The Winter Beast and River Beauty

Chapter Eight / Words draped in crystals melt away

Author's Note: *sheepish grin is sheepish* So, I unintentionally lied. This is not the last chapter. It's the second to last. Usually I'm pretty good at calculating chappies with an outline but this was getting unwieldy. So, penultimate chapter—but—the final chapter is written. I'm polishing it up tonight and posting tomorrow—by the old gods and the new!


However cold the wind and rain
I'll be there to ease up your pain
However cruel the mirrors of sin
Remember, beauty is found within

Forever shall the wolf in me desire the sheep in you...


He walked through the copse, the trees twittering around him. This time of year the forest was a song. But now he hunted for the creature who did not belong to the wood. Ned stopped beneath the tree with the best footholds and sturdiest branches.

"Lyanna?"

He did not expect an answer, only a rustle of branches as she considered answering. A small crack—he looked up, straining to see through the greens and browns, and yelped as a chunk of bark pelted his chest.

Lyanna swung down, landing on a thick branch several just above his head. Her hair was pulling free of its pins, damp around her sweaty face. She bared her crooked grin. Ned tried his hardest to stare back, mouth dour, the look that Jon said would silence a room when he was older. But it had little effect on Lyanna.

"You should spend time with your betrothed."

"I already did."

Ned sighed to himself. He hated where this troth put him—stuck between the friend who was in love with her and the sister who could not make up her mind if she liked him or not. Though as of late she seemed to be deciding, and not the way that would make anything better.

"You were laughing when you came back from your ride," he pointed out.

Lyanna rolled her eyes. "Only because he tries to beat me when we race." But her smile softened. "Get up here, I found a falcon nest."

He shook his head, about to argue, when she hooked her legs over the branch and dangled down, linking her fingers to make a stirrup. Lyanna rarely went without leggings or breeches under her skirts—her septa was appalled easily enough as it was.

"Please?"

Gods, she was difficult. He placed a foot on her entwined hands, using it as a small boost to grab the overhead branch and haul himself up. They were getting too old for this, but his sister was stronger than she looked. Soon they found the nest, but thankfully not the falcon parents.

Sometime later Ned was walking to the kitchens for a morsel to tide him over until the evening, when Robert trotted up beside him.

"Have you seen Lyanna?" He grinned, but Ned could see the nerves behind it.

He hated being caught in the choice between a small lie and a truth his sister would begrudge him for. Honesty and honor sound close for a reason, Jon said. But then he realized he can skirt just outside a lie—he did not know precisely where she was now.

And thus he shrugged. "In the woods when I last saw her." He saw the small way Robert brightened, the way his smile took a wider pull. He hoped it had nothing to do with Lyanna being alone in the woods. "That was hours ago," he added.

The Baratheon nodded, but Ned could tell he was deflated. "She knows how I feel about her?" Aye, she knew. More than Robert likely wanted her to. Few times had Ned been as scared as when Lyanna cornered him and demanded to know who Mya Stone was. "I'd die for her."

Ned blinked, feeling a sense of…something like unease, but not quite. A crack in a mirror you only saw when looking sideways. He wondered if Robert was slightly drunk. There was a red splotch on his jerkin, just shy of his heart.

"Maybe I'll have to," Robert said, eyes dimmer. "Would she love me then?"

No, Ned wanted to say, but could not. Robert was more of a brother to him than his own. But he should really change shirts before Lord Arryn saw him; the stain was large.

Lyanna's answer would always be no, no matter if she was his wife. She was enamored with another—unlikely actual love, for Lyanna was a girl of passion, and Lady Ashara once told him passionate people are more enamored with the feeling than the object. Ned tried to remember who the man was. It was on the tip of his tongue, just past his fangs.

The cracked widened and his heartbeat quickened.

"Would she, Ned?"

He glanced over, about to tell him to drink more wine so he would fall asleep and stop rambling. Gods…

His friend stood there, ashen despite the sunlight. But his chest—while the crack had widened, the stain had deepened. Blood poured through his shirt, from the sword wound beneath it. Ned hissed, too breathless to cry out. His own heart was battering its way from his breastbone, like feast drums, when his father roasted an auroch on a spit, the fat crackling around its slit throat. Boom doom boom.

"Will you tell him, brother?"

The voice makes his neck clench. But why? It was just his brother, here with Lyanna to visit her betrothed. His free hand cupping his nape, Ned turns around to see Brandon, all lopsided grin and handsome face. Then Ned sees the red choker around his throat—a band of raw flesh, edged in purple. His eyes are bloodshot. Brandon's grin widens, and Ned sees how bloody his teeth are.

"Will you tell Robert our sister thought him a wenching sot and preferred a mad dreamer? A pity I did not stop to think."

The pain ricocheted down Ned's back. His claws dug into his chest, tearing at fur, prying at skin. Robert was too intrigued by his own wound to notice.

Ned was wheezing, whimpering, claws wet with blood. His heart hurt. It hurt too much to keep it there.


His breath burst from his lungs as he lunged for the surface. A brown surface, with rafters. Gods, his chest hurt. But so did everything else.

His mind loiters at a memory of a shadowcat. She was smaller than him, though she still tore her pound of flesh from his neck and belly. Ned won, but in the end he had no trophy except a fortnight of pain and an ear split down the center. He had felt like a hunter who speared a boar only to get his own guts gored to pieces when the beast fought its way down the shaft.

"Ned?"

First he sees Howland Reed, swallowed by a large chair on the far side of the chamber. The young lord holds something in his arms, swaddled in a white cloth. Ned blinks again; the world looks wrong. He sees, but the colors are different. Smells and sounds are too distant. Then he looks down and yells something his father would strap him for.

His pale body, barely grazed by hair, is covered in…red, you fool. Red blood. He clutches his chest, having not clutched anything since that night at White Harbor—he was holding a goblet of wine, feeling silly to hold it so long, only because Lord Manderly said it made him look regal. When the pain split him in two he dropped it, fell in it, retched up whatever he had sipped as his legs snapped and twisted.

The answer is there, but the beast sits quietly, demure as it waits for a moment when Ned's heart would not burst in his chest. Ned lets it come: a year of beasts and blood, ending on the point of a spear, next to the sister he loved and lost.

His eyes burn. A form lies under a white sheet, slender enough to be a young woman.

"How long?" he croaks, remembering at the last moment to use his hand and not his vanished muzzle. It was Howland clamoring to his feet that made him pause.

"A day and a half."

Ned pulls his hand back. The room smells of lavender and lemon, but just under that hangs the faint sick-sweet odor of rotting meat. He remembers Lyanna whispering her confession, begging his promise. She was an ashen remnant of her former self, but beautiful even so. He does not want his last memory to be a discolored corpse.

He lies back on the bed's far edge, probing at his chest. It has a new scar, more painful than tender. Everything aches.

"I do not understand."

Howland takes a seat at the foot of the bed. His green eyes are searching, wary if not distrustful. Ned tries to remember the lord's age. The crannogman looks Brandon's years one moment, boyish the next.

"How you are alive, or why you have two legs again?"

"Both." Your curse is as breakable as your Seven Kingdoms. "The sorcerer said—" he snorts at how foolish it sounds "—only love."

Lord Reed arches an eyebrow. "I have no idea. You had more blood out of you than in you. But magic works on half-truths, I've heard. What I know is your sister loved you, and you her." He snorts at Ned's withering glare. "Not like Targaryens."

Ned considers this. The ice-eyed man never elaborated, but it seems the only possible reason. She did not deserve to die so young. Hardly more than a girl, and a young mother besides—

The boy.

Howland reads his thoughts, for he moves closer with the white bundle. Mine nephew. Wincing as his spine cracks, Ned sits up to see him better. The boy sleeps, careless of his dead mother. A patch of dark-brown covers his head.

"Is he a Stark or a Targaryen?" he wonders aloud.

"Since he was born here, a Sand."

Ned shakes his head. "He will grow up in the North. He is a Snow." Snow or Stark? He looks to Howland with a knotted brow. The crannogman would take the child. He swore it. But Ned lives, and he made a promise.

Lord Reed offers him a small, sympathetic smile.

"He could be a Stark—few would fight you on legitimizing him. His eyes are gray like yours—no one would doubt your fathering. But Stark is a heavy name. Lady Stark would not like her sons surpassed by your bastard."

"There is no Lady—"

"There will be."

Cat. He did not take her proposal…of sorts…as a true betrothal. Lord Tully said nothing of it.

Howland tries something easier. "A first name?"

"Jon." That at least takes little thought.

Howland returns the babe to the makeshift cradle and picks up a pile of clothing, saying he raided the other chambers. When Ned pulls on the tunic and breeches they feel strange and scratchy. Soon after, when he has a plate of dried beef and apples, the meat tastes too salty and dry. When he first tries to stand…Ned threatens the crannogman with maiming if he ever tells a soul.

It is twilight when he totters down the stairs with Howland, leaning against the wall almost as much as when he went up it. Everything feels unbalanced, like he has been sewn back together with twine and nails. He feels naked despite the itchy clothes. For the first time, he feels helpless. His teeth are small and dull, his nails thin and blunt. The smallest brush with something sharp would leave him bleeding.

Outside, Ned squints and rubs his eyes, trying to see better in the murky maroon. Howland has laid the nine corpses in a row, their hands clasped on their chests. The smell makes him queasy—they need to be buried, but the ground is hard, and Ned is barely keeping his feet. There are rocks scattered nearby would not be enough, and the stones from the tower would take time and tools to remove.

"Ned?" Howland calls from behind. "Without milk, the babe will not survive to Riverrun."

"Can we find a cow?" Though the tower is elegant, the land around it is empty.

The crannogman sighs. "He needs human milk. A goat, if nothing else."

Dawn glimmers atop the body of Ser Arthur, its blade colored like milky rose in the twilight. Ned pries it from the knight's clasped hands. As with Valyrian steel, it belongs to its House, not its swordsman.

"Starfall is close, but Ashara may not be there. I do not know her family."

"Would they shackle us on sight?"

Possibly, but he knows no one else. South of the Vale, only the Rock has not declared for King Aerys. It is a dangerous time if Tywin Lannister is the safest option. But Ashara was always kind and clever. And beautiful…Ned snorts to himself. He was young and infatuated like every boy when he met Ashara at Harrenhal.

The sorcerer's body lies there too, the blood at the corners of his mouth giving him a smirk. He is only a slender man with a gaunt face and amber skin, less striking now that his odd eyes are closed.

"I saw no reason to separate him," Howland adds, walking up beside him.

Ned only nods. He thought he would feel angrier, but what use is anger for a dead man? Lyanna was sick and delirious, but her eyes were clouded with fever, not pain. If the sorcerer had anything to do with that, Ned would offer curt thanks. She said he told her stories. Still, something gnawed at him.

"Why did he use a spear instead of magic?" Ned will never forget the sensation of being caught in mid-air and slammed into the ground as the sorcerer regarded him with a small grin. It was more disturbing than the length of wood and steel in his guts.

The crannogman shrugs. "Saving his strength? It isn't the same, but the greensight takes its toll. Its bearers are weakened, more as time goes on. He called you his best work. Arrogance, mayhaps, but…" He shakes his head, too unsure to voice an answer.

"He is dead," Ned murmurs. "That is enough."


Lord Stark is not one to debate a story with a drinking mate, or a boy who takes a tale as a broken truth and hunts for the facts to mend it. That will fall to others, who wonder just why Aerys' sorcerer came to Westeros, or why he stayed even when a year thinned his face and creased the skin around his eyes. Some think he had nowhere else to go, hunted by men from his brotherhood. Others say he was not an exile but a spy for the red priests, commanded to stay until orders otherwise.

When the story passed through the lips and fingers of a bard sitting before a garden party of the queen's most tolerated hens, the sorcerer became a tortured soul racked with regrets, who carried out the Mad King's orders only because it gave him purpose. When he fell to Lord Stark, it came with the silent gratitude of a man too proud to die by anything but his own hand, yet too afraid of meeting his abandoned god to end it himself. To perish by his own creation was a compromise.

Ah, how the sorcerer might have laughed at all of these, either for their stupidity, veracity, or the unquestioned claim he was truly dead.


When they set out, Ned chooses the red stallion of Lord Dustin. He doubts the lord's lady wife would prefer the horse, but if he cannot bring back both he will bring back one. The stallion has other ideas, crow-hopping and snorting when he takes its reins.

"Do not make me eat you," he mutters, climbing up with a pained groan when the horse is distracted.

Everything feels odd. His legs bend in strange directions, his weight is never balanced, and his toes are trapped in ill-fitting boots. He wishes Lady Dustin's favored steed was an old plough horse—the stallion pitches him half out of the saddle when his heels send it into a buck. Whatever had been free from pain when he awoke is certainly not now. Already he dreads the ride back to Riverrun, with the added concern of Reach and Dornish soldiers.

Still, they make good time to Starfall—little enough to do with Ned. He cannot tell what is injured inside him, but his body aches from the skull down. By the time they reach the seat of the Daynes, his teeth are clenched against a headache made worse every time his teeth squeak together. He no longer worries about reaching Riverrun. His father told him there was no sense in worrying about the impossible.

Starfall manages to distract him, just enough he can think of more than the throbbing in his guts and head. The stone path to the castle is made of pale rock, reflecting a measure of dusk so it looks almost purple. A similar stone forms the distant castle, its tallest tower, Palestone Sword, overlooking the Summer Sea. Even with his weak nose the scent of salt is heavy, without the cold gusts from the Vale. He hates that he rides here to beg shelter off a family when he brings home their sword instead of their son. Dawn rests behind him, wrapped in sackcloth. It is not his to carry.


"The boy is—"

"Rhaegar's," Ashara says. "And your sister's."

His throat tightened. Ashara sits across from him in her solar, Jon cradled in her arms. Ned has given into the sofa's temptation to slouch against its arm.

The lady of Starfall plays gracious hostess, despite her father marching to join Aerys. Stony Dornish and Valyrian blood keep her skin pale and sable hair trails almost to her waist in waves. But her eyes make her face unmistakable. They are violet, with none of the wild gleam found in the Targaryens. Ned still felt a chill the moment he saw her.

"My lady has been ill," her guard captain warned. He would not say more, but Ned feels with pained certainty what has hurt her. Ashara wears black, her gowns lighter and silkier than in King's Landing, but somber nevertheless. Her skin is blanched, her lips colored more from balm than blood. Her eyes, beautiful as ever, shine like colored glass about to shatter.

Promise me, Ned.

"No, my lady."

Ashara smiles, gentle and keen. "He could pass as yours. You need not lie to me—I knew your sister was with child. The prince has…gravely disappointed Elia, but the babe is blameless."

A burden leaves him for a relieved moment. This secret will hang from his neck for the rest of his days.

"Please tell no one. I promised to keep him safe."

"I would offer him a place here, but it is too late for that." Her smile sets like porcelain, frozen by will just as he forced himself to stay upright when he arrived at Starfall yesterday.

I would never ask you to, he wants to say, but she seems content to sit with Jon and they lapse into comfortable silence. Though Ned does not ask, he wonders who fathered her dead babe—what dishonorable bastard took advantage of her kindness, and not even wed her.

It strikes him when her fingers brush something from her eyes after she strokes the boy's fine hair. A name she has not mentioned, even when she gave her condolences for his father and sister.

Ned hardly knows her, though she treats him like a long-lost friend. They first met in Harrenhal when Brandon dragged him to her seat by the tourney lists; she wore gray and violet and greeted them with a smile that made him blush. A smile for us, or a smile for Brandon? The thought stares him in the face. She has not said Brandon's name or anything about him. Ned knows there are better ways to ask, but he has never learned them.

"My lady, was my brother your…?" Lover, rake, father of your stillborn?

Her face pulls up. The pain there is all the answer he needs.

And so his brother left him guilt along with Winterfell. Brandon took her honor…and told you to dance with her. Guilt cares not for its bearer; Ned cannot summon true fury at his sibling, but culpable regret strikes just as keen. Amends should be made. He should wed her and forestall the rumors of her tarnished virtue.

Cat…

Was she his betrothed? He has never heard of a woman proposing marriage. Has Brandon's contract fallen to him too? It was easy to accept Catelyn's words, see the small truth in them and place them high as a relic of impractical hope. Somehow he is human again and her words fall into his hands. They would ally the North and the Riverlands. She could see Winterfell when it was not a frozen tomb. But she has not had her honor tainted.

Amidst the clash in his mind, Ashara rises and settles beside him on the white cushions. Her hand takes his, cool and dry.

"I will be fine." She holds his gaze, gentling her lie with a drop of truth. "There is no shame in Dorne for having a paramour."

He only feels worse, though he forces his face not to show it. Before he can ask her more plainly, Ashara stands again and eases Jon into his arms before vanishing into her bedchamber. The boy sleeps, weary as Ned and Howland after scant food and rough travel. When she reemerges, she carries a sword taller than she is—Ned's heart skips when he sees the pommel.

"You returned my family's sword." Ashara gives a sad smile. "It is fitting I can return yours."

She offers Ice after he has nestled his nephew between pillows. Ice is a heavy weapon to bear—it makes known the strength needed to guard the North, and the weight of any decision that ends in blood. Holding the greatsword, arms shaking from weakness more than nerves, Ned can remember those days when his father would sit in the Godswood and sharpen it, telling him stories that stuck with him longer than his maester's lessons.

"My lady, how did you get this?" His voice is hoarse with fresh grief.

"Princess, Elia." Ashara slips back into her chair. "She bade me leave King's Landing before I started to show, and gave it to me for safekeeping. She bears her goodfather no love. My family would never give up Dawn; Ice belongs to the Starks."

She has said she does not blame him for her brother. Ned believes her, but knows her grace to be a pale mask. He presented her with Dawn soon after they arrived, trying and failing to delicately explain how it came to pass. Ashara took the blade, murmured her thanks, but the rattling scabbard betrayed her shuddering hands. Quickly she excused herself from the main hall. Ned remembers her ward, a relative named Gerold, shooting him a look of cold murder.

Ned thought to stay in Starfall just long enough to rest. In truth he does, but the time it takes his strength to return is longer than he imagined. Howland suggests his insides changed with the rest of him and it must have healed the worst of the damage. It seems to heal on its own, whatever it is. The scar on his chest still aches; the crannogman had thumbed it and said it felt like mostly-healed bone. When the pain grows too deep, he thinks of the sorcerer's spear, of his body writhing and drooling blood as it impaled him chest to bowels. His current state is a weak echo, and he feels better.

Lady Ashara assuages him with the promise of a ship to Seagard, and from there he can ride to Riverrun—he would hardly arrive back any later than if he travelled the entire way on horseback. He owes her a greater debt when she introduces him to Wylla, a tawny-haired maid who can serve as a wetnurse. Wylla sets her own gentle terms: she is happy to come with them if he will arrange her safe return. Jon takes to her at once, though the babe would take any teat after his unavoidable fast.

Yet for all Ashara's consideration he does not see her so often. She stays in her chambers, enough to cause whisperings among the household. When he sees her smile and hears her laugh, he wonders how long they took her to compose.

Nothing keeps him from leaving beyond his own body, but Ned begins understand how Catelyn must have felt. No matter how his injuries need rest, and how seductive it feels to be cut off from the world, his nerves chafe with the guilt of giving up his purpose. He needs to be back at Riverrun, or wherever the war has marched.

It takes almost a month before he feels himself. His scars still twinge, but Howland has dragged him into the practice yard and he survived. Ice feels strange in his grip but a tourney sword is beginning to make his hands and feet remember their training. When he recovers enough to ride without pain, Ashara's guards escort him back to the Tower of Joy and make a cairn for the fallen knights. It sooths some of his regret after leaving them for the crows.

The ship sails north today with the four of them and the horses. He stands at the quay, waiting for his companions.

"Thank you, Lord Stark."

He takes a breath before he turns to Ashara, fighting the instinct to whip around like a deaf old hound. Ashara stands behind him, watching with that glass-bright gaze. She has never called him that before; some might find her lack of formality rude but he finds it calming.

"I should thank you, Lady Dayne, for your hospitality."

Her teeth show the smallest bit as her hands clasp and she steps forward. Ned does not understand why she steps so close, until she draws near enough he can feel her silks, then her soft mouth on his. It takes his will not to jerk away—in surprise, not affront—though he knows servants and sailors are watching. She is not thinking about you. He is shorter and plainer than his brother, but they are Starks. Of all the times when he was younger and imagined a kiss from Ashara, none made him feel so sad.

She pulls back, face unreadable. This close, he sees the sharp edges of her collarbones, and the powder that hides the circles under her eyes.

"Take care, Eddard."

It is a sudden dread, not born of romance or lust—Ned does not want to leave. He would ask her to come with him except he knows she would smile and sweetly say again her place is here. The servants whisper how raw their lady's grief runs, scraped further by her brother's death. What kind of gift is a sword in place of kin? What gift a stallion in place of a husband? He wonders then if he should return Lord Dustin's horse to his lady wife at all. The stallion balked and snapped at the servant leading it onto the ship; perhaps it just wants to go home.

In return, he bows his neck, and tells her he is in her debt. Howland walks up soon after with Wylla beside him and Jon in her arms. She has grown fond of the boy.

Lady Ashara watches them sail away, hands clasped. Her ward stands beside her now. She is still there when they sail through the shadow of the Palestone Sword.

The voyage goes by slowly though he knows they make better time than on horseback. Most days he and Howland clash on the deck. Ice feels more comfortable in his hands, though he only uses it for shadow practice—Howland was loath for it to break his only sword. Jon watches from his nest of blankets and coiled rope.

Oft times, Ned finds himself staring back. Jon has his mother's coloring. He is too young for his features to take after a particular parent, as far as Ned can tell.

Howland wipes sweat from his brow and thumps beside the babe. "Not long until you see Catelyn Tully again. You were close, yes?"

Sitting down as well, Ned measures his reply. "I think we are betrothed. It will be good to see her again."

The crannogman snorts. "A good match. I think." Then, with more teasing, "Are you in love with her?"

She is not in love with me. He cannot help the twinge of wariness he still sometimes feels, from when she forced him to go south. When his mood is already dour, he wonders how much of her kindness was cajoling. But for that matter, while he admires her, respects her…fool, you cannot say you love her either. Then he remembers that day when the serving girl told him she had gone south. He was furious, shamefully so, but afraid more that.

"I know not."

Howland laughs. "Then you don't. No matter. I didn't love Jyana when we married. Now, I want to ride past Riverrun and straight to Greywater. I'm not saying love grows in every marriage, but you already brought her south with an army…you have to like her a little."

"More than a little," he says after a moment.

It is true. The more he thinks of her, remembers their goodbye, the more he wants to be back at Riverrun. Gods, I am a fool. He is the Lord of Winterfell; marriage is for heirs and security, not love. Love is a fortunate side effect. That is what Jon Arryn would say. Ned laughs to himself. As much as Jon has influenced him, he also grew up with Brandon loving everyone he did not hate, Lyanna telling stories of knights and ladyloves, and Robert believing he loved whichever girl held his current fancy.

Howland's eyes narrow the slightest, and Ned realizes he should have seen their course. "I can take the babe, Ned. He looks nothing like me—and I could hardly have a tryst with you. Jyana would know him as an orphan. He would be safe in Graywater Watch. But he does look like you…Lady Catelyn would not be as accepting."

"We are not married."

"Fool," he huffs with little ire. "If your understanding of women is that poor, you should practice speaking with Wylla, not swinging your sword."


But peace never lasts. A ship has the boon and curse of sheltering its crew from outside rumor. When they arrive in Seagard Ned hears a new story—Lady Ashara jumped to her death from her tallest tower.

He slumps in his seat, food forgotten. Meat still tastes off to him anyway.

"The boy knew."

"Boy?" Howland asks, eyes narrow.

"Gerold Dayne, her page."

Her father's squire, actually, sent to attend her as punishment for displeasing Lord Dayne. Of course like any, the boy was soon devoted to Ashara. For all his scowls and simmering dark eyes, he had barged into Ned's chambers and demanded that he stay until her father returned. Ned could not, would not, and the boy stormed off in a fury. And Lady Ashara… he did not realize. At first she cradled Jon to sleep, but after returning Ice she was rarely in the same room with the babe. "But it is too late for that." He thought her referring to a disparity in Jon and her stillborn's ages, and what would otherwise be an offer to raise him as her and Brandon's bastard.

Half a year ago and he would have smelled her sadness, heard the small catches in her voice. Not for the first time he wishes he still had his nose and ears. Everything has a price. His curse makes him realize how poor his senses are. As it is, all he did was kill her brother.