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POV: Arthur Snow
Location: Winterfell
The morning after the duel dawned grey and grim. Snow flurried in the courtyard. Ravens circled the towers like omens.
Arthur Snow stood in Lord Rickard's solar, the heavy oak doors shut behind him. No guards. No servants. Just the Lord of Winterfell and the blacksmith's boy who bested a Baratheon knight.
Rickard Stark studied him in silence.
"You fought well," Rickard said at last.
Arthur inclined his head. "Thank you, my lord."
"You humiliated a noble knight. Without shedding blood. That's a rare blade—sharp, but sheathed." Rickard turned to the hearth. "The realm needs such blades."
Arthur's gaze didn't waver. "Is that why I'm here?"
Rickard turned back to face him. "You've drawn eyes, Arthur. Some friendly. Others… less so. House Stark needs to decide what to do with you before someone else does."
Arthur stepped forward, expression calm.
"Then let me decide first."
Rickard raised an eyebrow. "Speak."
"I'll serve House Stark. Swear loyalty. Fight your enemies, if that's your will."
Rickard nodded slowly. "And the price?"
Arthur didn't flinch. "Three things. A private forge—mine alone, untouched. Built near the godswood, where the air is clean and the world is quiet. Second, quarters of my own. I'll not sleep in straw with squires and grooms. A place with walls, stone, and silence."
Rickard's eyes narrowed. "And the third?"
Arthur stepped close enough for the firelight to catch the glint in his eyes.
"Freedom in thought. I'll take orders in war, but not in wisdom. If I am to serve the North, let me serve it with a mind unshackled. No chains from Maesters. No leash from lords."
The words hung like swords in the air.
Rickard stared at him. "You speak like a grown man."
Arthur replied, voice even. "I died a boy. What remains is steel."
Silence stretched.
Then Rickard chuckled. "You are dangerous."
"I'm useful."
"Aye," Rickard murmured. "That you are."
He walked to the table and unfurled a weathered map. The North stretched across it like a frozen kingdom carved in ink.
"You'll have your forge," Rickard said. "And the room. Freedom… we'll see."
He tapped the far north, beyond the Wall.
"Three rangers have gone missing from Castle Black. Last seen near the Frostfangs. No word. No bodies. The Lord Commander sent a raven, but few will ride north in this snow."
Rickard looked up. "You will."
Arthur didn't blink. "Alone?"
"No. I'm sending two dozen riders under Ser Colm. But you'll lead. Quietly."
Arthur's hand closed around the edge of the table. "You want me to command?"
"Not in name. But your eyes are sharper. Your instincts faster. They follow Ser Colm's sword. But they'll follow your shadow."
Arthur nodded slowly. "When do we ride?"
"Dawn."
He turned to leave.
"Arthur," Rickard called, halting him. "Why near the godswood?"
Arthur paused. Then answered without turning.
"Because it's peaceful there."
Beyond the Wall — Two Days Later
Snow swallowed the world.
The wind screamed through twisted trees, and the clouds hung low like torn sails. Two dozen men rode in a loose wedge, their cloaks flapping like broken banners. At the center rode Arthur Snow, blacksmith's belt lined with hidden blades, Frostfang strapped to his back like a quiet warning.
Ser Colm rode beside him, face pale with frost.
"We're too far north," he muttered. "Even crows don't fly here."
"Then we'll find what grounds them," Arthur said.
By nightfall, they found the first corpse. Frozen stiff. Arms torn from sockets. Eyes gone. Not a drop of blood.
"Bear?" a man whispered.
Arthur knelt beside the body. "No. Bears maul. This one… was opened."
The next morning, they found another.
Sword still in hand. Throat missing.
The third left no body. Just a trail of blackened snow, winding into the hills like spilled ink.
That night, they made camp.
The Calling
Arthur didn't sleep.
Something tugged at him. Not a sound. Not a voice. A… pull.
Like a string in his chest being drawn north.
He rose without a word. No armor. Just Frostfang. The wind clawed at his cloak as he walked into the darkness, deeper into the hills, guided by instinct—and something older.
He moved like a shadow among trees, boots silent on frozen moss.
Then—he stopped.
A crag in the rock. Not visible. Not obvious.
But something called from within.
A whisper beneath the silence.
He slipped through the crevice.
The Cave
It was narrow, winding—nearly suffocating.
But Arthur pressed forward. The cold deepened until his breath turned to mist and his fingers numbed even through leather.
The air was wrong here. Not just cold—ancient.
Then, at the heart of the cave, he saw it.
A shard.
Buried beneath layers of ice so dense they shimmered like glass. It pulsed faintly—blue light breathing in the dark like a sleeping beast. Veins of black swam beneath its surface. Not crystal. Not natural.
It had not been shaped by earth.
It had been placed.
Hidden.
Waiting.
Arthur stepped closer. The air grew heavier. His breath came slower. Frost crept across his lashes.
He reached out—then froze.
Not from fear. From knowing.
This was no stone. No relic. It was alive.
He didn't touch it. He couldn't. Every instinct screamed danger. Not of death—but of becoming something else.
Inside the shard, he saw a shape.
Metal?
Bone?
A memory carved in ice.
He stood there for long moments, his heartbeat echoing in the silence. The shard pulsed again.
Then he turned, and walked away.
But Arthur did not leave empty-handed.
He wrapped his hands in boiled leather and knelt beside the ice. He did not chip or strike. He breathed.
Circulated his qi, slowly—coaxing heat from within.
The frost recoiled.
It took time. Too long for any man born of this world. But when the last layer of ice cracked like old bone, he reached into the center.
His fingers closed around it.
The shard was heavier than it looked—denser than steel, colder than death. It didn't cut him, but the cold climbed his arm like vines, testing him, tasting him.
He whispered, "You called me."
It answered with silence.
He wrapped it in thick hide and tucked it inside a hidden compartment beneath his cloak, near his spine, where warmth could not reach it.
Then, without looking back, he slipped out of the cave and vanished into the storm.
He did not speak of it to anyone else in the camp.
That Night
Day Five from Winterfell
The fire crackled low. Snow hissed in the flames as wind slid through the camp like a thief.
The men whispered.
"Could've been cannibals," one muttered. "Thenns or worse. Cut them up like pigs."
"Nah," another said.
"Then a bear? A warg? Something that walks on two legs and tears out eyes?"
They looked at Arthur.
He didn't answer. He was seated alone, near the edge of the fire's reach, cloak wrapped tight, shadows flickering across his face.
Ser Colm stepped closer. "You wandered off earlier."
Arthur didn't look up. "I needed air."
Colm narrowed his eyes. "You were gone for hours."
Another rider asked, quieter this time, "Did you find something?"
Arthur finally looked at them.
His eyes were dark. Not tired—distant. As if they looked somewhere far beyond the frost and flame.
"Only silence," he said. "And bones."
They exchanged glances. No one pressed him further.
He pulled his cloak tighter, hiding the shape beneath it—something wrapped in hide, something cold and still humming faintly.
When they rode south again the next morning, the storm had quieted, as if the land held its breath.
But behind them, deep in a cave none had seen, the faint pulsing light was gone.
Because the shard was gone.
And something else—something ancient—was awake.