POV: Eddard Stark
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The weirwood bleeds.
It has always bled, but in the dream it bleeds faster. The sap runs down the carved face like red tears, like the tears from the man's eye. The one eye. The other is milk-white, dead. The man stands before the tree, and he is burned. His hair is gone. His scalp is a landscape of scar and iron. He wears a mask that covers half his face, but Ned can see the mouth. It moves.
"You let me burn, Lord Stark."
Ned wakes with his hand on Ice. The greatsword leans against the wall of his solar, cold even in summer. His palm is sweating. A man of the North should not sweat in his own keep.
He rises. The hour is wolf-dark, between midnight and dawn. Winterfell is quiet, but the quiet is wrong. It listens. Outside the window, the godswood is still. No wind. Yet the leaves of the heart tree move.
He dresses. Wool and leather. No mail. He is not at war. Not yet.
The dream has come for five nights. Always the same. A man with half a mask, standing before the weirwood. Sometimes he speaks. Sometimes he only points at Ned with a finger that ends in a black nail. Sometimes there are ravens. Dozens. Hundreds. They cover the branches and watch with eyes like wet stones.
Cat told him, "It is the war. Your mind is still in the South."
He did not tell her the man in the dream calls him by name.
He walks to the godswood. The snow is thin this year, but it crunches. The sound is too loud. Every step is a confession.
The weirwood waits. Its face is the same as in the dream, but the sap is dry. No blood tonight. He puts his hand on the bark. It is warm. Weirwood should not be warm.
"You let me burn, Lord Stark."
The voice is not in his head. It is behind him.
He turns, and Ice is in his hand. He does not remember drawing it.
There is no one. Only the pool, black as a well. Only the branches, empty of ravens. Only the night, empty of answers.
But in the pool, the reflection is wrong. His face is there, yes. Grey hair, beard, tired eyes. But behind him stands another man. Burned. Masked. One eye.
Ned blinks. The reflection blinks. The burned man does not.
He steps back. The water ripples. The second figure shatters into light.
"Ghost," he calls. The direwolf comes from the dark, silent. He is not a pup anymore. He is as tall as Ned's chest, white as the snow he walks on. His red eyes look at the pool, then at Ned, then back at the pool. He growls. Ghost does not growl at nothing.
"You saw him too," Ned says. It is not a question.
In the morning, he sends for Maester Luwin.
The maester comes with ink and parchment. He smells like paper and worry. "My lord?"
"Do the Targaryens have an account with the Iron Bank?"
Luwin blinks. "All the great houses have accounts, my lord. Even in exile. The Bank does not forget."
"Viserys Targaryen. The beggar king. He died in the Dothraki sea. Is that confirmed?"
Luwin hesitates. "Confirmed by word of mouth, my lord. Khal Drogo poured molten gold on his head. The story came from a knight called Jorah Mormont. It reached King's Landing within the year. No body was ever sent, but—"
"But a crown of gold leaves little to send," Ned finishes.
"Just so, my lord."
"Has anyone seen him since? Viserys?"
"No, my lord. Why do you ask?"
Ned looks at the fire. "I dream of a burned man. He says I let him burn."
Luwin's quill stops. "Dreaming of the dead is common, my lord. Especially for men who—"
"He is not dead," Ned says. He does not know why he says it. The words are in his mouth before he thinks them. "Or if he is, he is not gone."
Luwin frowns. "My lord, the mind plays tricks. Grief, guilt—"
"Guilt for what?" Ned's voice is sharper than he intends. "I never met the boy. I fought his father's war, yes. I took his family's throne, yes. But I did not pour gold on his head."
"No," Luwin says slowly. "But you let Robert call it justice. You let the realm call it good riddance. You let a child wander the Free Cities with a knife at his back."
Ned stands. The chair scrapes. "Enough."
Luwin bows. "Forgive me, my lord. I overstep."
"You do." But Ned is not angry at Luwin. He is angry at the weirwood. At the dream. At the truth of it.
After the maester leaves, Ned writes a letter. He does not send it to Robert. He sends it to Pentos. To a merchant who owes House Stark a favor from the Greyjoy Rebellion. The letter is short.
To Magister Oro Tendyris of Pentos,
You told me once that the Free Cities see all. See this for me:
Does Viserys Targaryen, son of Aerys, still walk?
If he does, what name does he use?
Send word by raven. Send it to Winterfell, not King's Landing.
Do this, and your debt to Winterfell is paid.
Eddard Stark
Lord of Winterfell
Warden of the North
He seals it with grey wax. The direwolf press leaves a deep mark.
That night, he does not go to the godswood. He goes to the crypts.
He walks past Lyanna. Past Brandon. Past his father. He stops at the empty tomb. The one they built for him, should he die in the South. The stone likeness of his face looks calmer than he feels.
"Did you know?" he asks the stone. "Did you know we'd make beggars and burn them?"
The stone says nothing. Stones are honest that way.
From the dark, Ghost comes. He carries something. He drops it at Ned's feet.
A feather. Black. Wet. A raven's feather.
Ned picks it up. It is warm.
In the dark, a voice: not the dream's, not his own. A whisper from the tomb, from the stone, from the past.
"The debt comes north, Stark. Put your ledger in order."
He does not sleep after that. He sits in the crypt with Ice across his knees and Ghost at his side, and he waits for morning. For ravens. For answers.
He does not know that in Pentos, a man with an iron mask is already writing his name in a book of blood.
The name is underlined twice.
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Author Note:
Chapter 2 ends with Ned getting pulled into the plot.
Next chapter: POV Daenerys — She hears a rumor in Qarth. A masked man is buying secrets about dragons. And he's asking about her brother's death.
Comment: Who do you think "The Raven" will collect first — Jorah or Illyrio?