Robb

In his dreams, he let them die.

The lion cut through Torrhen Karstack, then his brother Eddard died, and then Daryn Hornwood. Patrek Mallister, Smalljon Umber, Dacey Mormont, Ser Wendel Manderly and Robin Flint all fell in the golden storm of steel and fury, and close behind them went the Frey boys whose names he couldn't even do them the honour of remembering. His Wolfsguard died before him, until it was just Theon still standing, and then the Greyjoy died the same as all the others, and Robb stood alone and small before the hulking terror of the lion.

He woke up after, always, but he could never remember how it ended. Not like he could remember the rest of the dream. Not like he could call to mind the reality of that day.

Jaime Lannister, proving his valour and skill as he tried to cut through to take the head of the 'Young Wolf' before the ambush at the Whispering Wood could finish its bloody work.

Torrhen, dying in a few brave moments against a swordsman as far above him as the clouds.

And the dark, sharp and old and hungry, rising in him like a wolf scenting prey.

Weeks before he had stumbled into a lonely godswood off the kingsroad. He had prayed to the Old Gods as a red scar split the sky above and he had felt their blessing take root in his chest.

When he saw Lord Karstark's son die, he had known what he must do as a king and a commander of men, but as he steeled himself to hold position and let Jaime wear out his fury against his Wolfsguard, the dark rose up and howled. It howled not for blood, or honour, but for battle itself. It howled for steel and iron and bronze, even stone. It howled for the naked edge that stole life, and the darkness that came after.

It drove him forward, to do as his heart demanded, and damn himself for a fool.

He spurred his horse and his guards could not react in time. In a moment his horse was forcing past Daryn and he himself shoved Eddard Karstark out of the Kingslayer's way. He met Jaime Lannister sword for sword as their horses stamped and fought. The older man's face had split in a mad grin as those swords met and Robb found himself outmatched in a heartbeat.

The Kingslayer's blade was half a serpent and the other half mist. He tried to lock blades and it slipped away, then with a terrible strength it struck his own weapon out and aside. Robb should have died there, he knew, but for the dark.

It howled, and darkness filled his arm as he reversed his sword's motion. Robb's backhand should not have been possible, and yet his foe's skill was so supreme that he broke off his own attack and met steel with steel. Robb was twisting his sword to keep from fouling the edge when the darkness overflowed his flesh, and his sword became something more than metal and leather.

It sliced through the Kingslayer's blade like the mist his skill had made it seem, and only Robb's training to meet another blade with the flat of his kept Jaime Lannister alive that day. Surprised by his own speed, it was the other man's body that Robb struck with the flat of his sword. Instead of being bisected, for Robb knew at once that no mortal armour could stop the edge of that dark sword, the Kingslayer was smashed from his horse like a green knight at the tilt.

He fell to the ground with a bare inch left of his sword, and though his groans proved him alive, he could not struggle to his feet in time. A dozen of the Wolfsguard were on him first, and the eldest son of Tywin Lannister was theirs even as Robb sagged from exhaustion in the saddle.

That had been the first time the darkness rose in him. It won him the best of all the captives they took that day, earned him the anger of his Wolfsguard for his denial of their sworn duty, and brought him the simmering enmity of Lord Karstark for not finishing the man who killed his younger son.

The elder of the Karstark brothers had even tried to resign from the Wolfsguard, though Robb had seen more shame in the man than anger as he said the words, and had refused to let him go. He had hoped that decision would help keep the Karstark banners in his host, and had resolved not to be so stupid again, even as a part of him thrilled at the songs that were being sung of his victory and a colder part considered the morale those songs gained him.

Then he had ridden to relieve Riverrun and at the Battle of the Camps the dark had risen again.

Split among three camps as it was -North of the Tumblestone, West of Riverrun, and East of it- Robb had seen the opportunity to defeat the Lannister army despite its greater size compared to his own. The rivers between the camps were wide and hard to cross quickly even with rafts at the ready, especially with the three walls of Riverrun raining arrows and stones on anyone making the attempt.

His great uncle -Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish- had done as he commanded, laying waste to the northernmost of the camps just as the dawn was breaking. Then he had waited for the western camp to act, as the only one that could relieve the northern camp in time, and struck when they were at their weakest. Too many men in rafts being pelted with arrows and catapult stones and fighting the current all the while. Not enough men ready to meet a charge from the west.

That charge had been his to lead, but his Wolfsguard had made him swear before the battle that he would not endanger himself and their oaths again. Grey Wind would be at his side this time too, and for the bloody work they were to be doing Robb had been glad to have all his battle brothers -and sister- at his side.

Then the dark had risen a second time, and earned him his crown.

It had come at the moment of the charge. As he roused his horse from trot to canter to gallop.

He had laid a hand on his sword to draw it, and the darkness was suddenly in his veins and his skin and he knew that he would burst with it if he did not embrace it.

It had transformed more than the edge of his sword that time, and he had felt the charge ripple as men caught sight of their king, for he could be nothing else with the darkness upon him.

Later they would tell him how his armour had darkened and runes had swam across its surface. How his furs had thickened and changed from the pelt of a wolf to the skin of something old and nameless as the gods. How darkness so deep it seemed to tint red had poured from the joints in his armour, and his sword had twisted and lengthened and grown runes of its own.

Robb had noticed none of it. Too busy fighting the darkness as it tried to call forth something like a horse. Something remote and callous and loyal in the same way a sword was. He knew it was named Sleipnir and he knew he did not want it, even as it stamped six hooves and told his soul that he would have no better mount then it.

He had felt Grey Wind then, and understood for the first time how his soul was joined with that of the direwolf, and denied Sleipnir without regret. For the darkness in him could empower his wolf-brother just as it could birth the Dark King's horse.

He had been able to see Grey Wind's transformation though, as the direwolf gained a foot at the shoulder and another set of hind legs, his blackened fur trailing that same darkness that men would tell Robb he had worn like a cape. Then he was leaping from his horse mid-gallop, landing on Grey Wind's -"Svartvindr!" Howled the darkness- back and gripping with his thighs and one hand as the other drew a sword that was longer than a grown man was tall.

What came after was less than a battle. It was a slaughter.

No man could stand against the darkness. No man could even slow it down.

His own army did their work, but he wondered if every Northerner who fought in the western camp that day could altogether match the numbers he cut down. Especially after he crossed the Red Fork and fell upon the eastern camp by himself. His Wolfsguard had been left far behind while his forces scrambled to follow on the Lannister's own rafts, but as he cut through men like he was a boy again, scything grass with a stick, Robb had known he was not betraying his oath.

He was in no danger that day.

He was of the blood of the Kings of Winter, and the Old Gods had blessed his purpose as they had no other Stark since the Age of Heroes, if even then. They had given him the strength of a dark god, and granted him the secret of its name, that he might wear it as his own and become one with the god that dwelt within him.

That day he was the Dark King, Odin, and astride Svartvindr no man could hope to harm him.

When it was over though, he was just Robb, the Young Wolf, and he slept for nearly a week before he had enough strength to wake.

He arose to whispers of a king not yet crowned, who fought like a myth and slept like a statue. A king who did not need his guards, for he stood alone on the battlefield.

'Never alone.' He had thought. 'Grey Wind is with me.' Only later did he realise that he had not even thought of the men and woman who had sworn their lives to his defence. The battle kin that he had left behind when the time came.

His guilt had him seek them out, and he was shaken by the reverence he found in them, where camaraderie had been. Even Theon struggled to meet his eyes, and spoke with a respect he had never known in his brother by all but blood.

Only the Smalljon and Dacey had still greeted him as a fellow warrior, and when he looked closely he saw something more like madness in their eyes. He had found them both in the Godswood, and neither seemed to have any intention to leave. Still, they spoke to him as a man and not as what he could feel himself becoming, and for that much he stayed and joined them in prayer despite his fear of what the gods might do next.

He should have feared to learn why the gods had granted him such a gift.

The reason had come with the sunset. A raven had flown to them through the deep red of the last light, dark wings bearing news so black it stole his breath.

They had taken his father's head.

His mother had nearly collapsed at the news. He had fought not to do the same.

Then he had felt rage rising to match his grief, and struggled even harder not to let it master him. A God-Touched, as they were calling him, could not give into anger. Any attempt to vent his fury would do too much damage, he was sure of it.

Yet he had not had the strength to offer his mother more than a moment's comfort. He hardly had the strength to make his way to the Godswood.

There he knelt, and there he stayed. Foremost among those who gathered as the day became night and the moon rose. The sounds of the castle were distant there and no one said a word as each man and woman prayed in silence.

The Old Gods had given him power, and he had been a fool to think they would do it without reason. He wondered what ancient pact had been broken by his father's death in that pit of snakes and rot, or if it was merely a whim of the gods that had driven their decision, but he did not ask them.

He asked only for the chance to prove that he was Odin, and that Odin was him. That through him, House Stark would prove worthy of this, as they had proven worthy of all else.

Then he had pulled his sword from the ground and risen to his feet, while behind him his lords and ladies remained on their knees.

He saw his mother, standing at the edge of the Godswood like she would fall without his uncle Edmure at her side and knew that at least his plan to snatch hostages from the Lannisters had found success while he slumbered. They were not alone amongst followers of the Seven in his sight, but they were the only ones who had not knelt as he rose. With his eyes upon them Edmure went down to a knee, helping his sister to follow him.

He spied all his lords and ladies then. Picked them out of those who knelt before him. Those of the North who had followed him south. Those of the Riverlands who had found him along the way, or found their way back to Riverrun while he slept. And a few like Theon or the Blackfish, of more distant lands but made his by the tides of fate.

Yet however they came to him, they were his. In that moment he had known it. Or maybe it was rather that only then he admitted it to himself, because he had known what he was since he drew upon the dark and let it transform him partway to what he felt it could make him.

He was a King.

When the Greatjon raised his sword and laid it down with a booming shout, he was the first to say it.

"The King in the North!"

The rest followed a heartbeat later, and they spoke as one.

"The King in the North!"

Yet, for all he held the power of a king of myths, Robb was still a man.

He still had dreams. Of death that had not been, and death that had happened far away, and death that might yet be, and even death hot and bloody between sharp teeth, though that last he knew was less a dream than a glimpse through the senses of his wolf brother.

He still woke and had to live as a man, and worry about the logistics of his army and restoring the peace and safety of his kingdoms of the North and -especially- the Riverlands. He still had to lay out his plans and consider his options. After the rush of his crowning had come a great many awkward conversations as those caught up in a tale out of legends found themselves having to reckon with realities.

Even getting a crown made had been more like a fitting with the tailor than one of Old Nan's stories of magic kings.

The conversations about what they would do next had been more of a comedown, if anything. More than a few of his lords had seemed to think he would reach out to pluck the moon from the sky and cast it down upon the Lannister's heads.

Robb had been quick to point out the weaknesses in reliance on his power.

He was unmatched in battle, though the truth was that he had not slain near so many as he had imagined, a man who could not be slain or stopped was the death of an army's will to fight if nothing else. Especially if that man wielded a sword that seldom killed less than three at a stroke, and rode Svartvindr.

However he had been able to maintain that strength for just shy of an hour and a half, and it had left him dead to the world and certain to die if an enemy had come upon him while he slept. For all that his body had seemed immune to time as he recovered, neither wasting away nor accepting -or expelling- sustenance, he had no doubt that a sword in his guts would have finished him then and he gave thanks to Dacey and Smalljon for guarding him throughout.

If he simply charged the enemy and fell to exhaustion in their midst, the song of the young wolf would have a swift end.

He felt stronger for his efforts though. Like a boy new to the tiltyard -and it already felt like he was years from boyhood- he had to train his stamina first of all. Then he would need to consider the greater well of power that he had yet to draw on, for all that he feared it would exhaust him even more than the partial transformation, and that showing it would bring the reverence of his people more uncomfortably close to worship.

Many of them who had held the Seven had converted, he knew. His own faith in the Old Gods had risen to eclipse the faint regard he had always held for his mother's gods, yet there was a danger in that regard.

It was his mind and the skill and courage of those that followed his commands that let them fight two battles against superior numbers and win both. Even that had come at the cost of a great defeat at the Green Fork, the details of which became clearer as Roose Bolton and most of his remaining footmen limped back to the Riverlands over the following days.

All his power had actually done so far was turn victory into a greater victory. If men came to expect him to simply hand them this war then they'd be more like to find defeat. Not to mention the risk of their faith turning to betrayal if he did not meet their expectations, as felt all too likely.

Most dangerous of all was his near certainty that he was not alone.

He had no cause to believe it. Yet he could not imagine that the Old Gods stirred alone, and he was not a Southron fool to think only his gods were true.

Word drifted in throughout his first week as king. Renly had crowned himself, and a giant had strode from the sea to offer its sword to Storm's End. Stannis had crowned himself, and there were whispers of enormous fires in the narrow sea, so great that they dyed the noon sky like sunset. The Hill Tribes were stirring in the Vale, and the Wall warned of Wildlings.

What of it was true, Robb did not know. All of it might be. Or none of it. Either option might prove his doom and he spent long hours listening to news from scouts and Maester Vyman, trying to make sense of it even as he drew upon his power like he was performing a new exercise -often while maintaining his more physical skills, though he had to be careful not to damage anything- and they struggled to maintain their composure in the face of it.

Most worrisome of all was the silence from the south, and even as his men clamoured for them to march on Harrenhal and slaughter Tywin, Robb knew they had to wait for that most of all. If a God-Touched rose amongst the Lannisters then he would have to shape his every plan around them.

It was two weeks and most of a third before they got news clear enough to be sure of, ravens sent out with shaking hands and as many names as apparent allegiances had spread word of Shiva, Ifrit, and House Rosfield. All that they could agree on was that two like him, or like he thought he might be able to become, had come to Kings Landing and declared their neutrality with overwhelming force.

They had claimed a third as well, and while he had no idea what the Phoenix was, the name made Odin stir and brought thoughts of fire to his mind. Robb went to his map and had three markers made and placed about the Narrow Sea. Not an ally, and he wished they had struck down the Lannisters even as he thanked the gods for sparing his sisters, but perhaps not an enemy either.

It was still not quite noon that day when the next batch of wings came, this time with word spreading from the Stormlands and the Reach alike, of King Renly's bride stepping forth before all their eyes and transforming into a Titan fit to cast down that of Braavos. The Stormlords even claimed truth in the prior tale of how she had strode from the sea to pledge herself as he was crowned, and been taken for wife by the King of the Storm that same day.

Robb had known before Vyman finished reading the words what he had to do, and by his luck the great names of his own Kingdoms were mostly in Riverrun and ready for what he intended.

For as long as he had spent training, he could barely hold the full power of Odin for five minutes, and that without doing naught but sit astride Svartvindr as the gigantic direwolf showed his ability to ride through the air. He was straining so hard that the wonder of finding himself taller than the wall of Riverrun and looking down on it from higher still hardly registered.

Afterwards it took everything he had to maintain his dignity through the rest of the ceremony, and Grey Wind simply collapsed behind the hastily built stage and needed a half-dozen stable lads to heave appropriate bedding under the god-mount.

But his own ravens went out, and enough of them to ensure that none would doubt his word either.

He needed a full days sleep to recover, and while he was pleased not to wake to news that the war had ran away without him, word came instead of yet more bloodshed in the Vale and he suspected more and more that another like him and the Titan of Tarth was behind it.

He sent more ravens to ask for word from his aunt, and wondered what he would do if she asked him to ride to her aid. Already he could see the shape of the new war forming on his map, with a new marker for the Titan placed at the edge of the Stormlands. Already he could see that the most important piece he would move would be himself, and he would decide the course of the war in doing it.

Even if he moved himself correctly, if he lost the battle against another God-Touched then he would still lose. He had gained so much power and when he looked at his map it seemed only to have gifted him another field on which he must win or die and his family along with him.

He had one day's peace before daybreak brought the next round of ravens, and a passing word to the Maester made him realise that the entire Seven Kingdoms was passing news at the limits of the birds speed and endurance.

This time it was word of House Rosfield, far more coherent this time, displaying their might again. This time at Oldtown.

They had penned some of the raven's message themselves. Stating clearly that they held an island they had forged from hellfire and blizzard where the Narrow Sea met the Shivering. They had three God-Touched, what they called Dominants, and they would take no part in the war on Westeros.

Yet they offered knowledge, given equally to all lords and sides, in exchange that their factor be hosted at the Citadel and partake of their knowledge in turn. The mysterious foreigners claimed to know details of the powers awakening in the Seven Kingdoms and stated clearly what had been whispered before.

The power would pass down through the bloodline of those who held it. Death would not be the end of this new type of war, and there would be no single victor left standing at the end.

That they then offered terrible retribution if their factor -a woman, Robb noted of 'Vivian Ninetales' with a faint wonder at their claims of her as a scholar of their impossibly distant land- suffered harm only made him more sure of the truth of it.

He sent word back to try and offer a diplomatic opening, but he knew there was little hope of it reaching someone at the heart of the Tyrells power.

Then word came of the next God-Touched to be acclaimed, and he near forgot such thoughts as he finally beheld the full shape of the war to come.

The Rosfields had given names for those who had yet to appear, and other letters made reference to the access it had bought them, their knowledge of Odin's name striking him as sacrilegious even as it further proved them true. So he had a marker ready when the last raven came at the end of the day.

Even still, when he watched the Maester ink the name of King Joffrey the First of his Name on Bahamut's marker, he felt anything but prepared.

Once more a King of Dragons held Kings Landing, and he wondered at the fate of House Stark before such a thing.

Then he felt the darkness stir inside him, and wondered at the fate of a dragon against a King of Blades.