Chapter 2.1: Familial Bonds
Artos
The Kingsroad stretched before Artos Stark like a scarred vein, its muddy ruts threatening to snap the hooves of his warhorse as he guided the beast around potholes worn deep by spring’s thaw. King Jaehaerys’s grand roadway had crumbled under the North’s relentless fury—years of blizzards and freezing rain tearing at its bones, leaving little more than a pock-marked quagmire remaining. His fur cloak hung heavy on his shoulders, crusted with blood dried black from the battle at Long Lake, but it still kept the slight nip in the air from seeping into his battle-worn frame. The faint tang of pine wafting from the wolfswood—normally enough to soothe him, did nothing to help relieve the ache in his chest, a hollow gnawing where William’s laughter once lived.
He’d ridden hard from Long Lake, ten days of grief and cold, the cart bearing William’s body jolting beside him like a wound that wouldn’t close. This had been his place the entire march south, standing a silent vigil over his brother. “If only I could’ve made it to you sooner brother,” he whispered, eyes shifting unbidden to the shrouded form. Raymund Redbeard’s head rotted in a sack lashed to his saddle, its matted beard crusted with gore—a trophy that tasted more of ash than triumph. The Wildling king had taken William with a single axe blow, a sickening crunch Artos could still hear over the wind’s howl, and though he’d avenged it with steel and fury, the cost gnawed at him. He ground his teeth, the rage simmering within his chest. Every night he killed that bastard again and again in his dreams, but no matter how many times he cut his bloody head from his neck, he still woke to the same cold corpse in this rickety cart. The anger drained from him with a sigh, that same ache in his chest all that remained.
Ahead Winterfell’s grey towers were visible as they crested the hill, stark against a bruised sky. Behind him, the ragged line of warriors let out a hoarse cheer. Despite the sucking mire pulling at their boots a new energy filled them as they broke off toward homesteads dotting the roadside—eager for hearths and kin after the carnage they’d left behind. Artos’s lips twisted into a ghost of a smile at the stout castle, but it faded quickly. He felt Ice shift across his back—its weight a cold promise. A promise of vengeance and duty. Those savages north of the wall would soon taste his steel, but first, he had to sort out his nephew. Edwyle, the boy William left behind to be the Stark in winterfell: trained in war, a man of his word, blade-sharp and steady. But untested. A green boy, for all his lessons, lacking the scars of battle to temper him. William had meant to blood him properly, to stand at his side when the North’s enemies came howling. Now that would fall to Artos—wise counsel, hard steel, whatever it took to see the lad hold Winterfell’s walls. He would do it.
Fields flanked the road as it dipped toward Wintertown, fallow patches stretching wide under the pale sun—or they should’ve been, yet already many were dark with tilled earth. A Crude iron plow, pulled by a sturdy draft horse, bit deep into the ground, the churned dark soil flecked with frost, turning earth at the pace of ten men. “Where did he find that?” Artos muttered. Shackled men worked in a different field, their hands raw, faces pinched with resentment as they hacked at the dirt with hand hoes—thieves and cutpurses, by their sullen looks and the guard watching from the field's edge. Artos’s brow furrowed, the sight lodging in his mind like a splinter. “William or I’d just take their hand or give ‘em to the wall and be done with it” he thought. But Edwyle chose to use them to prepare the fields while the honorable men were away—clever, perhaps, but soft justice breeds more thieves.
Wintertown unfolded ahead, a sprawl of timber and stone hovels nestled in the shadow of the castle’s walls. Artos braced for the familiar reek—pig shit, rotting scraps, the sour tang of unwashed bodies—but it didn’t come. The air hung crisp, laced with the scent of earth and woodsmoke, cleaner than he ever remembered. His grey eyes narrowed beneath his helm, its shadow deepening the lines carved by years and battle, and he nudged his horse onto the main path. The street was still a churned mess of mud—no cobblestones or pavement—just a mire that sucked at hooves and boots, but the usual filth piled high by neglect was gone. A rattle of chains caught his ear—a gang of shackled men hauled carts piled with waste toward the town’s edge, their grumbles swallowed by the wind. Beyond them, Artos glimpsed the heap itself, a tidy mound downwind—a stinking pile, sure, but orderly in a way that nettled him. Whispers on the road had reached him—”the new lord stark turns shit into fields.” He snorted, breath fogging in the chill. Northern grit didn’t need such tricks—thousands of years their forefathers had carved a life out in the harsh north, they need not stray from the methods they had passed down.
The changes didn’t end there. Further on, a sturdy pen caged snorting hogs behind split logs, chickens clucking in a coop nearby—no hogs wallowed in the mud, no hens darted through the mess. Near the town well, a communal fire pit glowed, flames licking at a rough iron pot, steam rising in faint tendrils into the cold air. A woman stood beside it, her wool cloak patched but clean, pouring cooled water from a second pot into a bucket. Another pot simmered nearby, its heat kept for the next batch. A boy darted past, cleaner than most smallfolk brats Artos had seen, his cheeks ruddy with life instead of fever’s pale flush. He reined in his horse, staring at the oddity—boiling water, at Lord Stark’s command, no doubt. He’d seen men die from bad wells, their guts twisting ‘til they begged for death, but this? Madness—or foresight. He couldn’t tell which. “Wintertown smells like a perfumed lady now,” he muttered, the thought a thorn under his skin. Edwyle’s schemes might save a few from the flux, but what of the Wildlings massing beyond the Wall? Or of the other dangers the north faced?
When the news of Raymund’s raiders reached him William had called the banners—All the north heading his call as was their duty, but Bolton banners were scarce on the march north, their lord Roderic holding back men. He and William had marked it, but could do nothing about it until after the wildlings were routed, they had meant to haul the flayed bastard to Winterfell and wring an answer from him. Now that would fall to Edwyle, a green boy facing a serpent’s den. Umber voices grumbled too, their villages torched by Wildlings. Loyal as ever, but they required a firm hand, they would not bend to a green boy. Artos’s grip tightened on the reins, knuckles whitening beneath gauntlets. The North bled, and Edwyle scrubbed streets instead of sharpening steel. Though he couldn’t help the grudging respect that flickered in his chest—less hollow faces, sturdier smallfolk—he smothered it under duty’s weight. Swords, not pig pens—that’s what they needed. He’d ride to Winterfell, see the lad with his own eyes, and measure the steel in him. Experience he lacked, but Artos would give him that—or break him trying.
He spurred his horse past the town, the castle gates rising like a grim sentinel against the sky. The portcullis groaned open, and he rode through, mud spattering his boots as he dismounted in the bailey. The cart jolted to a stop behind him, William’s body draped beneath a faded Stark banner—white direwolf stained with blood and grime. Guards and servants gathered, their whispers rippling through the damp air—“Shield of the North”—but the title sat heavy, a burden carved from loss. Ice shifted on his back as he straightened, its cold weight a vow unspoken. Whatever Edwyle had done here, the real fight loomed—Wildlings, Boltons, Umbers—and Artos would see the North ready, by steel if need be. He fixed his gaze on the Great Keep’s steps, where a figure waited—tall, cloaked in sable, direwolf sigil stark against grey. Edwyle. Time to measure the lad, and the North’s future with him.
Jack Carter
The morning broke grey and cold, my limbs felt lighter than they had all week and the anxious churn of my stomach had finally settled as I strode into the small family dining hall. Taking my seat at the table I began to fill a plate full of crispy black bacon and warm oat bread. The direwolf banners glared down at me from the wall, judging like always—”” they seemed to say. Their stitched eyes followed me as I reached for the bacon. “. —” I thought, as I chewed my first mouthful. At the first crunch—a flash of steel biting through flesh—but I quickly shook it off, enjoying the pork's smoky tang.
I wasn’t alone in the hall, Alysanne lingered near the hearth, her braid tight as a bowstring, grey eyes sharp as she watched me over her cup of watered ale—testing, as always, but less so since our first meeting. Jocelyn slouched at the long table, picking at a strip of bacon with a scowl that’d been etched there since I arrived. Her grief was a blade she kept whetted, and I was the whetstone—every move I made was too soft, too strange, too unlike the father she’d lost. The one I had no connection to.
Victor had come at dawn with news—his gravelly voice cutting through the haze of sleep: “Your uncle’s banners have been sighted, my lord. He’ll reach the gates by midday.” I nodded, throat tight, and sent him to ready the crypts. Artos meant William’s body, a ceremony with grieving kin and another who might see through me. “—I thought, a small knot forming in my chest.
I tugged my cloak tighter, the wolf-pelt collar brushing my neck, and glanced at Alysanne. “Artos’ll expect a lord, not some stranger playing dress-up,” I muttered, the words slipping out before I could catch them. Her lips curved faintly, a flicker of something—pity, maybe, or amusement. “Then be a Lord, nephew. Your Uncle grieves—he’ll see William in you, or he’ll see a boy playing lord.”
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Jocelyn snorted, tossing her bacon onto the table with a greasy thud.“He’ll see a fool fussing over shit carts while Wildlings sharpen axes stained with Father’s blood.” Her voice cracked, sharp with venom, grey eyes flashing wet before she dropped them to the floor, fists balled tight.
I opened my mouth, annoyance flaring hot in my gut. “I just barely managed to keep a thought. “Jocelyn, I ain’t—I mean, I’m not ignoring what happened to him,” is what I actually said, voice steady but edged. “But dead men don’t eat, and neither do we if we’re too busy chasing shadows north. You wanna honor him? Help me keep this place standing.” She didn’t look up, Just clenched her fits tighter, and I swallowed the rest—she was so filled with grief, my words wouldn’t reach her yet.
The hall doors groaned open, cutting the tension like a dull knife. Victor strode in, chainmail glinting under his furs, his weathered face set like stone. “Your Uncle approaches the gate, Lord Stark.” His grey eyes flicked to Jocelyn, then back to me, steady as the walls around us. I nodded, stomach twisting—not the sick churn from the executions, but a colder knot, like I was sixteen again facing a test I hadn’t studied for. “Let’s meet him,” I said, voice rougher than I meant, and led the way to the bailey, Alysanne and Jocelyn trailing behind like shadows I couldn’t outpace.
The gates creaked wide, and Artos rode in at the head of a ragged line—mud-spattered, furs heavy with damp, his warhorse snorting steam into the chill air. He was taller than I’d pictured, broad shoulders hunched under a cloak dark with travel grime, grey eyes sharp as flint beneath a furrowed brow. Ice hung across his back, its hilt worn but unyielding, truly a brutal, magnificent thing—six feet of Valyrian steel that’d cleaved bone and steel like a warm knife through butter. A sword that I would be expected to wield, a symbol of authority held by the Starks for hundreds of years, and another thing I had to prove myself worthy of. Behind Artos rolled a cart draped with a faded Stark banner, William’s body beneath it, still as the frost clinging to the walls. The servants and guards in the courtyard whispered—“Shield of the North”—but it sounded hollow, a title more of a burden than a boast.
Artos dismounted, boots hitting the mud with a wet thud, and strode toward me, each step deliberate, eyes locked on mine. Up close, his face mirrored mine—but his etched harder by years and battle—and those grey eyes boring into me like they could peel back the lie of who I was. “,” I thought.
“Edwyle,” he said, voice rough as gravel, stopping a few paces off. No bow, just my name, flat and heavy, daring me to flinch. It took all my self-control not too, the man radiated an aura of lethality.
“Uncle,” I replied, matching his tone, forcing my back straight despite the ache clawing my spine. “You’ve brought him home—let’s see him laid proper in the crypts.” I nodded toward the cart, words catching somewhere between my chest and throat—grief I didn’t own, but had to wear.
“Aye,” Artos said, jaw tightening, a flicker of raw pain crossing his stony face before it vanished. “And Raymund’s head rots in a sack. The raiders have been crushed but the cost was too much.” He gestured sharply, and guards moved to the cart, lifting William’s draped form with a care that felt too gentle for the roughness around us. My eyes caught on the spherical lump at his chest, another sign of the brutality of warfare in this land. I blanched and had to fight the urge to reach for my neck. Three dull thumps slapping against the bloody mud in my mind. Artos’ voice dragged my eyes back to him, “We’ll lay him in the crypts—but first, there are things we must speak of nephew.”
The Great Hall swallowed us as we entered, its vastness a cavern of shadow and stone. Thick beams of blackened oak arched overhead, carved with snarling wolves that glared down in the flickering torchlight, their eyes catching the glow like embers. The tressel table stretched long beneath the hall’s dais, its surface scarred by centuries of feasts and oaths—with many more pushed against the walls. Upon the raised platform sat the high seat, its edges worn smooth by generations of Starks who’d ruled from it, the roar of the hearths keeping the morning chill at bay—a space forged for war councils and harvest feasts. My boots scuffed the cold flagstones as I stepped beside it—a throne, really, from back when the Starks were Kings of Winter, though plainer than I’d imagined a throne should be. Stout ironwood rose high-backed, draped with the biggest wolf pelt I’d ever seen, its armrests carved into snarling wolves with obsidian eyes glinting like dark stars. I hesitated, the weight of its history crushing——before easing onto the seat, the pelt rough under my sweating palms.
Alysanne stood beside me, regal, back straight, hands clasped at her waist—grief shadowed her grey eyes, reignited by her brother’s body, though her face stayed strong. Artos strode in behind us, his mud-caked boots tracking the bailey’s filth across the stone, Ice strapped across his shoulders like a second spine. He stopped before the high seat, broad frame filling the space, grey eyes locked on mine—flint-sharp and unyielding. Below, Jocelyn lingered near the table’s foot, her scowl fixed as she drifted closer to Artos, her shadow aligning with his—a silent defiance that made me want to sigh. “I thought exasperated, hoping they were listening. Victor took his post by the doors, chainmail glinting faintly, hand near his hilt, a sentinel in the stillness. The hall’s echoes settled, leaving only the hearth’s crackle and the weight of Artos’s stare. “
Artos’s voice broke the quiet, rough as gravel. “Wintertown’s scrubbed clean—pig pens and shit carts. Your doing, I hear. William swore this’d be the last king-beyond-the-wall to bleed the North—you were there, Edwyle, nodding at his side. Now he’s dead, and you’re fussing with boiled water while the Watch sits idle. They’ve failed us—grown lax, letting savages through. Summon Jack Musgood here to answer for it, or march north o’ the wall and burn the savages out yourself.”
I swallowed, forcing my face into what I hoped looked like grief——and leaned forward, elbows on the ironwood. “ “William’s gone, and I’m not letting the North bleed out chasing grudges.” I said, the intensity of his gaze made me wobble a bit, but years of briefings—for colonels and congressmen—kicked in. “Clean water and plowed fields are what we need now—wars ain’t won on empty stomachs or sick men. I’ve already sent for the lords—Boltons, Umbers, all of ‘em to swear fealty. We’ll deal with the Wildlings when we’re strong, not reckless. Musgood’ll answer here—I’ll drag him south myself if I have to. That satisfy you for now?” My heart hammered, they wanted some warlord—someone who’s first answer usually involved taking a head—Christ, I’m bluffing with a busted hand.
His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing—unyielding, a storm brewing in those flinty pupils. “Trained words—aye, you talk cleverly, but remain untested. The Boltons flew thin at Long Lake—William meant to drag Roderic here and have answers. That’s your burden now. And the Umbers’ll want steel, not promises, for their burned villages.” He stepped closer, boots scuffing the stone, voice low and biting. “Summon Musgood, then—I’ll not march today, but you’re lord, Edwyle, and I’ll not see Winterfell shamed by a boy who’d rather play farmer than avenge his father.”
My right foot twitcheswarm flesh where cold aluminum used to be. “
Jocelyn’s voice slashed through, sharp from below. “He’s no Stark—stepped into Father’s solar before his body was cold, no tears, no grief!” She trembled near Artos, grey eyes wet but blazing, fists clenched. “ Before I could answer, she turned and stormed toward the doors, boots echoing like a war drum across the flagstones. “Jocelyn, wait—I ain’t…damn it, I’m not ignoring him,” I called after her, voice rough with frustration. “You wanna grieve? Just don’t shut me out.” She didn’t stop, the door slamming behind her like a gunshot.
Alysanne’s hand brushed my arm, her tone firm yet calm. “Enough, both of you. William’s not cold in his crypt, and you’re snarling like wolves over scraps. Artos, his ways are strange, but they will let the smallfolk thrive. And you, nephew—heed your uncle. Steel’s as vital as bread.” Her grey eyes held mine, a lifeline in the storm.
I exhaled slow, their stares heavier than the hall’s shadows. “We’ll bury him tonight,” I said, voice steadier than I felt. “The lords’ll come—the Boltons will give answers, Umbers will get their steel. And Musgood—he’ll face me here, soon as he’s dragged south.” I met Artos’s gaze, forcing my back straight. “Winter’s Coming, and I’ll not let the North down.”
Artos held my gaze a heartbeat longer, then gave a single nod—slow, grudging, lips a thin line. “Aye. Tonight. Musgood better choke on his excuses.” He reached back, unstrapping Ice with a creak of leather and steel, and stepped forward. “This is yours now—a lord’s burden.” He held it out, hilt-first, the blade gleaming faintly—six feet of Valyrian steel, a Stark’s birthright. I took it, fingers wrapping around the hilt, and it settled awkwardly in my grip, its weight more a shadow than a strain. It felt wrong—too vast, too storied, like clutching a crown I’d stolen. My hands shifted, fumbling to find balance, the cold metal biting my palms. Artos’s eyes narrowed—doubt etched deep, unconvinced—and he turned for the door, his silence a heavier judgment than words, leaving me with its heft and the North’s.
I eased back into the high seat, Ice propped beside me, its edge nicking the stone floor. I glanced at her and muttered, “Feels like stealing. But I’ll make it mean something—swear it.” She stayed silent, her gaze soft but unyielding. I’d held my own—barely—but I was a stranger with a sword I didn’t deserve. I’d build this place stronger, or it’d crush me first.
well here we are the start of chapter 2. I had a lot of
trouble with this one, it just wasn't coming out right. Anyways, I hope
you all enjoy!
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