"The Wolf, the Stag and the Snake" book 1

Chapter 3

CYEL

"Just a little higher," Cyel said to two servants who were hanging a wreath of blue roses around the entrance while she was weaving another.

Everyone in Winterfell had been very busy since the arrival of a crow from the South to announce the imminent visit of the King and his family after the death of the Hand of the King and Lord of the Eyrie, Jon Arryn.

Cyel had never met the Warden of the Est, but she knew that he was the man who took care of her Lord Stark in his youth. Eddard Stark had been sent to the Eyrie at a young age, and Lord Arryn became a father figure to him and Robert Baratheon, who was Lord Stark's closest friend before becoming King. That was a story well known to her ears and the Stark children's.

Cyel couldn't stop feeling sorry for her Lord. She knew what it meant to grow up in a foreign land and yet feel at home. She could just imagine how painful losing an essential part of your past must have felt.

Cyel arrived in Winterfell at the age of four, and even at that time, the vast castle was very busy, even though not for her arrival. Just the morning before Cyel walked through the stone door of Winterfell, Lady Catelyn had given birth to Brandon, the fourth and the sweetest of the Stark children.

She still remembered her first day in the North well, even if she was so young back then. The summer snow covered the field, the cold wind blew against her cheeks, and the light mist gave an almost magical atmosphere to her surroundings.

Everything was so different from Dorne, and yet she could not help but feel herself grown attracted to the North. Maybe it was the landscape or the people, so different from any other that she had met. And even though she was nervous, she felt immediately at home. Her mother told her that it was expected, though.

Her father could have been Prince Oberyn Martell, but Lady Phelya Rosemberg, Cyel's mother, was a noblewoman who belonged to a lower house of the North. Their castle was very far from Winterfell; it was near Brandon's Gift, not so far from the Wall. But still, the Rosemberg House had been very loyal to the Starks since they were Kings in the North.

In your veins flows the blood of the far South and of the far North; do not forget that, her mother always told her. Maybe that was the reason why Cyel had never felt a stranger in the North. Even though she would sometimes think fondly about the welcoming and warm sun of Dorne and her father's embraces.

It hadn't been easy for Oberyn Martell to let Phelya take Cyel North. Even if her father were known for being ruthless and vindictive, he would have given the world for his daughters. Cyel had eight sisters, step-sisters actually, each of them was a Sand. Sand was, in fact, the name given to the bastards of Dorne, like Snow in the North. And since her mother and father had never married, Cyel's name couldn't be Martell.

"Is that alright, lady Sand?" Cyel smiled at the servant girl, Miranda.

"It's perfect." even though she was a Sand and, in fact, a bastard, in Dorne, bastards weren't different from legitimate children. They have rights, and they were included in the line of succession. And even if she wasn't in Dorne, her father was a prince, and that gave her a position in the Seven Kingdoms. That was the reason why they called her Lady.

But her name was not enough to appease her father. Oberyn Martell did not trust the people of the Seven Kingdoms very much because of what had happened to his sister, Elia Martell, during King Robert's Rebellion.

Cyel's aunt, Elia, was Raeghar Targeryen's wife, and she died killed by a man of the Lannisters. Phelya tried to reassure Oberyn that Northerners were different from the people in the South, but he wanted to be sure that his daughter would be treated with respect. Because of this, he proposed an arrangement to the Lords of Winterfell, and if they had accepted, he would have let Cyel go with her mother.