Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you. The wolf blood, my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it and my brother Brandon more than a touch.

George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

The day I learned Brandon was to marry Catelyn Tully, though. . . there was nothing sweet about that pain. He never wanted her, I promise you that. He told me so, on our last night together. . . But Rickard Stark had great ambitions too. Southron ambitions that would not be served by having his heir marry the daughter of one of his own vassals.

George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

He did not know by what instinct he rode the Rills that afternoon, his horse's hooves slapping against the muddy eddies of water, the sky a vast chasm above his head. It was perhaps by force of habit than anything else—after all, he had known these lands long enough. He had known her long enough. She was in the godswood, waiting for him, lovely as ever, her dark eyes bold and bright and a mischievous smile curling on her mouth.

"Brandon," she drawled and her smile was as wicked as the first day he had met her.

"Barbrey," he returned, mustering whatever last remnants of mirth were left to him. Brandon was an unusually fine actor, performing for the world what he could never be in private, what he could only be in front of Barbrey. His perfected exterior deteriorated under her emboldened scrutiny, but even then he could not bring himself to confess I am betrothed, betrothed to Catelyn Tully. A Southern girl, and I'm never getting out of it.

She sensed that something was amiss immediately. She rose from her seat in the cradle of the roots of the tree, regarded him with dark and discerning eyes. "What's wrong?"

He laughed scoffingly, bit his lip so hard he tasted blood and looked at the ground. The ground was thick with hoarfrost from the recent snowstorm, but a beetle uncannily appeared from the snow and crawled across his leather riding boot. Spring is coming, he mused.

"Well?" Barbrey tilted her head. "Are you going to tell me or are you too enamored of your boots?"

He looked up to her, grinning keenly. "Not my boots, Barb." He stuck his boot out. The glimmering black beetle rested on the toe. "Come here. Look."

She rolled her eyes. "How many times have I told you not to call me that?" She approached him. "An insect. Fascinating."

"How long has it been since you've seen a beetle in this hard and long winter, eh?" He waggled his eyebrows.

She stepped on his foot, crushing the beetle. Her eyes narrowed. Barbrey was a patient woman. The second daughter of House Ryswell and subordinated to her father's bidding, she learned patience at Lord Rodrik's slaps and rebukes and commands.

That made her incredibly impatient in the niches she teased out for herself, in the private sphere, and in her relationship with Brandon.

"You killed it." Brandon made an exaggerated pout.

"Did I hurt you?" she asked not from concern, but ardent interest.

He grinned. "No."

She was clearly dissatisfied with that. "Well. . ."

But he caught her by the waist when she lunged at him. She was thick and her flesh hummed against his hand, wanting. He couldn't wait to pull the lacings from her bodice and taste her warm and soft skin. He took her to the cradle of the heart tree and laid her on the thick, curving roots as she kicked at him, yelling.

This was a game they played. Barbrey got to pinch and scratch and hit him, the only opportunities she had these days for rough play. And he felt the wolfblood surge in him, he felt it culminate, the only time it dominated him without restraint, away from the monotone and manipulation of duty.

He undid her bodice and ran his hands across her now bare torso, teething a purple vein at her groin. Her yells turned to laughs and then moans and back to laughs again. She undressed him with quick and expert hands, the motion of experience. He found himself cherishing her laugh, and a sudden sadness staked through his consciousness.

He never thought he'd have to miss her laugh.

She was stroking him and he'd lost control. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, afraid for the first time that she'd see his face. And then he heard her tilling laughter. He flipped her over and seized control. She tilted her hips towards him and he met her halfway.

They fucked. Sensation consumed him, the wolf's blood surged red and heady through his veins. He was hardly conscious of himself. All he heard were her cries, sounding incisively through his rapture.

Brandon didn't know how long it was till he remembered his own name. The sky overhead was gray and purple, blending into itself, the schism between sky and earth collapsing. It was sunset. The rays of the descending sun painted Barbrey's black hair purple and he kissed her on the head.

She was gazing at him intently. "What's wrong?" she asked again, and he remembered what he wasn't telling her.

Barbrey was perceptive. Barbrey noticed things. And in this moment, her caution and hauteur were dispelled and she did not try to conceal that she cared for him.

He had never lied to Barbrey in his life.

He evaded and he distracted, but he did not lie.

She knew him, and she saw through him, and it secretly terrified him, but he'd die before he'd say that aloud.

He kissed her full on the lips, and he kissed her with desperation.

She tasted salt water on her lips and she thought it strange. But she did not say anything. She only clasped his hand in hers, strengthened by his iron vise-like grip.

They stayed like that naked and entangled in each other in the godswood even when the sky was pitch dark and the sun had descended into its fiery kingdom.

Brandon could still see his father in his mind's eye when he broke the momentous news.

In truth, it wasn't news at all. Brandon should have been anticipating this. Rickard had been brokering a betrothal with the Tullys and various other Southern prospects for the past few years. But even that did not mitigate the shock and turmoil that followed. Everything is changed.

Brandon thought it a touch strange, and he asked his father, "Why a girl from the South? Why not here, why not a Northern girl?"

Lord Stark's gray eyes met his son's. They were cold and austere, they were his father's, and they were a mirror to Brandon's. "By marrying a house of the South, we become stronger. And especially in these trying times, we need all the strength we can get. When you become Lord of Winterfell and warden of the North, our joint strength will be indestructible," he crisply explained.

"Are the houses in the North not strong?"

"They are." Rickard wore an understanding smirk. "But the South holds more opportunities."

Of course, Brandon dryly thought. For your opportunism.

He felt his temper quickly running its course. "My sons will be weak."

Rickard's voice was sharp. "No Stark offspring is weak, my son, not even those mixed with Southerners. And the Tullys are a strong and resilient house. I'm not marrying you to the spawn of the Reach or the Lannisters, who are too proud for their own good. I have chosen very carefully for you, and I could not have chosen better."

You could have chosen better. You could have chosen a woman of the North.

Brandon bowed his head in shame and apology, the emotion and sudden shift in reality finally overwhelming him. "Forgive me, father. I speak out of turn."

Rickard's hand was gentle on his son's head. "There are years yet. She is only twelve and Lord Tully tells me she is beautiful as a rose. Her beauty and intelligence shall flourish with time. . ."

Brandon noted with a creeping sense of consternation that he did not care for beauty and intelligence. He did not care for any of this, and his hardened jaw checked the words he wanted to recklessly yell out. His clenched fists harnessed his frustration. Those moments with his father were some of the hardest in his life, and he was relieved when Rickard dismissed him.

What do I care for?

He reflected on this when he stayed the night at the Rills.

He was sixteen and yet unaccustomed to duty. No, that was wrong, he'd known duty his whole life. He was his father's heir, he was destined to become Lord of Winterfell and warden of the North, he had a responsibility to these icy, sprawling lands and all his bannermen. Why, then, had he been so disturbed by the news of his betrothal to Catelyn Tully?

Lord Ryswell was more than happy to welcome him. Brandon knew the man nurtured a hope that he would marry his daughter. Too late for that now. He also knew—though Brandon liked less to think of this—that the Lord of the Rills encouraged Barbrey to spend time with the heir of Winterfell, to fuck him, to seduce him.

Brandon had asked her that once. Barbrey had been coy and evasive, and he knew she'd never tell him the real answer. The sharp red imprints on her arms and cheeks, the way she stiffened into a formalized demeanor in the presence of her father told him enough. He didn't want to know more.

But Barbrey was defensive of her father, more often than not. "I'm not one to dictate to a man how he raises his daughter," Brandon had remarked to her once, tracing the red splotches on her arm. "But it displeases me that he does this to you."

She grinned recklessly when she heard the low, dangerous hum of his voice. "And who are you to tell the Lord of the Rills how he raises his daughter, Brandon? A haughty lordling come to save his maiden fair from her oppressive and overbearing father?"

"I'm the future lord of Winterfell. A fact that your father knows quite well." Brandon kissed her throat. "And you're no maiden fair."

"I'm not," she responded. "My father let me ride the Rills since I was young, astride on my horse. He first gifted me with a horse when I was eight years old. He lets me choose the best stallions for myself, because I ride even better than my brothers. That's more than I can say for many of the ladies in the North."

And in many ways, the answer to his question—Is it a game or is it real?—constituted itself. Brandon would never forget the look on Barbrey's face when he took her maidenhead. He remembered the words he'd uttered after catching the sight of her blood, ruddy and abundant, on his cock. "A bloody sword is a beautiful thing."

Later, he'd remarked to her that he was surprised she bled at all. "I thought riding would've broken your maidenhead."

Her smile had been almost sad. "Apparently not," and her voice was hoarse with what sounded like latent mockery. She leaned into his chest and he cherished her warmth and closeness. "You had that honor."

It had always been a game with Barbrey, that was what Brandon felt and understood and played. But an urgency grated at him, the idea minced at his mind and displaced his peace. He had tried to rationalize his restlessness, and in doing so, he'd ridden the Rills straight into Barbrey's arms. What do I care for? Or even more gallingly, who?

He'd discovered Barbrey on the Rills. She'd been riding a dark horse, a stallion blacker than her own hair, and she rode the beast astride, her legs and hips powerfully controlling its movement and direction. Brandon was the best rider from Winterfell to Barrowton and she outraced even him. The only other woman he knew who rode like that was Lyanna.

The only thing he liked better than making love to her was riding with her and racing her. He wondered if he could have that luxury before the night ended. He wondered how long he could draw out his confession that he was betrothed and committed to another by not confessing at all.

Brandon mused on his frustrations and drank his warm goblet of ale. Lord Rodrik came out to entertain him at dinner, jovial and sardonic as ever. Brandon realized he wouldn't have quite minded him as a goodfather and he wondered how Lord Hoster Tully was like, if he was the kind of man willing to wisecrack a crude joke with his daughter's husband, if he comported himself with the same toughness and bluster.

Neither Lord Rodrik and his daughter were fools. The news of his betrothal would be announced within the week and spread to the remotest of clans in the North within the fortnight. He could not continue this farce any longer. He owed Barbrey and Rodrik at least that much.

"How is that old sot Dustin doing, eh?" Rodrik asked, taking a swig of his drink.

Brandon grinned. "He's all right, the same. Stiff as ever." Lord Dustin was a very formal and severe man, who became undone only by the work of wine. His vulnerability to drink was a running joke all over Barrowton and the Rills.

"Still drinking?"

Brandon roared with laughter. "Only at one of your next parties, my lord." Lord Ryswell's gatherings were known for being raucous, making up for what they lacked in lavishness with hearty enthusiasm.

Barbrey sat next to the right side of her father, dressed in a deep purple dress that brought out the violet hues in her dark, dark hair. She'd changed after Brandon got her dress muddy and damp in the godswood. He liked this gown even better. Its neckline was square cut and exposed the defined outline of her collarbones. He spied a vein thrumming on the skin where neck and shoulder met, a sliver of purple on ivory. Roger, Lord Ryswell's heir and Barbrey's younger brother, sat to the right of his older sister, a seat away from the Lord of the Rills. Barbrey sat where the heir should have been sitting. Primogeniture never reigned in the North, but the Ryswell women held their household in thrall.

Brandon exchanged banter with the Ryswell brothers. Barbrey was oddly silent. On most days, she boisterously joined in, but this evening she was conspicuously quiet.

The time came for them to retire. Roger and Rickard were going out somewhere to run an errand and Rodrik retired to his bed.

Barbrey led Brandon to the adjoining study room in the library. He followed her silently and faced her when the door swung shut.

They stared at each other for a short, terse moment. A rare, innocent smile broke across Barbrey's face and Brandon felt his heart wrench.

"So," she prompted. "What did you want to tell me?"

Of course she remembered. She was not wont to forget. No, Barbrey was not that kind of woman. She was not the kind of woman to make the hardest tasks easy for him.

"What you wanted to tell me before we got, er, distracted. . ." she reminded him.

"Let's get distracted again." Brandon approached her, but a look on her face stopped him short.

"There was something you wanted to tell me?" she probed.

Brandon didn't speak for a moment. "Nothing important."

Her dark eyes were critical. "Oh, nothing important at all?"

Brandon swallowed. He had always been an honest person except when he was acting the heir that his lord father always wanted to see. He was a fine actor, guided by the stiffness of winter, never relenting in his outward veneer of honor and disdain. Barbrey was different, though. He had spent too long with her, she had made him weak, and he could not lie to her when her dancing dark eyes knew otherwise.

"If it's not important, then there should be no harm in telling me."

"Barb. . ."

Her face darkened. "What aren't you telling me, Brandon?"

He took a deep breath, avoiding her eyes. They rendered him raw and honest, too honest for his own good. They left him thoroughly undone. They could tell when he was lying. "Winter is ending soon."

"And?" She wore a tiny smirk. "A glance at the sky can tell me the weather, Brandon. You rode to the Rills unannounced. It's obviously something bigger than that."

"I often ride the Rills unannounced. I've a very spontaneous personality."

She angled a single black eyebrow. "Not when you get back so soon from Winterfell, you don't ride the Rills unannounced. And since when did you think it a good idea to ride the Rills after a blizzard?"

She was attuned to his habits and movements. She was sensitive to subtlety. She would have made a good Lady of Winterfell, a fine and adept ruler and advisor. She wasn't going to make this easy for him.

"There was a snowstorm, yes, but it was mild. Winter is ending soon," he repeated. "And spring is coming."

She shook her head as if to say What then?

Brandon breathed deeply, the deepest breath he'd taken in years. The last time he'd been so anxious was when Lyanna had fallen from her horse and broken her leg. It was the first time he'd seen her hurt in an extreme way. The only other time he'd felt like this was when he was nine and his mother wouldn't wake up after she brought Benjen into this world. There was a cold apprehension in his gut and he waited in frayed anticipation for the outcome of something that was far beyond his own control.

"And with spring. . ." Brandon could hardly speak. "With spring comes opportunities."

Barbrey was amused. "And what opportunities are you claiming this spring?"

He raised his gray eyes to her. "I am betrothed to Catelyn Tully of Riverrun."

For a second, Barbrey was blinding to look at. He could not bear to see her shock and vulnerability. And then his eyes focused, and he saw her in earnest.

There was a fire in her eyes, a dark fire that he hated to see.

The passion caught in his throat. He could not, did not want to speak, but he forced himself. "My lady—"

"I am not your lady." Her voice was full of scorn. "Nor will I ever be."

Brandon's patience shattered. "Dammit, Barbrey! Do you think I had a choice? Do you think he let me—his son, his tool to use how so ever he pleases—decide? Do you think I want to marry her and not you?"

Barbrey had gone white. Brandon realized what he had said and stared back at her. He found himself waiting for her as a madman waited before he fell off the cliff. Finally, when she spoke, her face still had no color in it and her voice was not composed. "You. . . wanted to marry me?"

He moved towards her, an urgency in his step. "Barbrey—"

"No," she cried out. "Don't touch me."

He'd never seen her so unguarded and defenseless, not even when he took her maiden's blood. Fresh tears filled her eyes and it was a testament to the girl's unyielding tenacity that they did not pour forth.

But she faced him. Brandon wanted to avoid her gaze, but Barbrey was stronger. Because she was proud, and now she was bitter, she faced him and she punished him with her pain and scorn. "How much longer are you here, Lord Stark?"

He flinched at the formal appellation. "I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Your fostering is almost over, isn't it? My lord is sixteen now. You're going home to Winterfell."

His expression was pained and she realized she loved the sight, wanted to see him squirm and smart in torment, wanted to inflict as much pain on him as he'd given her.

"Catelyn Tully. . . Catelyn Tully of Riverrun." She walked the room ponderously. She distractedly pulled a book from a dusty shelf and read its title. The Kings of the North in Winter. She threw it across the room and it hit the wall near Brandon, brushing his shoulder. "I must say, it's a touch strange your father is marrying you to a girl of a Southern house when your father, and his father, and his father, and his father only wed the daughters of their own bannermen. . ."

"He is an ambitious man."

"And you are his pawn?" Her grin was wolfish. "You don't quite like that, do you? But it makes no matter. What are Rills to rivers anyway?" An edge of hysteria crept into her indifferent tone. "What are Rills to rivers?"

"Barbrey," he hissed lowly and tentatively. "I swear on the old gods, I swear on my father's sword Ice, I never wanted this. I never wanted to ride South for my bride, I never wanted to marry Catelyn Tully. I only wanted a Northern woman for my wife." I only wanted you for my wife went his unspoken words.

She refused to look at him, and that was the worst punishment. "Get out."

Brandon was a man and he was full of excuses. Barbrey wondered how she could have been such a fucking fool. She wondered why she found Brandon any different from the men around her, the men who had disappointed her time and again. But she also realized with dawning horror that she was willing to suffer for him. That she had been willing to sacrifice herself and her privacy and safety to gain his love and comfort, to wake up beside him everyday, to be mutually and unconditionally his. She realized now that it wasn't just the shining prestige of the title Lady Stark that drove her to him, but the fulfilling promise of his love.

"I have gone soft," she said out loud. "I have gone bloody soft and that's punishing me now."

She wondered why he waited to tell her that he'd marry her the day it came to be known he was betrothed to someone else.

What are Rills to rivers anyway?

She rested her face in her hands and wept.

That night, Brandon came into her room. Barbrey was not waiting for him, but neither was she sleeping. As she felt his approach, her body trembled. The bed creaked as he sat upon it. She stirred with a moan, as if pretending sleep, but she was wide awake. He touched her hair, carefully, almost reverently, and kissed her on the forehead. He felt heavy with words left unsaid. Words did not employ him, for he was a man who preferred to use his body to express the wildest torrents of his emotions, but the only other time he had felt as empty as he did was when his mother had died.

Did you. . . The thought was unceasing in his head. It had angered him at first, but now he only felt resigned. He opened his mouth, as if to articulate this thought, but it died on his lips, lost to the cold winter night that had claimed them all.

He thought she was asleep, but she knew exactly who he was. He should not have surprised then to see the tears gleaming in her dark, dark eyes: she knew everything, after all.

He held her in his arms and yet she was lost to him, far away in the confines of a memory, a dream, a mirage that his mind had invented and his senses loved.

She had always been so much more than that.

His hands ghosted across her hips, asking (he never asked, he always took), hesitating, waiting before the precarious fall. She made no pretense of being strong. She kissed his stubbled chin and closed her mouth over his lower lip. When she bit him, she drew blood, and its sharp tang drove him to what he was: the animal, the wildness, the wolf that lived inside him.

She knew it all too well, for she was a woman to par with him. (She knew him all too well.) She was and would always remain his equal in this act. (As in all other acts.) Her legs locked around his waist and she pushed against him, demanding what was hers. Brandon buried his face in the crook of her neck and groaned lowly, his lips rough against her skin. When he lifted his head to look at her, he saw that her eyes did not sparkle with laughter like they usually did. He suddenly felt ashamed that he even expected that from her. Everything was changed; nothing would be the same again.

Tonight her deep brown eyes were dark and grave, as if portending a strange and horrible event. He did not know what it was. He did not want to know.

They said spring was on its way. The weather was growing milder, though the snowstorm in the last week had caused the ever-certain maesters to nervously wring their fingers. The snows had been heavy, the winds sharp and icy. It had reduced spring to a fool's dream, a false vision that the Southron eagerly anticipated to glory in their summer. I will ride South to marry Catelyn Tully, he thought as he kissed Barbrey's pale white neck. I will ride to summer and leave winter behind.

He came as he always did, utterly vulnerable in her arms, being in the darkness what he could never show by the light of day. Only she could see him like this. Only she could see him like this and he could not be ashamed. That was gone now, whatever of Barbrey that was left to him. She was gone now, knowing his heart and flesh as only a sweet remembrance.

The tears were openly falling down her cheeks. She did not hold them back. He had never felt warm as he did that long cold winter and he suspected that she had never felt so complete or bereft.

In the morning, the snow began to melt.