The clang of steel still echoed faintly through the crypts, but it was already over.

  On the very first clash, Ned Stark knew he had no hope of winning.

  The moment Ice met Dark Sister, he felt the weight of age settle in his arms, the truth pressing down like winter’s first heavy snow. Jon—no, Gojo—moved like water over stone, graceful and relentless. Every step he took was perfectly measured, every blow expertly timed. There was no doubt in Ned’s mind: this was no mere boy.

  At just fourteen, Jon had become something else entirely.

  He had surpassed Winterfell’s best swordsmen years ago. Now, he was beyond all of them combined. Ned had always known the boy was special. But knowing it in the quiet corners of a father’s heart was different from facing it with a blade drawn.

  Gojo moved swiftly, his expression unreadable. One moment he was parrying, the next he was inside Ned’s guard. Ice swung in a desperate arc, and Gojo caught it—not with his sword, but with his bare hands.

  Ned gasped. “Jon—”

  Blood bloomed across Gojo’s palm, hissing against the cold steel of Ice. For a heartbeat, it seemed as if time stopped. Then—

  The blood shimmered.

  Cursed energy surged from Gojo’s hand, swirling red and white, wild and pure. His power crackled through the crypt like thunder beneath stone. The cursed energy devoured the pain, and converted the blood into raw force. Gojo’s grip tightened—and Ice, ancestral blade of House Stark, began to melt.

  Steam rose around them, turning the air heavy and thick. The sword sizzled in his grip as its dark metal twisted and bent.

  Ned could only stare.

  Gojo looked him in the eye. “You were never going to win.”

  Ned’s jaw clenched. “Then do what you came here to do.”

  He dropped what remained of Ice. The broken edge hit the stone with a clatter, one final echo of the old world.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Gojo lifted Dark Sister, the blade humming with cursed energy. His face was impassive, not cruel, not angry—just resolved.

  Ned stood still, shoulders squared. There was no fear in his eyes. Only sorrow. “I won’t kneel,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to.”

  Gojo held the blade high for a moment longer.

  Then, slowly, he lowered it.

  With one smooth motion, he sheathed it.

  “I won’t be a kinslayer,” he said quietly.

  Ned’s face didn’t change.

  He didn’t nod. He didn’t speak. He simply turned and walked away, heavy steps echoing back through the corridor of the dead. There was no more to say.

  Gojo turned away from Ned Stark and returned back to his mission.

  Gojo walked back toward the glowing candles.

  The glass candles embedded within the roots of the weirwood tree burned like sinister lanterns, casting twisted shadows along the crypt walls. The cursed energy radiating off them was overwhelming—ancient, hungry, alive.

  Gojo could hear the tree groaning above, the castle breathing through its roots. But now, he would silence it.

  One by one.

  He stepped to the first candle. Its flame shimmered as he approached, almost trembling. It wasn’t enough to just touch it. These cursed tools were not mere torches—they were engines, still feeding on souls trapped within their glass and root prisons.

  He had to end it.

  And so he opened his mouth.

  He ate it.

  The glass scraped against his teeth. The cursed flame burned his throat. It clawed at his insides, trying to set him alight from within. But Gojo didn’t flinch. His stomach clenched, cursed energy bursting to life inside him.

  He converted the flame.

  Just like before—he used the cursed technique in his gut, transforming the curse into raw energy, choking it down until it dissipated into nothing.

  He gagged. His knees nearly buckled.

  The process felt like swallowing fire and rot, like consuming the sins of the world.

  And yet—there was relief too.

  For every glass candle devoured, a whisper of pain was extinguished. A scream that had echoed for a thousand years was finally silenced.

  He was ending it.

  Truly ending it.

  Not just for himself. For all of them.

  For the hundreds of thousands sacrificed to keep Winterfell warm. To keep the Wall standing. To keep the lie going.

  He moved to the next candle.

  Then the next.

  With each one extinguished, the roots of the weirwood tree shrieked, pulling back, dying. The life drained from the wood, from the walls, from the very bones of the castle.

  The groans turned to cracks.

  The cracks turned to roars.

  Winterfell began to collapse.

  Stone cracked and splintered. Wood snapped like brittle twigs. The warmth in the air disappeared, replaced by an arctic wind that howled through the halls like a final curse. The walls trembled. The towers above shook.

  But Ned Stark was gone now. He had start to evacuate everyone already.

  Gojo stayed behind, consuming one sin after another.

  He would bear it all.

  He was the last fire burning in the dark.

  And when he finished, the last of the candles vanished into ash in his mouth.

  He stood alone in the crumbling crypt, weirwood roots curling and dying around him, the tree’s scream echoing into nothing.

  Winterfell was falling.

  And Gojo did not look back.