King Robert Baratheon rode north with the thunder of hooves behind him, his royal host cutting through the Kingsroad like a storm. His belly jostled with every step of his horse, but for once, he didn’t mind. He hadn’t been this curious—or annoyed—in years.

  Ned’s letters had come one after another. Always the same neat, Stark handwriting. Always full of strange things.

  The first one claimed that Winterfell had collapsed due to an earthquake. Strange, Robert thought. He had never heard of earthquakes in the North before. Then came another—the Wall had fallen too, also from some “deep tremors in the earth.” By the third raven, Robert had half a mind to call it all nonsense. Only Pycelle’s shaking lips offered some crumb of context.

  “Ancient texts,” the old man said, “mention the North once being seismically unstable. There is also… fanciful legend, of a horn that could bring the Wall down…”

  “A horn?” Robert snorted. “What next, flying pigs and silver mermaids?” Pycelle muttered apologies and returned to his herbs.

  Still, the idea lingered.

  Robert may have been a drunk, but he wasn’t a fool. Something was wrong in the North. But even with the Wall gone and wildlings crawling about like lice on a bear’s back, Robert found a strange joy in one thing: Winterfell was no more.

  The dreaded crypts had collapsed with it. The statues, the tombs, the bones—they were buried deeper now. No more Stark ghosts, no more Lyanna lying cold in stone. Ned had written that he’d moved her bones to a sunny hill not far from the new castle. A place where the sunlight kissed the snow and the rain could wash the stone clean.

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  Good, Robert thought. She would’ve liked that. She was never meant to be caged like a corpse in the dark. It was the first letter from Ned that made Robert smile.

  Then came the strange ones.

  Varys, that bald spider, had whispered to him like always. “My little birds say Rhaegar Targaryen has been seen… north of the Wall.”

  Robert had nearly struck him. “I caved in that bastard’s chest,” he had growled. “I heard the bones break.”

  “Perhaps a ghost, Your Grace,” Varys had whispered. “Or something worse.”

  Ghosts don’t rape women, Robert thought darkly. Ghosts don’t steal princesses from their beds. His hands clenched the reins tighter. If Rhaegar had returned, Robert would kill him again. This time, with fire.

  Then came the latest letter, and Robert’s jaw dropped.

  A peace treaty—with the Wildlings.

  Robert hadn’t even known the savages could read, let alone negotiate. He had long dreamed of marching north and smashing them like cockroaches. Yet if Ned Stark had sat down and signed parchment instead of drawing swords, there had to be reason. Robert grumbled, but he trusted Ned like no other.

  Still, what came next was insanity.

  Jon Snow—Ned’s bastard—had impregnated one of the Children of the Forest and was their leader.

  Robert had laughed for a full minute in his tent before sobering up. They were supposed to be myths. Fairy tales told to scare squires into the woods. But Ned had always had a strange way of keeping secrets, and this was no exception.

  And Jon Snow? He had a child coming. A child of man and legend. Robert needed to see it with his own eyes.

  With Jon Arryn dead and the crown needing a strong hand at his side, Robert had already made his decision. He would ride north. He would see this “New Winterfell,” this magical bride, this bastard prince with silver eyes. He would drink, he would curse, and then he would name Ned Stark Hand of the King.

  If the North was mad, Robert would meet the madness face to face.

  And maybe—just maybe—it would feel like the good old days again.