*Author's Note: Certain aspects of this story hold truer to the TV series than the books (like the fact that the Starks share a bedroom), but I tried to stay in neutral territory so that it fits easily within each realm.*
The ballads do not warn you of this. All the tales your gap-toothed septa tells you about fallen knights and ladies dying of broken hearts do not tell you how it really feels.
One expects the feeling to land in the heart, which still beats with love for a man now gone, or perhaps deeper in the gut, deep in the valley that was once swollen like a hilltop, full of the children you bore that same man. One expects tears, hot and quick and unbidden, and perhaps some wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I feel none of those things.
The feeling hits in my jaw, in the space where it hinges to the rest of my skull, a white numbness that clouds into my eyes. There is a tightness at my collarbone, like an iron band, and for a moment, I am as still and quiet and unbreathing as the white old weirwood in the godswood at Winterfell. The wind tangles its fingers through my hair, pulls at my furs, reminds me that I am still here, still alive.
I hate the wind for reminding me of this.
One expects the knees to buckle, the hand to lose all ability to grasp, the head to bow to the ground as the body crumbles upon its own weight.
But still I stand, physically unchanged. My hand still holds steady, my head does not become too heavy, my body stays straight and upright, like the great stone pillars at the Eyrie. I can feel every fiber of my being, more so than I ever could at any other moment in my life—the heavy weight of my cloak, the fibers of my gown, the light brush of my hair across my face, the leather soles of my shoes beneath my heel, the rise and fall of my chest as my lungs continue to pump, as my heart continues to beat, as it pretends as if no harm has come to it.
One expects a ringing in the ears, a sudden removal from all other events, as if time stands still, frozen in a glass. Or perhaps the crashing of waves, the cracking of thunder as the earth and sky cry out at the tragedy that has befallen you and your children.
I still hear everything around me—the movement of the men across the dew-covered grass, the snort and stamp of horses, the jingling and clanging of metal, the soft creak of leather, the quiet whispers of the news that I still clutch between my fingertips.
There is no loud clattering of the heavens, no shuddering of the ground beneath my feet—all carries on, as if nothing has happened at all.
And why should it stop? Why should it notice the loss of a single man?
But oh, was there ever a man like this one?
Damn my mind for thinking that Brandon Stark, had he lived, might have been a man like this, a man like his younger brother—a man of honor, of commitment, of sacrifice and devotion tumbled with moments of breath-stopping passion, a man who chose to shoulder the burden of the world, lest someone else have to suffer such a fate. Damn my mind for remembering the brother who didn't live, the brother who wasn't my husband.
I wonder if I am justified—whose face did Ned see, in the final flash of life? Mine, or a woman's whose name I never had the courage to learn?
Or did he see neither of us at all?
I feel my heartbeat as it slows, each pulse a steady pound against my ribcage. Is this the moment I will feel the breaking? Is this the moment that all the fairy tales will come true? Is now the time that I will fall to the ground, stricken by an incurable haze of love-forlorn grief?
No. Even now, even when everything I know to be right and good in the world is sacked and burning, I know that I will never succumb to such a fate. Each beat is a chant, a prayer, a recitation of all the reasons that the next beat must follow.
Robb.
Sansa.
Arya.
Bran.
Rickon.
My babies.
My children.
My lights.
Our lights.
Ours.
Eddard is not the only Stark who clings to honor, commitment, sacrifice, and devotion—it can always be said that we were well-matched in that respect. His heart beat not only for his family, but for his country, and it was the part devoted to the latter that killed him. I am not so selfless—my heart beats for my family and my family alone, it bleeds and sings and cries and pulses for their safety and happiness above all others. They are my only concern, my only reason for survival, and I will protect them as fiercely as their precious raging direwolves.
They are all that is left of us.
He is dead. The only man I have ever truly loved is dead. The father of my children. The Lord of Winterfell. The man whose simplest touch could rend my skin to ashes, opening with fire and longing for him.
I never told him these things. I think he knew. I kept his elder brother on a pedestal, first out of spite and later simply because I didn't know how to take him down. But Brandon Stark did not give me children, did not hold my hand as I birthed those children, did not make my heart sing and dance when he scooped our tumbling toddlers into his arms, twirling them around the halls as they laughed and shrieked with delight. Brandon Stark did not wake me in the night with terrible dreams of battle, did not rest his head on my chest while I soothed him back to sleep with soft words and gentle caresses, did not confess his fears and failings to me in the darkness of night, did not hold me as if I were his battle shield, his pillar, his strength. Brandon Stark did not make love to me, did not learn the language of my sighs, did not know that my favorite place to be kissed was on the inside of my right elbow (though neither of us could say why it was my favorite, it simply was), or that the simple circular motion of a thumb rubbing against the pulse-point on my wrist was the easiest way to calm me, regardless of the circumstance. Brandon Stark did not place his hands on my shoulders in a way that made me feel grounded and secure, did not aggravate me with his quirks and undying sense of servitude, and he certainly never made me mad enough to smash an heirloom vase (I cannot remember what the fight was about, only that it was our first real fight, during the early days of marriage—I remember the red feeling of anger blinding my mind and the look of utter shock on Ned's face as the vase exploded against the floor).
So the Cat does have claws. That's what he'd said, after his surprise had subsided. It was the most ridiculous response I'd ever heard, and suddenly, I'd started laughing. It was then that I knew we would survive, in marriage and in life, together.
I suppose I was wrong, on that last part. Or perhaps not—we had survived, as long as we were together. The moment we were separated, things began to fall apart.
I should have made him come with me, whenever I left King's Landing. As if any soul could ever make Eddard Stark do anything, not when his mind was so set on the opposite—still, it is easier to blame myself than others.
The wind blows at the opening of the tent, the heavy fabrics snapping and straining at one another, reminding me that I am still here, in the midst of a war. I look over at the table, covered in maps and heavy wooden pawns bearing the sigils of so many houses.
It was all for naught. A thousand armies cannot undo this fate. We were too late—I was too late, and my husband paid the price. I continue my laundry list of sins: I was too prideful, too impetuous, too brash, too bullheaded to heed Ned's words. I took a Lannister captive, without full thought of the consequences—I should have known that they would not allow such a thing, not even when it involved the one who was hated and reviled by the rest. As the proverb says, Me against my brother, my brother and I against our cousins.
This makes two great sins against my family, though this last loss hits harder than the first.
This must not stand.
This will not stand.
I shall destroy them all—the ones who tore apart our family, who shattered what was once something whole and beautiful and untouched, who used our hearts like pawns and tossed our bodies aside with little thought.
So the Lannisters protect their own. Well, they have no idea what reckoning a Stark and a Tully shall bring upon their heads. They understand family loyalty and the power of wealth—oh, but they do not comprehend love or honor or true vengeance. But soon they will. They will see and they will know that they are greatly outmatched in this. It will be the last thing they understand, before their deaths.
I swear it, upon all the gods—old, new, faceless and unknown. Upon my honor, I swear it.
I shall destroy every last one who took my family from me.
Every last one.