Screams echoed through Winterfell's ancient halls.
The cold was no longer confined to the air. It had seeped into the stones, the mortar, the bones of the living and the dead. Blood slicked the floors of the corridors, a crimson sheen glinting beneath torches struggling to stay lit. The Great Hall, once a place of feasts and songs, had become a redoubt—crammed with wounded, terrified civilians, and exhausted soldiers clinging to hope.
Below, the wine cellars shuddered with every impact above. Inside, Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark sat beside a heavy wooden door, jammed shut with an iron rod. Varys crouched nearby, listening to the muffled chaos.
Tyrion's hand trembled as he held Sansa's. "This is not how I imagined dying," he said with a weak smile.
Sansa glanced at him. "Nor I. But it's not over yet."
"Not until the last book is closed," Varys added grimly.
Elsewhere, in the maester's wing, Varys had earlier led the remaining elderly and young maesters to safety. He'd carried a girl no older than five when she lagged behind, shielding her with his own body as the ceiling cracked. His silk robes were torn, his hair damp with sweat, but his calm never wavered.
In the castle's blackened library, fire had scorched the edges of once-priceless tomes. There, Arya Stark and Gendry fought side by side, moving like dancers through the smoke. Arya leapt from table to shelf, daggers flashing. Gendry guarded her flank, dragging his forge hammer in brutal arcs that shattered bone.
"Behind you!" Arya shouted, spinning to impale a wight through its eye.
Gendry grunted, swinging again. "I'm never letting you leave the forge alone again."
In the inner yard, Jaime Lannister stood bloodied and breathing hard. An undead giant thundered toward him. Jaime dodged left, slashed its leg, but it backhanded him across the snow. As it raised a bone-crushing fist, Brienne charged with a cry of rage.
Together, they fought, hacking and stabbing until the thing finally dropped with a bellow, its carcass crumpling into mist.
"Podrick!" Brienne screamed.
The squire had been knocked near the broken stables. She ran, lifting him from a pile of debris, cradling his limp form with shaking hands. He groaned. Alive.
At the front of the Great Hall, Grey Worm led the remnants of the Unsullied, their formation tight. Every breath formed a frost-edged plume. Behind them, the gates shuddered as the dead slammed into them.
Grey Worm didn't speak. He only stepped forward and planted his spear.
The doors splintered.
Arya moved through crumbling corridors like a shadow. Her blood left a trail behind her—shallow cuts, exhaustion mounting. Her face was pale, her eyes wild. One more hallway. One more step.
She turned a corner—and paused.
The inner gates of Winterfell collapsed behind her.
She froze.
The courtyard beyond filled with smoke and ash and the sound of bone against steel.
And then, walking through the haze as if he were born of it—the Night King.
His crown of frost glinted in the firelight. Blue eyes surveyed the ruin with inhuman calm.
Arya's breath caught.
Winterfell had fallen.
And yet, it did not fall silently.
Within the inner keep, defenders clung to every breath. Davos Seaworth, wounded but breathing, helped an injured woman stagger through a side passage toward the maester's tower. "Keep moving," he urged. "Don't look back." Behind them, a blast of frost shattered a doorway, and three wights swarmed in. Davos thrust a torch into one, the flames licking up its face as it screamed. Two Northern guards arrived, spears piercing the remaining attackers, and nodded silently to Davos before rushing toward another scream.
Near the armory, Tormund Giantsbane stood with half a dozen remaining wildlings. They fought like beasts—unrelenting, primal, cornered. "This is the fight we came for!" he bellowed, plunging an axe into a frozen corpse. "If we fall, we take the dead with us!"
Outside, near the Godswood gates, Theon Greyjoy and the last of the ironborn circled Bran Stark. The ancient heart tree rose above them, white and bleeding red, its branches moving in the windless air. Theon's hands bled around the haft of his spear.
"You don't have to do this," Bran had told him earlier, his voice like a whisper on the wind.
"I do," Theon had replied. "For what I was. For who I am."
Now, with every crash of undead fists against the ironwood gates, he prepared to die.
In the kitchens, Gilly held Little Sam close, backed into a pantry corner with a half-dozen other women and children. She didn't cry. She didn't pray. She simply waited, arms tight around her son, listening to the rising wails of the dead beyond the door.
Far above, a small group of archers still held the northeast tower. They fired down through shattered merlons, dragonglass-tipped arrows finding marks—until they didn't. One by one, they were dragged from the ramparts, their cries cut short.
And in the crypts, the old dead stirred. Earth cracked open. Bones spilled forth.
But for now, those below remained unaware.
Back in the main hall, Grey Worm shouted something in High Valyrian as the last of the Unsullied fell back. Firelight glinted off his armor as he shoved a shattered table against the door and stood atop it, facing the advancing mass. When the door finally gave, he leapt down, spear in hand, and fought.
Tyrion and Sansa heard the crash from below. Their eyes met.
"If we don't make it…" he started.
"We did better than most," Sansa whispered, clutching a knife she'd found.
A hush fell over the crypt's stairwell.
Then came a cold, slow wind.
The Night King had entered the courtyard.