Year: 281 AC
Wulfric's POV
The castle felt wrong.
Winterfell had always been quiet, but this wasn't the good kind, not the calm before a snow, nor the hush after a feast. This was heavy. Like the air was thick, pressing down on my chest, waiting for something worse.
The servants spoke softly, thinking I couldn't hear. I always heard. Even Torrhen and Cregan, who never passed a chance to jest, kept their mouths shut these days. They stayed close to me, but even they could feel it.
Something had broken. And though none of 'em said it plain, I knew well enough what it was. Lyanna was gone. Stolen or ran off, no one could agree.
Word came that my father, Brandon, had ridden south, full of fury, they said. I hadn't seen him since before Harrenhal, before all this started unraveling. It felt like a lifetime ago now.
Benjen had been sent to Riverrun. That much I heard whispered once in the halls. He was still somewhere in the riverlands last I knew, far from here. Far from me.
-
I'd never been summoned to the solar alone before. Together with others yes but never alone. Never without rodrick or walys or someone by my side to steady my pounding heart when coming face to face with the towering stone of a man known as my grandfather, the Warden of the North.
The title alone invoked a trembling sense of pressure onto me.
When I stepped inside, the hearth was already lit, though the morning sun still poured pale through the high windows. Grandfather stood near the table, staring down at a map that had been unrolled across its length, roads, rivers, castles marked in fading ink. He didn't look up at first.
I closed the door behind me and stood there, waiting.
When he finally turned, his eyes looked older than I'd ever seen them. Not tired, but worn. Like something inside him had cracked and he was holding the pieces together through sheer will.
"Come closer, lad," he said.
I obeyed, boots soft on the stone.
He studied me for a long moment. "You've grown." He almost smiled, not quite, but the weight in his brow lightened. "Eight now, aren't you?"
"Aye, my lord."
"No need for titles here," he muttered. "Not today."
He motioned toward the table. "Brandon's already gone. Benjen rides north i hope, last I heard he passed Riverrun. Lyanna..."
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
His eyes drifted down to the map again. "The realm's twisting in ways I hoped I'd never see again. Madness spreading like rot beneath the bark. And now the king wants my presence." His mouth tightened. "Aerys demands."
My throat felt dry. "Is it a trap?"
He looked at me, really looked, and I knew the answer before he said it.
"Aye. I believe it is. But I must go. Not because he commands it... but because if I don't, he'll kill your father and parade him around like a puppeteer showing the realm how weak the Starks are.. On how the Starks cower while one of us is taken.."
He stepped around the table, stood in front of me. Tall and grey. A man who'd carried the North longer than I'd been alive.
"I've made mistakes, Wulfric."
Hearing him say my name like that, not Snow, not 'the boy', struck deeper than I expected.
"I should've done more for you. Should've spoken your name louder. Given you place, voice... not just training and tasks. You're of my blood. Brandon's boy." He rested a hand on my shoulder. "And I should've made sure the realm saw that as clear as I do."
I couldn't speak. The heat in my chest made it hard to breathe.
"I ride south," he said softly, "but Winterfell must remain strong. The North must remain strong. And now that task falls to you."
"Me?" I whispered. "But I'm just…"
"You are what remains," he cut in, voice firm but not unkind. "Of all my line, you are the only Stark left in the North. And the gods help us, lad... that must be enough."
He knelt slightly, not all the way, but enough to meet my eyes.
"You will listen to Maester Walys. You will train. You will watch. You will remember. If I do not return... if your father does not return... if Benjen and Ned are swallowed up in this madness, then Winterfell must endure through you."
I clenched my jaw, fighting the tremble in my lip. "What if I'm not strong enough?"
He held my gaze. "Then become strong enough."
A long silence passed between us. The fire cracked in the hearth. Outside, somewhere distant, the wind stirred the banners on the towers.
At last, he reached into his cloak and pulled out a small silver ring, with runic texts so small I could barely make them out along the band, heavy, marked with the direwolf of Stark. He pressed it into my palm and curled my fingers around it.
"My ring," he said. "Worn in peace. Ready for war. Hold onto it."
I nodded, eyes stinging.
He stood again, taller than before, his voice returning to that familiar tone of command.
"When you speak in these halls, they must hear the blood of Winterfell in your voice. Do not give them doubt, even when you carry it inside."
He turned to leave, but stopped at the door.
Then, without looking back, he said, "Goodbye, Wulfric. Gods keep you."
And then he was gone. Winterfell felt hollow now. The heart of it had gone south. And I was left here.
That night, I couldn't sleep. The bed felt too small. The room too tight. My skin prickled, though no draft touched me. My head spun like a storm was coming, though the skies stayed clear.
Something was pulling at me. Deep. Older than my blood.
I slipped from my bed. The stone was cold beneath my bare feet as I crept through the halls, quiet as I could manage. No one stopped me. No one saw.
The godswood called.
I crossed the yard, past the silent walls, into the trees. The moon hung high, bright as any torch. The snow crunched beneath my steps. And there, waiting as always, stood the heart tree.
The old face carved in red sap stared down, same as it had for longer than any man could say. Its eyes were wide, almost knowing.
I sat at its roots, leaned my back into the trunk. The bark, rough against my skin. The wind whispered overhead. The leaves whispered back.
I closed my eyes, and drifted.
The dream came fast and left like a storm I was never prepared for.
The world around me stood still, not the quiet of Winterfell, but a dead sort of still. The weirwood before me wept thick sap, white as milk, trailing like tears.
And then I saw him.
Tall as the gods themselves. Not fully man. Not fully tree. His skin cracked like bark. Roots twisted from his legs into the ground. His eyes burned faint red, like coals buried under snow.
"The bloodline fractures," the voice came, low and deep, like the earth itself groaning. "Roots severed."
I tried to speak. My mouth wouldn't move.
"Who remains to bind the broken root to the living soil?"
Images tore through my mind. Fields crumbling into ash. Rivers frozen and cracked. Wolves howling under dying trees. Snow falling like a shroud.
"The Pact must be renewed."
I saw flashes. Bone needles biting flesh. Blood mixed with sap. Runes burned into skin like creeping vines. A wolf's heart burning beneath a weirwood's face.
"Renew the pact."
Then naught but silence.
I woke with a start. My breath came sharp. Cold sweat clung to my skin. The heart tree stood above me, unmoving, yet watching still. But something inside me had shifted.
I knew what needed doing.
-
The next day, I sought Old Nan.
She sat where she often did, near the kitchens, mending some cloak with slow, steady hands. The fire crackled low. The air smelled of stew and damp stone.
She looked up as I stepped near. Her old cloudy eyes narrowed, as if she'd been waiting for me.
"You've seen 'em, haven't you, boy?" she said, voice low like she spoke to the wind. "The old ones. The first blood."
I swallowed hard. Nodded once.
Her needle paused mid-stitch, thread dangling loose. "The Binding of Blood and Root," she whispered. "A thing long forgotten by most. Best left that way."
"I saw it in the dream," I said, voice steady, though my hands shook some. "I have to do it."
She let out a breath like dry leaves scraping stone. "Aye. The land's stirring. It calls to you same as it once called to them." She looked through me now, not at me. "Your blood still remembers, even if the world's forgotten."
She told me what little remained of the rite:
The pact made when the First Men first broke bread with the land.
Blood given freely, so the land would feed their kin.
Runes cut into flesh, not for show, but to bind.
And a price, always a price. Her voice dropped lower, almost a whisper.
"The land gives, but it takes in turn."
I nodded again. "I'm ready."
She stared long and hard at me then. Not like a boy. Not like a lord's bastard. Like something else.
"The old gods are watching, lad," she said at last. "And once you give yourself, you'll belong to 'em as much as you belong to men."
I didn't flinch. I didn't run.
The decision was already made.
When I left her side, my chest was tight, but my mind was clear. The dream wasn't a dream. It was a calling. The pact would be renewed.