Robb,

I hope this letter arrives to you on time. The negotiations with my Father failed. He's planned a surprise attack on the North, and plans to invade the shores and take Deepwood Motte. Prepare your troops, and head back towards the North. If you can't reach the North in time, I have another plan.

You'll just have to trust that not all is as it may seem.

I'll write again when it's safe

-Theon

He re read the words over again. Theon's eyes darted from the candle's flame, and back to the letter.

Am I really making the right choice?

Once more, Theon glanced down at the letter, pressed his lips together, and exhaled slowly as he brought the paper towards the flame. The sudden movement caused the flame to dance away from the letter.

I'm going to burn it, and that'll be the end of it!

A split second before the flame caught the papers edge, he let it drift back down to the desk.

I can't betray him.

Theon thought back to all the nights the two of them had spent together. All the laughter they'd shared.

Sansa and Arya had become his sisters. Bran had just woken from that terrible fall in the tower, and was begging as normal a life as a crippled boy of ten could. Rickon needed constant watching now that he was getting older.

Robb wouldn't be the only one he'd betry if Theon failed. He'd be turning his back on the entire Stark family.

What had Balon Greyjoy ever done for him, besides give him away?

Ned may be gone now, Balon had been quick to remind him of that but Lord Stark had never treated him badly.

He thought back to his arrival on Pyke. Yara had tried to seduce him. His own flesh and blood.

Theon felt bile raise in the back of his throat, and shuttered at the idea of what could have happened between the two of them. He was no Lannister! The bones in his hands cracked as they balled into fists as he struggled to suppress the rage the boiled in the pit of his stomach.

Sansa is still with them.

The poor girl must be terrified. Theon couldn't fault her for that. A wolf had no place in the Lion's den, just as he had no place here.

Balon had been right. Theon had been more wolf than Kraken, afterall.

"We do not sow," he muttered to himself. He once believed that the words of his house struck fear into the hearts of all those who dared to enter the shores of Pyke. To be a Greyjoy meant you raided, pillaged, raped, and reaped. Where was the honor in that?

Theon's mind wandered back to Ned.

The man who passes the sentence, should swing the sword. That's what he'd instilled in each of his boys, Theon included.

One morning, while the King and Queen had still been in Winterfell, he'd overheard a conversation between Jory and the Imp.

"Theon," Jory questioned. "He's a good Lad."

"I'm not so sure," Tyrion's voice rang in his ears, mocking him. That's what the Imp did best.

"Your loyalty to your captors' is touching." Theon couldn't exactly deny that the life of a Ward had been easy, but Lord and Lady Stark never treated him poorly, either.

He stood hurriedly, licked his fingertips, and extinguished the candles flame between his thumb and pointer finger.

Don't make me regret this, Robb.