skin.
Hide it, he reminded himself. Survival first. Strength in shadows. If they don't know, they can't fear.
Robb was training in the yard with Jon, swords clashing in the crisp air. Arya darted around them with a wooden stick, her laughter sharp as she struck at her brothers. Bran watched, eyes bright with boyish envy. Sansa sat with Septa Mordane, her expression patient but her fingers twisting in her skirts. Rickon tugged at Old Nan's arm, demanding a story.
His family. His pack.
The thought sent a strange warmth through him, but also the predator's instinct to claim, to protect, to change. He had the power to remake them, to bind them to him in ways even blood could not. But that would come in time. Slowly. Carefully.
At supper that evening, Catelyn studied him across the table. She had always known her husband as a man of few words, grave and steady as the heart of the North. But something in his gaze unsettled her—something sharper, hungrier.
"You seem…different," she said softly once the children had gone. "Since you rose yesterday morning, it's as though there's a fire in you I have not seen before."
Ned met her eyes, the weight of both men—Marcus Kane and Eddard Stark—measuring his answer. "Perhaps I see more clearly now. The South is a pit of vipers. Winter is coming. We must be stronger, Catelyn. All of us."
Her hand stilled on the table. "Stronger how?"
He almost told her then—about the wolf under his skin, the power to transform her, to transform them all. But patience was a soldier's weapon. "By being ready for anything," he said instead.
That night, when the keep had gone quiet, he slipped from their bed and down into the godswood. Moonlight spilled through the weirwood's red leaves, casting silver across the face carved into its trunk. He knelt before it, not in prayer but in thought.
And then, for the first time, he let go.
The change ripped through him like fire and ice colliding. Bones cracked, muscles swelled, skin stretched. Fur burst across his body, black as night. His jaw elongated into a snarling muzzle, claws curved from his hands. His senses exploded outward—the scurrying of mice beneath the earth, the wings of an owl in the tower, the steady breathing of every soul within Winterfell.
The Lycan stood beneath the weirwood, massive, terrifying, silent. The Stark sigil had always been the direwolf, but this—this was the truth now.
Marcus—Ned—howled. Low, guttural, restrained. The trees trembled with it.
And in that moment, he knew his path.
By dawn, he had decided. His powers could never be revealed. If they were, gods and men alike would come for him and his family.
Leave no witness. That was the rule. The first law of his Pack.
At breakfast, he watched his children laugh and squabble, watched Jon's quiet reserve, Robb's pride, Arya's restless energy. He saw in each of them potential—not just as Starks, but as wolves. With Leah Clearwater's gift now flowing in his blood, he could bind them, synchronize them, make them unstoppable.
But not yet. He needed time. Training. Secrecy.
Only a trusted few could be transformed at first—his children, perhaps Catelyn, perhaps Jon. But they would have to learn control. If even one of them revealed what they were, Winterfell would drown in fire and suspicion.
That day, he summoned Jon to the training yard after the others had gone. The boy came quickly, sword at his side, uncertainty in his eyes.
"You wished to see me, Father?"
Ned studied him. Jon Snow—his bastard in name, but in truth his blood and bone. Always the outsider, always yearning to belong. Marcus could feel the wolf in him already, even before the change.
"You fight well," Ned said, circling him. "But skill with a blade is not enough. A man must have discipline. A leader must have command. Tell me, Jon—what do you want most?"
Jon blinked, startled by the question. "To serve. To prove myself worthy."
Ned's lips curled into the faintest smile. "Good. That hunger will serve you."
He did not change him then. Not yet. But he saw the fire in Jon's eyes, the readiness to follow. Jon would be among the first.
The days passed, and with each dawn, Ned tested the edges of his power in secret. His healing was near instant; cuts closed in seconds, bruises vanished before the sun set. His senses grew sharper, his reflexes faster. He sparred with Robb and Jon, holding back yet still overwhelming them.
Maester Luwin noted his renewed vigor, calling it "the blood of the North running hot." Ned said nothing.
But already the raven had come from King's Landing. Robert Baratheon was riding north. Soon, he would ask Ned to be Hand of the King. And the road to the South—the road to his supposed death—would begin.
Only this time, the wolf would not go meekly to the slaughter.
This time, he would go with fangs bared, a pack at his side, and a rule etched in blood:
Leave no witness.