I've decided to respond to reviews in PM instead of publicly addressing it in a chapter. Sorry for the extremely short chapter, but I'm preparing a trip to England, as I've been invited to a tour of the university I'm applying to; I'm still planning the plot of this story.
Oh, and I forgot the disclaimer. I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire, and I do not own Game of Thrones. Thank you for reading!
CATELYN I
It had been seven days since Catelyn's lord husband returned home from the rebellion.
For seven days, she prayed at the sept that Lord Stark had built for her. The winter had ended, but Winterfell was as cold as ever, and snowing had never truly ceased. The only place where she found inner warmth was the sept. She seldom ate, and spent the days sitting on the cold stone bench inside the small sept, quietly praying to the Seven and reflecting on her conflicting thoughts.
Could the twins truly be of a union between a Stark and a Lannister? She had mused. It seemed odd. Starks and Lannisters rarely got along.
As a few rare beams of sunlight from a grey and white northern sun flitted through the stained glass window of a seven pointed star, reflected reds and oranges and greens shone on her grey fur cloak. A set of frantic footsteps sounded outside the sept, and she heard the large oaken double doors open. The footsteps sounded all the more closer, until she heard a worried voice.
"Milady, you must eat… Master Robb needs you!" one of the servants had come to the sept, pleading for her to eat something. She refused. When that failed, they reported to Lord Stark.
Her lord husband made haste to the sept, and approached her tentatively. "The servants told me you weren't eating properly, my lady. Is something wrong? Have I wronged you in any way?"
Artos had green eyes of a Lannister, but Jon looked nothing like him. Jon had dark brown hair and Stark grey eyes. His mother had clearly left little of herself in the younger twin. There was, of course, a man given the honour of being buried in the ancient crypt of past winter kings and Lords of Winterfell, but Catelyn still had doubts.
How did she know if her husband had not just fathered two bastards on a woman from the Westerlands and claimed them to be trueborn? Would they usurp the Lordship of Winterfell from Robb? Questions swam around her head like a storm of shadows in the dark.
"I'm here, so the Gods can see," she answered the unasked question. "Please, my lord. I need to know this. What are you hiding from me?"
Lord Stark's eyes widened. "My lady, I—"
"I don't need to know the whole truth," she pleaded. "I just need to know. Are Artos and Jon your bastards? Can you swear by the Gods by what you tell me?"
He met her teary gaze and held a solemn expression. He knelt down next to her, and took her dainty hands into his own calloused ones, rough with war and conflict. She saw the seriousness in his Stark grey eyes. "I swear, my lady. I swear by the Old Gods and the New that Artos and Jon are not my bastards. I swear that they are trueborn."
There was no lie in his eyes, nor his words. Catelyn believed him, but she knew, deep inside, there was something her lord husband hid from her; most ladies were trained in the art of reading expressions, and she was no exception. For now, however, she was content to follow her husband to the Great Hall to sup, content to be ignorant of the secrets the wolf lord guarded so closely.
If he ever told her his secrets, she would be the judge of whether it was the truth or not.