As The Caravan arrived in Winter Town.
The cold always clung to Harwin's cloak longer than anyone else's. Even now, as we stepped into the dim light of a roadside tavern near the outpost, he didn't shiver. The man wore frost like second skin.
The innkeeper knew him. Didn't smile just nodded, slid two mugs onto the counter, and said, "You'll want the dark one. Stronger. For the road."
Harwin gave a quiet thanks, and we took a corner seat by the fire.
The tavern slled of pine smoke, old ale, and hard at. A hound snored in the corner. The kind of place where n rembered their sorrows but never dared speak them.
I didn't touch my drink. I just stared into the mug, watching the ripples settle while Harwin drank slow, like the bitterness soothed sothing old in him.
"You ever lose soone?" he asked suddenly.
I flinched. "Back ho? A few friends. But it wasn't like this. Not blood in the mud."
Harwin didn't nod or frown. He just stared into the hearth. "My brother died ten years ago. In the North. On this sa road, not far from Moat Cailin."
I turned to him, surprised.
"He was a caravan guard too. Like . Only better with a spear. Taller. Smarter. Didn't speak as much. He was guarding a grain run from Torrhen's Square to the Neck. They were ambushed near a dried-up creekbed. Raiders ca down like ghosts. Took everything. Burned the carts."
He took another slow sip.
"I found him a day later. Or what was left. We never found the ones who did it. No justice. Just wind and ash."
He leaned back, eyes half-lidded. "I took his place in the next caravan. Sa company. Sa cloak. Told myself I'd protect what he couldn't."
A long silence stretched between us. The fire cracked softly.
"Is that why you ca with us?" I asked. "To guard rchants like him?"
He nodded faintly. "Every cart we lose, it's him again. Every boy who dies with a blade in hand—it's him again."
I couldn't speak. I had no wounds like that. No brother slain. No frozen road lined with ghosts. I had only the guilt of watching and doing nothing.
Harwin turned his gaze on . "You're have grown up here. Anyone can tell that. But I've seen the way you look at the world. You still think it can be changed. That's rare."
I scoffed. "Change it? I can't even control what I'm allowed to do in it."
He frowned. "What do you an?"
I looked down. My palm clenched beneath the table, the one that once summoned berries from nowhere and changed numbers like a dream. The cheat engine. My cheat engine.
But it wasn't a god's gift.
It was a cruel joke. Im not even sure if there are consequences in using it.
Gold that wasn't gold. Food that spoiled if it sat too long. No steel. No n. No castle walls.
Just swampberries, Lizard at, hard bread.
I had tried again last night tapping into the engine, focusing hard, willing sothing new to co. Wood for construction. Stone slabs. Even rope or nails.
Nothing.
And now I dont know what to do.
Because how could I take Moat Cailin and raise a banner of my own, when all I could summon was fruit? When others had swords and keeps and histories etched into the bones of their land?
"You're like the First of n." That's what I told myself.
But what use was being first if you didn't even have a foundation?
"I'm trying to make sothing of myself," I finally muttered. "Sothing that will be rembered like the stories of heroes. Still rembered even though hundreds of years has past by. I'm no warrior. hell i don't even have roof over my head, no place people can rember. Like the First n did."
Harwin looked at a long ti. "Then you'll need more than hope. You'll need fire. And steel. And pain."
I swallowed.
"I've got plenty of the last."
Later that evening, a courier from the Winterfell outpost arrived. He didn't waste words.
"Lord Rickard Stark requests a witness from the Bogwater caravan. The boy. The quiet one."
Harwin rose from his stool. "He's not a fighter."
"Not asking for a fighter," the soldier said. "Just soone who saw what happened."
Harwin glanced at . "You'll be fine. Just speak truth."
I nodded, heart thudding against my ribs.
The road to Winterfell was shorter than I imagined.
And yet when the great walls rose before , they looked like the bones of a god.
The grey stone was old—older than ti itself, older than the nas carved into its towers. Frost kissed every crevice. The gates yawned open like the mouth of a giant wolf, and above them, the carved direwolf banner swayed in the wind, not fierce but eternal.
I stepped forward like a dreamwalker, slow and dazed.
Even the air changed.
It slled of snow, steel, and smoke but behind it all was sothing deeper. Sothing ancient.
I paused just inside the archway, eyes wide, jaw slack.
"Winterfell," I whispered.
The weight of its na settled into my bones.
Words were etched into the stones. Runes faded with centuries. I could almost hear voices whispering through the walls battles spoken in silence, lords rembered in the chill.
It wasn't just a castle.
It was mory.
"Boy," a voice coughed behind .
I jolted. A guard in dark grey armor stood beside , amused. "You're not the first to lose your breath at the gate."
"Sorry," I muttered, face flushing. "It's… bigger than I expected."
"Aye. That it is. Co."
He led past courtyards and towers, barracks and forges. The snow was thin, the ice crunching beneath our boots. Every guard we passed looked sharp and quiet.
Eventually, we reached a stone chamber near the training yard.
"Wait here," the man said. "The master-at-arms or the maester will co for you."
I nodded and stood still, the cold sinking into my boots.
Outside the window, Winterfell stood firm. Tiless.
And I, a boy with nothing but stolen gold and a pocket full of berries, had just walked into the heart of the North.
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