𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 || Cregan Stark

15 | A Son for a Son

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A S O N F O R A S O N

-

The dawn has long settled along the grounds surrounding Winterfell.

Viserra allowed the fire to die out. Now, the shadows seem to seep along every wall in her room.

She sits motionless on the hard, wooden bed and stares into the darkness. Her fingers pull nervously on one another, tearing the cubicles. Endlessly seething. Endlessly dwelling.

She has wrapped a heavy cloak over her shoulders. The fabric is a dark crimson. A familiar grace.

She draws the fabric closer to herself, soon rising to her feet and pulling the air from her face.

The sky above Winterfell is dark, a blanket of stars spread wide across the heavens, and the moon casts a pale, haunting glow over the land below.

Inside the halls of the keep, it is eerily quiet.

She will have to be quick.

As she steps out of her room, closing the door behind her, her footsteps are soft against the stone floor. She moved along the corridors with practised ease, her gaze wandering through the heavy-set dark laid out before her.

Her thoughts are a whirl of strategy and longing, an aching pull of things unfinished. Yet there is no room for hesitation. The longer she stays, the more the tendrils of the North wrap around her, suffocating her resolve.

Karnax will not be far away. He lingers in the woods outside the keep, waiting for her.

He'll wait no longer.

Her steps quicken. She knows her path well enough. Her breath comes shallow, her heartbeat a steady drum in her chest as she navigates her way through the darkened halls. She moves with a blend of determination and stealth. The silence is almost palpable, save for the distant, occasional creak of the castle settling into the night.

As she reaches the great hall, she pauses, casting a wary glance around. The feasting tables are abandoned now, their remnants scattered and forgotten. The coldness of the stone floor seeps through her boots as she moves quickly to the large wooden doors, pushing them open just enough to slip through.

The cold air outside is a sharp contrast to the warmth she left behind. Viserra pulls her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she slips through the shadowed entrance of Winterfell. The crisp night air bites at her skin, but she hardly notices. The stars above are bright and unfeeling, their light casting long, haunting shadows over the snow-covered grounds.

The castle's silhouette recedes behind her, swallowed by the darkness.

She moves with purpose, her boots crunching softly on the fresh snow. Each step is measured, deliberate. The weight of the journey ahead bears down on her, a constant reminder of the urgency driving her forward.

A growing heaviness spreads through her. From chest to head.

It is no longer fury, she realises. It is dread.

When Luke took Aemond's eye, the Queen had wept and angered and wailed.

An eye for an eye, she had demanded, as though the exchange of pain could somehow balance the scales of justice.

The King had refused. The court refused.

Visery did not view his children with Alicent as his own. He was indifferent to the bitterness coiling in their blood. Indifferent to the fury hewn into their bones.