281 AC – The North
Ravens flew like shadows across the sky, flitting from tower to tower, castle to castle. Their wings carried more than parchment, they carried fear, they carried change. From the Eyrie to Storm's End, from the smoky halls of Dragonstone to the wind-lashed cliffs of Pyke, word had spread, war had come to Westeros again.
Robert Baratheon had raised his banners. Jon Arryn had defied royal summons. Eddard Stark, silent and grim, had marched south beneath a banner of grey and white. The Mad King, they whispered, had gone too far. Killing a warden and his heir in cold blood while demanding the heads of two young wards, one his own cousin by marriage, was the final stone in a long, bloody cairn.
The Vale stood with Arryn. The Stormlands with their thunder-lord. The North, silent and vast, prepared itself for the long war. The other 'nations' of Westeros were shocked and stumbled in their response as they mustered their thoughts together.
Winterfell stood still under grey skies. Smoke curled lazily from its chimneys, and the wind cut across the courtyard with a wet chill that hinted of early snow. Wulfric Snow watched from the ramparts, his arms crossed, black cloak stirring against the stones. Below, his companions trained. His… unique eyes scanning the yard below like he was waiting, searching.
Torrhen moved with deliberate caution, each strike precise, every step calculated. His eyes flicked constantly, always watching for angles, for weakness, for opportunity. Where others swung blindly, Torrhen sought advantage with every move. His eyes swayed and looked to Wulfric's noticeable changes before meeting Wulfric's with unease though.
Cregan Norrey was his opposite though, wild and fast, his laughter sharp as the clash of steel. He danced rather than fought, unpredictable and fierce, a blur of motion as he traded blows with a grin. His instincts were honed by the mountain and snow. Yet his ever present smile faded into a blank mask whenever he saw Wulfric eyeing him from above like a hawk on its prey. His instincts flaring and roiling whenever Wulfric's view crashes over him.
Brandon, broad-shouldered and quiet, wielded his strength with slow, patient resolve. He did not waste effort, and when he struck, the sound was like oak splitting. He didn't speak during training, he didn't need to. His presence said enough and yet even his stature wavered whenever he felt the chill along his neck, the breath of a wolf over his throat ready to snap shut. Each blow he took, he took knowing this was the wolf's den.
Domund moved with grace undercut by restlessness. He cracked jokes between parries, his wit sharp as his sword, but there was a flicker in his eyes, a shadow of thought always tugging at the edge. He trained hard, as if trying to prove something, not to others, but to himself. His thoughts wondering if Wulfric was like him, or if Wulfric was more than just another bastard like him, his eyes finally looking up to see the… new Wulfric.
They were growing. Stronger yes as time went on but also filled with uncertainty at just what this was becoming.
Wulfric did not join them. He listened, he watched, he saw the expressions of doubt and he thought long and hard.
Then he listened harder. To the way the wind curled around the tower. The slight creak of the ancient walls. The soft groan from the weirwood tree in the godswood. There was a pressure in the air, a heaviness, like snow waiting to fall.
He felt it in his bones.
-
Benjen Stark arrived just after dusk, his horse frosted with sweat and flanks speckled with mud. The gates opened without fanfare, but the keep was not without watchers. Roderick Cassel met him at the gates. Maester Walys offered a tight nod.
Wulfric came alone, his eyes, his posture, everything about him startled Benjen.
Benjen slid down from the saddle and looked at him. For a moment, neither said a word. The snow crunched beneath Benjen's boots as he stepped forward, arms briefly uncertain before he pulled Wulfric into a brief, firm embrace.
"You've gotten taller," Benjen muttered with a tremble in his voice. "And different."
"You look older," Wulfric said quietly. "Tired."
Benjen gave a crooked unsteady smile. "I am."
That night, when the great hall had quieted and the hearths burned low, Benjen found Wulfric again, this time in the old armory cellar. Dust clung to the rafters. The iron smell of old blades and oil hung thick in the air. Shadows clung to the stone walls, and the only light came from a single lantern set on a crate between them.
Benjen stood in silence for a moment, then closed the door behind him.
"I wasn't sure if I should tell you," he said, his voice rough with fatigue. "But you deserve to know."
Wulfric didn't speak. He sat on an overturned training dummy, his eyes fixed on the flame of the lantern.
Benjen took a breath. "Lyanna... she wasn't taken. She left with Rhaegar… willingly."
The words hung in the air like frost.
Wulfric's gaze didn't falter. But something behind his eyes changed, like iron stiffening in a forge.
"She sent letters," Benjen went on, his voice lower now. "To our father, to Brandon, to Jon Arryn. Even to you here in Winterfell. Letters explaining everything. That she was safe. That she chose to leave."
"Then why, " Wulfric began, his voice hollow.
"They never got them," Benjen interrupted. "Not a one. Ravens vanished. Letters never reached their hands. The guess being that they were shot down or something in the riverlands. Maybe somewhere between the Vale and Riverrun. Somebody wanted them gone."
He stepped forward, face pale in the dim light. "Father and Brandon died thinking she was stolen. That Rhaegar had dishonored her. But it wasn't true. Rhaegar and Elia… they agreed to have Lyanna as a second wife.. The truth never reached them."
Wulfric slowly stood. His fists clenched at his sides, leather groaning under the strain.
"They died for a lie," he said. The words were quiet, dangerous.
Benjen didn't reply. A choked knot forming in his throat.
Wulfric turned his back. Walked to the wall. Placed a hand on the cold stone that slowly formed into a fist.
"No.. Not a lie," he whispered. "A murder. Orchestrated and measured. Someone made sure those letters were lost."
Benjen looked down. "I thought you should know before the rest of the realm tears itself apart. I wanted to tell Ned but… he was gone before I could and I risk not another raven."
Wulfric didn't answer. He left the lantern burning and walked out into the snow.
-
The godswood was silent. The moon hung high and pale, cloaking the world in silver shadow. Snow clung to the branches like frostbitten skin. The face in the weirwood tree seemed to grimace rather than weep, the red sap beneath its bark darkening in the cold.
Wulfric strode forward like a revenant. He no longer moved like a boy. The way he walked, measured, precise, was more akin to a blade being drawn.
He knelt at the roots of the weirwood, his breath fogging in the air. He removed his glove with slow deliberation. Then, with a jagged blade blackened by fire and blood, obsidian in make, he carved deep across his palm. This was no symbolic nick, this was pain, offered willingly.
His blood spilled freely onto the snow, steaming in the cold, soaking into the roots like a sacrifice.
His voice was low and rough, more growl than prayer.
"You watched them die. You watched and did nothing! And I, I'm too young to stop it. Too weak at every fucking turn!"
He leaned forward, pressing his bloody hand to the face carved in the tree.
"Whoever stole those letters. Whoever ensured my father and grandfather burned, strangled, suffered for a lie... I swear this now, by blood and frost, by bone and steel, when I find the one behind it, I will end not just them, but their name, their legacy, their memory."
His breath quickened as his teeth grounded. The air seemed to grow colder.
"I will grind their bones to dust and sprinkle them on the ground of their home, of their family. I will break their line and cast it into shadow. I will salt their fields and hang their kin from weirwoods to rot beneath the eyes of gods who did nothing."
He dragged his bloody palm down the tree's bark, staining its mouth and chin red.
"I am the storm in the North. I am the silence before the killing. I am the vengeance they bred in ice and flesh."
The branches above him creaked. The weirwood's face seemed to shift.
Far beneath the crypts of Winterfell, something stirred, a breath, a heartbeat, a flicker of something ancient. Not warmth but cold and dead. Like a winter storm bringing forth death to everything in its path.
Wulfric rose without wiping the blood from his hand, letting it drip with every step he took. He left the godswood in silence, but something else walked beside him now, something not quite seen, not quite
-
With Benjen now seated as the acting Stark of Winterfell, Wulfric found himself unshackled from the daily obligations of courtly order, a burden placed upon a young growing boy that weighed heavily upon him. Though many still saw him as the quiet bastard, Wulfric moved with purpose, a purpose not from desire of self growth or self identity but of vengeance and a deep seeded growth of hateful intent.
With nights filled with dreams and thoughts, Wulfric would often toss and turn unsure how to bring these dreams to meaning. Till eventually he stumbled upon the underlying hints he would occasionally see through. One such dream held silver in his hands, iron forged into swords and a growing coin purse.
Toward the broken hills past Torrhen's Square. There, where the land rose in jagged ridges and the stone was hardened like a shield ready for war, he found the collapsed mouth of an old silver mine. No banner flew above it. No lord claimed it. But the earth remembered, it practically sang in rejoice of his arrival.
The mine had once belonged to a minor house extinguished four generations past, lost to blood feud and land claimants. The entrance had caved in, the tunnels swallowed by darkness. But Wulfric had walked its perimeter in silence, knelt by the earth, pressed his palm to stone. He felt it, deep within, a living heartbeat. Not magic, not the holy grail of prosperity but a start at something coated in silver.
Guided by instinct sharpened into something more, he and his companions accompanied by guards and a few miners they rounded up cleared the rubble and sent down the first torches. The tunnels stank of damp rot and dead air, but beneath the filth lay veins of tarnished silver and hard, usable ore. As they dug deeper, he began marking the tunnels, not with chalk, but with carved runes of warding and strength. The men said the mine felt warmer after that, more stable. Less likely to betray them in events of the earth's collapse, a reassurance to many.
He hired good northern folk and offered word of mouth to immigrants of new beginnings to speak of. He offered fair coin, good food, and protection, nothing more. But word spread. Bastard or not, Wulfric paid well and honored the honest who labored.
The mine breathed again. And in hard labor, it yielded its treasure.
But Wulfric's vision was broader than silver.
In the south of the North, past marsh and fen, House Reed stirred. Crannogmen whispered of dreams and shifting tides. Wulfric wrote to Howland, not a lord's request, but a seeker's appeal. The reeds responded after a few questions.
Small bundles arrived, pale green roots, bitter moss, bark that bled white when cut. Some were dangerous. Some were useless. But with trial, failure, and long nights in a cold cellar beside firelight, Wulfric found combinations that soothed burns, stopped bleeding, stilled pain.
He called none of it magic. But when a salve calmed the trembling of a child fevered beyond sense, when a tincture stopped a wound from turning black, people began to talk.
Rather than rely on secretive witches or wandering herbalists, Wulfric turned to those who had little else, the foragers, the hunters, the root-cutters. He paid them coin to find him more. In the villages beyond Winterfell, word spread that gathering for the Bastard earned better silver than swinging a sword.
Jars marked with a wolf's eye in black ink began appearing in maesters' chambers and merchants' satchels. They smelled strange, but they worked wonders, wonders enough that it would build into something truly magnificent.
Then came the salt.
While ranging along the coast west of Deepwood Motte with his companions, Wulfric came upon a frozen inlet where the air bit like knives and the water never thawed. Along its bank, beneath a brittle cliff, ran a long, crystalline vein of salt, ancient, pure, and cold.
Near it ran a spring, its waters unnaturally chill and unyielding, even in the heat of a long summer's day. He camped there with few others, experimented with preservation, brining meat with the salt, wrapping it in ash and moss, cooling it in buried stone.
It worked. Not for days, for weeks.
Pelts retained luster. Fish arrived at Winterfell without rot. Herbs dried without losing potency. He returned, claimed the inlet quietly, and brought his companions to build a coldhouse beneath the salt cliff.
Trade began slowly, a few preserved casks sent to White Harbor. A few pelts traded to a passing merchant.
But the whispers began anew.
The Bastard had a mine. The Bastard had medicine. The Bastard had cold that did not melt.
He had begun to build something, not in fire and banners, but in stone and soil, in blood and bark, in salt and silence.
And when the realm burned to the south, Wulfric Snow was laying roots in the North, deep, hard, and ready to endure any storm to come
Time Passes Like Snowfall in winter for some while others feel it like the short phase of a sunrise.
The world burned, but the North endured.
While armies clashed in the Riverlands and kings bled beneath banners soaked in mud, the winds beyond the Neck howled their own truths. Wulfric Snow had not ridden to war, but he had not been idle. He built no army, but he gathered a people. He forged no kingdom, but he laid stone for something older. Something that would lay the foundation.
The days grew shorter. The nights deepened, and still, Wulfric's works continued.
By the last frost of the year, the mine near Torrhen's Square had become a quiet lifeline. Miners no longer feared the dark, some claimed the tunnels even hummed with warmth. Runes carved into stone glowed faintly in firelight, and tools seemed to last longer when etched by Wulfric's own hand. Blacksmiths began to ask where the ore came from, but no clear answer followed. Only the words, "The Bastard's mine."
His apothecary became more than an experiment. Foragers arrived weekly at his new woodland hold, baskets heavy with ghostleaf, widow's root, frostcap, and ironmoss. The salves crafted in that cold cellar were not just curatives, they were protection, pride, power. Some were gifted to Winterfell's soldiers. Others were traded discreetly to distant keeps. A few were never spoken of again, locked in strongboxes for moments yet to come.
Even his salt and ice found quiet reverence. Hunters who traded with Wulfric returned weeks later, shocked to find their pelts unstained, their meats sweet-smelling. At the coast, his companions built a stonehouse of layered ice and peat. Fires never touched it. The cold inside did not waver.
Trade routes did not open with trumpets or banners. Instead, they formed like veins beneath skin, quiet, unseen, pulsing with the slow promise of new life.
Benjen watched from afar, unsure whether to marvel or worry. Maester Walys took notes in private while counseling Wulfric with every new route of commerce.
Rodrick said nothing at all. But the guards who traveled with Wulfric came back with a changed look in their eyes. A growing influx of new recruits shocking the master at arms but quickly leading to better rotations and more protection.
The Frostbourne, a small and promising diverse business/ order under Wulfric and his companions. An order that started as just a pact among friends leading to new business and heavy pockets of gold.
By the time the first snows of the next year fell, Wulfric's outpost, neither keep nor castle, stood firm in the woods. Ironwood beams. Stone fitted with his own hands. A forge, a hall, and a shrine to the old gods beneath open sky. His companions called it the Hollow. A short term home for new ideas and friends to gather.
Wulfric simply called it necessary.
He returned to Winterfell only when needed. Quiet, watchful, with more small scars and fewer words. He wore new furs, heavier armor, and a cloak trimmed in Wolfhide and fur. His hair had grown longer. His eyes, colder.
He looked like a growing adolescent.
And as the realm changed and restructured south of the Neck, the North whispered his name in firelit corners and snow-covered fields.
Not Wulfric Snow. Not the Bastard of Winterfell. But the young Wolf. A title that would last for years but not his last.