Chapter 19 — The Dreadfort Lord's Dilemma
Harrenhal — The Kingspyre Tower
The very name carried an ill omen—
as though the charred wails of Black Harren and his sons still clung to the stones,
their hatred forever woven into the mortar of this massive fortress built at the cost of the Riverlands' lifeblood.
Behind a desk of dark, lacquered oak sat Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort,
its red sheen so deep it looked like old blood dried and polished smooth.
Since the war began, this room had traded masters again and again.
House Hoare had barely lifted a sword before Tywin Lannister swept them aside,
and in the wake of that swift conquest, the Lion had briefly ruled from this chamber.
The desk—worth a minor fortune—
and the gilded candelabrum in the corner, its base carved in the likeness of a roaring lion,
were remnants of that short reign.
Now Roose Bolton presided here instead—
and his presence added something new to Harrenhal's already suffocating gloom:
a chill like the crypts beneath Winterfell, a silence like frozen breath.
The room was immaculate—too immaculate.
The kind of obsessive tidiness that made the skin crawl.
Much like the man himself.
Behind that pale, veiled flesh, one could never glimpse the slightest flicker of true feeling.
Roose Bolton moved with mechanical precision, like a device crafted of knives and gears,
incapable of warmth, incapable of error.
The air tasted of old parchment and dried ink.
Roose closed the book he had been reading—
its cover read plainly:
"The Seven Kingdoms' Most Cursed: Harrenhal and Its Lords."
The pages recorded, in great detail, every house that had claimed the castle
since the Conquest of Aegon I Targaryen.
What astonished Roose most was not the list—
but its brevity.
Not even three centuries had passed,
and nine houses had already possessed Harrenhal.
Nine houses…
and save for the exiled remnants of House Hoare,
none had come to a peaceful end.
Every record seemed to confirm the same unsettling conclusion:
Harrenhal was cursed.
Legends claimed that Black Harren
mixed mortal blood into the mortar
to hasten the castle's construction—
and thus the fortress was born tainted,
a monument chained to misfortune.
Some swore that on certain nights
the servants could still hear Harren and his sons
screaming in the flames that consumed them.
Roose Bolton let out a thin, humorless exhale.
"Hmph."
His long, pale fingers brushed the polished surface of the desk—
an absent gesture of disdain.
The Dreadfort Lord did not believe in curses.
The flayed-skin banners of his house had seen to that.
To Roose, such tales were nothing more than consolations
for the weak and the vanquished—
stories told by men too afraid to face the truth of their own inadequacy.
In his philosophy, the world was brutally simple:
Strength rules.
The weak are eaten.
Survival is merit.
Power is proof.
Those who could not hold their lands,
could not maintain their power,
could not keep their own blood safe—
They were not victims of ghosts or hexes.
They were merely unworthy.
The Boltons had survived in the unforgiving North for millennia, crossing blades with House Stark again and again—not through superstition, but through calculation, decisiveness, and ruthless patience.
Not ghosts.
Not gods.
Never that.
He tapped the desk once more before setting aside the parchment detailing grain consumption and supply routes.
Even such a mundane gesture radiated an elegance that seemed out of place here in the rugged North—
an elegance more often found in the drawing rooms of Highgarden or Oldtown.
Yet now, upon that calm, unchanging face,
a rare ripple disturbed the still waters.
A faint furrowing of the brow—
so small one could easily miss it—
yet undeniably real.
For the moment, affairs had indeed become…
"troublesome."
Roose leaned back in his chair, narrowing his pale eyes.
A broad-shouldered figure surfaced in his thoughts—
the young man adored as though he were the very incarnation of the Old Kings of Winter:
Robb Stark — King in the North.
Even Roose Bolton—
who placed cold logic above all—
could not deny the boy's brilliance in war.
Bold in his maneuvers, quick in his decisions—
since marching south, he had won battle after battle,
so swiftly that—briefly—
some believed the Baratheon crown itself might fall.
But talent on the battlefield did not make one a statesman.
For none could have predicted
that the Young Wolf would tear apart his alliance with House Frey
over a woman—
an inconsequential girl at that.
It was more than betrayal.
It was political suicide.
And militarily? Strategically?
The blunder bordered on catastrophic.
House Frey held the Twins, the most vital crossing of the Green Fork.
Lose their support, and the North's supply lines and communications were strangled in an invisible chokehold.
With one foolish act,
Robb Stark had pushed a valuable ally into the arms of his enemies—
a strategic cost far worse than a lost battle.
Roose Bolton had tried time and again to discern
what madness possessed the boy to orchestrate his own ruin.
It was baffling.
Now, with Moat Cailin held by ironborn raiders—
a poisoned nail driven into the only land route between North and South—
the situation worsened.
Had Robb kept the Freys on his side,
the North might still have been supplied from the Twins.
But now?
The North's armies—Bolton's included—
were cut off entirely from home.
They marched under foreign skies,
crushing foes and burning towns—
but without roots, without supply, without relief.
A great army,
victorious in every battle,
yet slowly losing the war.
It felt, Roose mused,
as though they were trapped inside a finely crafted coffin—
safe for now,
but with the air growing thin.
And then there was Catelyn Tully,
whose judgment had been clouded by grief and motherly love—
She had released Jaime Lannister.
The most valuable prisoner in all Seven Kingdoms—
a bargaining chip that could have bent Tywin Lannister himself to the negotiating table.
House Stark, Roose thought wryly,
was nothing if not fertile soil for calamity.
The thought of the Kingslayer made his brow throb;
he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
He had not ordered Vargo Hoat and his Brave Companions to hunt Jaime.
But the sellsword had taken it upon himself to march out anyway—
without reports, without permission.
Roose Bolton did not trust that greedy, treacherous Essosi brute—
yet for the moment, he lacked the time to tighten the leash.
Later, he promised himself.
Once matters stabilize.
He slid open a drawer,
glancing briefly at the sealed envelope bearing the crimson lion stamped into the wax.
As he pondered contingencies,
footsteps echoed down the corridor—
brisk, armored, familiar.
He didn't need to look up to know who it was.
When at last he raised his eyes,
the stony countenance of Steelshanks Walton stood in the doorway—
mail shirt scarred by campaigns,
greaves battered,
gaze sharp.
"My lord."
The voice was low, efficient—
stripped of excess.
"We've found the Kingslayer."
"Oh?"
Roose Bolton's pale brows rose a fraction,
surprise flickering behind expressionless eyes.
His thin lips moved with dry irony:
"So Hoat finally proved himself useful."
Walton stiffened.
"N-no, my lord. Not Hoat."
The hardened soldier—normally so terse—seemed oddly unsettled.
He struggled for words, as though unsure how to convey what he had seen.
After a long, awkward moment,
he swallowed and tried again:
"Better you see it with your own eyes, my lord.
They're waiting… at the gate."