A Vow Without Honor

The Kings

Robb

The King in the North.

That was going to take some getting used to, although he'd been telling himself that for nearly a month. Still, every time he heard it, the sound nearly made him jump out of his skin. It was not so much the words as it was the conviction in the voices that spoke it, or shouted it most times. These men truly believed in him with every breath they took.

And the boy who had become a king was absolutely terrified of letting them all down.

Robb sat back in his seat, rubbing his eyes as the words on the war map began to blur.

It had been easier when his father was alive. They'd had a goal: go to King's Landing and free him. Now that he was gone, the war was turning into a complicated affair. None of his sisters were in King's Landing, so far as he had heard, and he doubted the Lannisters would pass on an opportunity to inform him of their valuable hostages.

So, why even head further south? To sack the capital out of vengeance? No one wanted that particular throne less than him.

Should he sack Casterly Rock in the West instead? Give the minstrels a new verse for the Rains of Castamere?

And what about after? He was called the King in the North, but the Riverlands had sworn to him too. When it was all said and done, was he to retreat to Winterfell and leave half his people trapped between Lannister forces?

Robb sighed. He hated looking at all of this objectively. His mother would have cuffed him if she'd heard how casually he tossed his father's death aside. But he was a king now, not a boy playing at war. Emotions were dangerous. Everything had to be a piece on a board, nothing more.

His gaze drifted toward Dragonstone.

It was such a small island that the map barely noted it, but that patch of rock meant more to him than Casterly Rock or King's Landing.

Myra was there.

He felt his hand clench into a fist.

An island. How in the Seven Hells was he supposed to get his army to an island?

If only Theon would return already...

So absorbed in his thoughts, Robb barely noticed the tent flap open. Two figures moved out of the corner of his eye, but his gaze could not be torn from that island.

"Robb!"

Finally glancing up, he noticed his mother at his side, eyes wild with both joy and fear, and a man behind her, dirty and haggard from a long journey. He almost looked like...

"Jory?"

His father's captain smiled, weary but grateful, and gave a small incline of his head. "I suppose it's Your Grace now."

Robb stood slowly, staring at the man as if he had just fallen out of a dream. The last he had set eyes on him, half his family was traveling to King's Landing. To see anyone return from that place was...surreal. It firmly rooted the reality of the situation, dashing any distant hope that somehow everything that had happened in the capital was all a lie.

"How did you escape?" he asked, having no doubt in his mind that Jory would have laid down his life for his father if he had been present.

Jory's face grew solemn, thoughts no doubt mirroring his. "I wasn't in King's Landing when Lord Stark was betrayed, Your Grace. I was with your sister on Dragonstone."

"He's brought a message from Myra," Catelyn added, her voice practically cracking. His mother had not slept well as of late, having no word from any of her daughters.