Author's Note

I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire.


They ride out to Maidenpool, but finding a ship willing to take them to White Harbor proves difficult. It's not the money, nor the distance, or even the wolves.

It's them.

The ship crews fear their claws and spook at their fangs; they whisper behind their backs. Ned could keep the seas calm and fill their sails with wind – but they declare this to be sorcery and view him with terror in his eyes. Sansa and Bran are a different matter, the sailors refuse to even look at them.

So they ride.

It will be a long trip back up the Kingsroad, but they aren't travelling with a full household and some Houses in the Vale and Riverlands will surely shelter them for a few days.

Ned tells the Baratheon knights they don't have to join them, but they insist that they will do so anyway. One is an older man Ned vaguely recognises as being from Storm's End; the other two are younger and more eager but no less loyal.

They are barely a few nights into the long journey north when hot pain stabs through his head.

Ned has never been the finest go horseman, but he is steady enough and manages to keep hold of the reins in one hand as the other flies to his head.

Sansa and Bran are less fortunate.

Sansa screams, a sound he has never heard from his daughter before. It breaks his heart even when he knows how strong she is; Sansa is his child and it hurts him to see her in pain.

Bran howls, tips over backwards, and falls from his horse, which tears away without him.

Jory leaps from his horse to Bran's side, while Vayon hurries to control Ned and Sansa's own steeds before they too can fall or be thrown. Sansa's horse is already stomping its feet, huffing, snorting, as Sansa struggles and screams.

"Dismount, my lord!" Jory snaps. Part of Ned rankles at being addressed so, but the other sees the logic and he half-dismounts, half-falls from his horse. Jory lifts Sansa down and lays her by a tree. Her eyes are alight with blue flame, her fingers twitching and her hands swishing through the air as though she were trying to weave nothing.

Bran hasn't moved.

Ned tries to move to him, but the pain lancing through his head forces him to stop. He roars and falls to his knees. The pain feels like fire behind his eyes. His head might explode.

"What is happening to them?" asks one of the Baratheon knights.

"I've never seen this before. Might it be an effect from Lord Stark?" replies Vayon.

Ned fights for air even as his body refuses him. "No– This is– Outside us."

Sansa twists and turns and shudders beneath the tree, wailing her pain to the world.

Bran is terribly silent.

Ned crawls to his side and touches his face. He's cold, dreadfully cold, and his eyes are glowing like Sansa's.

"Bran," he whispers, but another strike of pain hits, as though he's being torn open from the inside. Oath whines and pushes her head into his side.

Everything hurts.

Sansa gives another terrible wail and Lady howls with her.

Bran arches his back. His mouth opens.

"Jon."