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Then.
Catelyn Stark had as many regrets as she did tears.
It was now, only after it was over, that she allowed herself to bathe in the grief that had drowned her for so long. She longed for the comforts of Riverrun, of the soft, gentle tug of the water playfully splashing at her feet. She longed for the sweet, summer taste of rain pouring like the gods had revealed their wrath.
Each tear that fell, splattering onto the ground like blood - (like Robb’s blood, her child, her first child) – served as a reminder of her child. Her eldest son. The crown gleamed mockingly where it lay in the mud.
Before, a wrath so furious had engulfed her, filled her with a fire that raged inside her soul, devouring everything in its path, yet remained trapped behind her icy eyes. If only, she thought desperately, if only I could have done something… stopped it…
The rain was a deluge, a cacophony of sound as she sank to the ground.
Hands sunk into the mud, the dirt covering her brittle fingers as she clutched at the earth. If she stayed here, she thought wildly, she could stay a part of the ground… be absorbed into the gentle darkness along with her son. I am stained, she thought, stained with the past and stained with blood and oh I cannot return, but oh, how I long to. What would it be like to see Ned again?
But the winds howled at her back, a furious direwolf on the hunt, and she straightened, Tully blue dress stained with mud. I must be strong, she reminded herself. There was one task left to complete.
“Mother give me strength,” she whispered.
The wind answered in a silent reply.
Bran and Rickon, she thought despairingly, dead. Sansa and Arya both missing. Robb… Ned… The river threatened to overwhelm her, the banks of her grief falling away as a bitter hollowness engulfed her.
Here is what Catelyn knew: she should be dead.
She was dead. Or at least, she thought she was. There had only been the dreary, unending cold…
And the dark.
And then she’d returned, and suddenly, it was only bitter revenge that was worth living this half-life for.
It was revenge that had motivated her at first. Revenge and a crown. What could be sweeter than revenge against the lions that had torn apart her children? But the revenge had burned out, like the last husks of dying embers as they battled the wind. And in its place was an icy, implacable grief. Bony fingers touched at her face, and she realised with a start that they were her own. Her nails were too sharp, she thought idly, stroking her hair again and again, the red faded from the shadowed clouds. Ned loved her hair…
It stopped raining.
She knelt there, a bastardised version of prayer as she closed her eyes. If only she could cry… if only the tears would run out…
But there were no more tears to give to the soft earth.
It was as if the river had run dry, so suddenly did her grief pause. It did not stop, for nothing could do that, but instead gave way to the stone-cold anger that did nothing to quell the tempest growing inside of her.
Stoneheart.
A chill descended over the clearing. The trees were silent. The river holding its very breath for her decision.
There was an answer to her grief. An obvious scheme. A plot to tear apart the Lannisters from root and stem. She felt it in her bones.
Here was something that Catelyn should not have known yet knew it anyway with damning certainty: Jon Snow was dead, yet Jon Snow was alive.
A chance, she thought wildly, a chance to avenge her children. She had been foolish, Catelyn realised this now, in failing to see past her fear. What was fear in the face of death? What was fear of a child compared to mourning one?
Perhaps… she thought… he would help, she knew that with certainty. It was too late to heal the scar she knew she had caused from her disdain, too late to devote herself fully to her promise – oh she had sworn that she would love him if only he would live – but she would see this son of Ned’s live. See her children avenged, a Stark returned to Winterfell to take up his brother’s crown.
Before she met the cold, dark earth, there was a regret she could smother over, like a bandage over a festering wound.
Jon Snow was the answer.
(She pushed her resentment for the woman that had captured Ned’s heart so completely he refused to say her name. She pushed down the years of fear and resentment. She pushed down the image of Ned that rose in Jon’s place. Oh, she knew she had spent years hating him. A child. But every time she thought she could love him she would be reminded that he was not hers.)
(He looked so much like his father.)
So, she rose, grief sheltered in the depths of her heart, and accompanied only with the hollow crown of her son’s, stepped forwards towards the North.
Now.
“There – there- is someone asking for you at the gates, Lord Commander,” the black brother stuttered.
Jon refused to look at him. He refused to look up from where he sat, sword resting upon his thighs as he ignored the hunger that consumed him.
He was always hungry these days. Only executing the mutineers had helped, and he had fought not to break from his stern visage with glee as they dangled there, like the living dead itself.
(He knew, had he wanted to, he could have ordered them return to this desolate life. Forced them to dance upon his command. For death had banked the raging fire that had burned so brightly within him. Death had smothered the potential to burn the very land to ash, to end the eternal winter that Jon knew was encroaching.)
“Send them away,” he ordered, fingers gently hovering over the gleaming metal, “I told you I was not to be disturbed.”
The boy – Jon cared not for his name – squeaked, fleeing the room.
It was only then that Jon felt it, like snow settling over his stone heart.
A cold smile flitted over his face even as he strode out of the room, black cloak trailing like death in his wake.
The courtyard below was silent. The snow fell softly like ash, smothering the men hidden amongst the shadows. Even the wind was hushed, an interloper at a pivotal moment. This, Jon thought suddenly, the words clear and sharp within his mind, would change the very course of the future.
It was a sobering thought.
Each step down the rickety, wooden step felt like one step closer to the inescapable death that had already encompassed him once.
He ignored the looks. Ignored the bodies swaying in the wind, a warning to all the traitors who still lingered in the shadows that he would not tolerate further betrayal. Allowing his thoughts to wonder, he smiled slightly, teeth too sharp for a mortal mouth. The remaining men averted their eyes.
Undead. They whispered among the quiet ice. Traitor. Bastard.
Death.
Jon closed his eyes as his foot hit the floor with a thud.
(They were there, at the back of his mind. An army so vast that if he loosened his grip for even a moment, they would come swarming like the inevitable tide, encroaching upon the final defence that Brandon the Builder ever enforced. And oh – he wanted so desperately to release them, to fill the pain and diet his hunger for the bloody revenge upon those Southrons who murdered his family – but it was not yet time. Not yet.)
Icy blue eyes opened.
Catelyn Stark was as unforgiving as she had been as the stony figure of his childhood. Her hair, usually braided back in a Riverland style that Jon had so often seen reflected in Sansa’s, was unbound, cascading like a river of blood down her back.
She was utterly alone. No horse, no companion. Nothing to announce she was anything but a smallfolk woman who had lost her way. Except for her composure. As steely as it was in Winterfell.
Jon stopped walking.
Suddenly, anger flushed through him. How could she have lived? How could she have lived, and Robb had died? And Arya. And Bran and Rickon. Even Sansa, Jon thought suddenly, oh how he would have loved to see Sansa one more time.
But they were all dead. All of them. Taken and tormented by their enemies.
And as he looked into those stony eyes, he realised why she had come to him. Despite all the disdain, the vast chasm that lay between them, he knew that they were bound eternally by death and by blood.
Her eyes were ice. A bastardised reflection of his own.
“Lady Stark,” Jon said mockingly, “I would offer you a warm welcome but alas, this far north, there is only ice.”
She smiled. A cold, cruel smile, even as the men around them, gathered in a circle, torches blazing brighter and brighter as the night encroached upon the castle.
“Jon Snow,” her voice low but still ringing across the hallways, “perhaps ice is what I came to find.”
A raised eyebrow. He knew, of course. And so did she, but this farce of the play that men perform must continue for the silent watchers gathered.
“Indeed?” he asked neutrally, “and why have you come?”
“Winter is coming,” she said simply, and that motto… Jon’s heart hurt for a moment, as much as ice can hurt, as a sharp longing for home pierced him.
They studied each other for a long moment.
The silence remained still, even Ghost’s howls, a solitary figure slinking out of the shadows, made no sound.
The snow continued falling.
Are you certain? He wanted to ask. Are you certain? If she was, then he would do so. Even if she was not, he imagined he would do so anyway despite days of keeping the cold at bay.
Even as he looked at her, looked through her, he knew the answer reflected in her stern visage.
“Yes,” Jon acknowledged finally, “I believe we should take this inside, my lady.”
She did not smile, but her eyes reflected her amusement as she strode, as regally as any queen Jon admitted begrudgingly, into the secrets of the Night’s Watch.
His rooms were larger than most, the fire burnt to embers, dusting the room with its smoky scent. The walls were harsh stone. Unforgiving in their nature yet a proven shelter to Jon from the cold. Not that he needed much shelter anymore. Now, the sturdy wooden door’s lock was useful in only keeping out the mutineers.
Not that they would try again.
Ghost stared at him, red eyes meeting blue, from where he had settled on the bed. He was curled up on the furs, but Jon was not fooled by the relaxing picture he painted. Barely restrained anger fuelled the direwolf, an echo of his own.
“I heard what had happened,” Catelyn Stark said simply, “I was sorry to hear of your betrayal.”
“They regretted it.”
He sat down on the chair, staring into the dying embers that flickered as he adjusted his vision. Lady Stark remained standing.
“I’m sure they did.” A pause, before her icy voice softened into something more resembling the flowing river upon stone, “Robb wanted to make you heir, you know. Before he died.”
Jon’s hands clenched in his lap.
“The Lannisters will pay for it thousandfold.” He hissed darkly.
He would see the Lannisters dead. Their line obliterated until even their name faded from history. Just one more conquest for the Starks. The remaining Lannister bastards would die first, Jon thought savagely, their mother having to watch, as Catelyn Stark had to, as they were butchered and killed in front of her eyes. Then Jaime Lannister would die, slowly and painfully. Perhaps Ghost would want a meal, he mused. He always favoured live prey. Then Cersei Lannister last. And then… well there were plenty of Freys left alive.
“I would see that done,” and oh, the darkness in Catelyn Stark’s eyes matched his own, “and you have the power to see that done, I know you do Jon Stark.”
Jon started; shock ridden across his fair features.
“Robb legitimised you,” she said softly, finally sitting gracefully opposite him, “he made you heir after Bran and Rickon…” A pause, “I warned him against him, I told him that bastards were grasping creatures and it would deny the girls their own right to Winterfell, but he would not be deterred.”
“You are not my redemption,” Lady Stark told him, eyes impassive, “I cannot change the regrets that I hold. But we both loved your father, and we both loved my children. For them, this will work. For them, I will do this.”
Ghost padded to his feet, and Jon absentmindedly stroked his fingers through the coarse fur, a comforting touch that with a pang he realised he craved desperately.
“My lady,” he tried to interrupt, but her voice overruled his own.
“You must take up the crown as well,” she stated, “Robb bequeathed it to you, it passes to you as the only child of Ned left alive. He wanted this. My son wanted this,” her voice rose, passionate as it had not been since the cold, “and you must take it.”
Jon laughed, a harsh, bitter laugh like steel.
“I bear no love for you, my lady,” Jon told her honestly, remembering years of cold disdain and dislike, “but you were loved by those I loved, and so I agree to this. I will not deny that my ambition has often desired what you give me so freely, but I would not take it for the love of my family. But for revenge… I would gladly take it. You know of what you ask?”
He knew already she did but just to be certain…
“I do.” Catelyn Stark answered firmly.
“Then I will do it,” he said with finality, “I will raise this army. There are remnants of those loyal to the Stark cause that will perhaps rally to us. But the dead will also obey me. And then winter will arrive and cover the land with its cold, bony fingers until warmth is just a memory.”
“And our enemies will never know anything but the cold again,” she agreed.
The embers in the fire died a slow, painful death, mourning the last light that the land would ever see. Night had fallen truly now. A harsh night, the glow from the torches barely illustrating the deepening gloom. Jon knew with certainty that there would be no dawn.
“I loved Robb,” and here Jon allowed the grief to flood through his words, “I loved my siblings, I loved my father. But they are dead and buried and there is no hope for resurrection. Not for them. They died too brutally or too far from my power to grasp them from the clutches of death. I did not realise until I died the role that I must play in this performance. Winter is coming. Winter is always, inevitably approaching and for years I believed the dead to be an evil force. But now, they are a tool to diet our revenge and I will use them gladly in the name of those we loved.”
Ghost padded over to Catelyn, and she smiled slightly as he sniffed her fingers. Perhaps, Jon thought with a terrifying sorrow, she was remembering Grey Wind, and how, like Jon, he was so intimately connected with Robb. One soul…
“Call them,” she insisted, the deep, immortal grief present in her eyes and Jon knew that if one were to step into the chambers now, they would see an identical expression upon his face.
She pulled something out of her cloak then, and Jon resisted the urge to lean forwards.
A bronze crown gleamed in the dim light, an entrancing siren’s call that he had resisted his whole life. Now he was so close…
It should still be Robb, He thought. He knew that. He wanted the crown, yes, had desired respect and titles his whole life, standing in the shadows of his trueborn siblings. But… but he wanted his brother more. Robb, he thought wildly, where have you gone? I called for you and you could not answer me. Brother…
He knelt, never wavering as he did so, and she stared at him for a long while. This woman who had hated him for so long and yet remained the only one left who truly knew him.
Slowly, ever so slowly, bony fingers wrapped around the crown, and he watched the floor with detachment as he placed it upon his head. It fit perfectly among his dark curls.
Robb, he thought quietly, I will avenge you.
And if he lost the last of his humanity, that last spark of hope that still flickered like the embers in the ash, because of this? He thought. Well, it would be a price well paid at least.
So closed his eyes and called upon the dead. And when the king rose, the dead rose with him.
(Winter had come).