[Winterfell, 2nd moon, 295AC]
The old stones of Winterfell's crypts drank up the light, until even the torch Edwyn carried seemed no stronger than a candle against a storm.
Bran crept beside his cousin, heart hammering in his chest, every breath tasting of cold and earth and something older than bones. Edwyn had stolen the torch from the armory, laughing under his breath the whole way, but now even he had gone quiet.
They had promised Maester Luwin to stay above the yard after lessons. They had promised Lady Stark not to wander. Bran knew he would catch a scolding worse than any before if they were caught. But the stories Alaric told in the hall still sang in his ears, of Kings of Winter who wore bronze crowns and beat back Andals and pirates, of wolves the size of horses who ran with their lords through storm and battle.
Bran wanted to see them.
He needed to.
"Are you sure about this?" Bran whispered.
Edwyn grinned in the flickering light. "I want to find my namesake. Edwyn the Spring King! Grandfather said he ruled through a century of spring."
"That's not true," Bran said, though he wasn't sure. The Starks of Winterfell were old.
Together they made their way downward. Past the newest statues, his grandsire, Lord Rickard, whose face stood stuck in a grim, stern look, Uncle Brandon the Wild Wolf, Alaric's father; Aunt Lyanna, forever young and wild-eyed in stone. Past the spot marked for Alaric, hopefully leaving empty for a long time.
Beyond them, the passageways deepened. Here the walls were rougher, the torches long cold, and the statues older still: stern kings with thick beards and heavy swords resting on their laps, their faces half-eaten by time.
The air grew colder too.
Bran pulled his cloak tighter. His breath misted.
"Maybe we should turn back," Bran muttered, glancing over his shoulder. The darkness behind them looked thicker than before.
"Scared?" Edwyn teased, but his voice shook a little.
Bran scowled and moved faster.
They passed by statues whose names they didn't know, names lost to dust, men who had fought wildlings and giants, Andals and other foes forgotten by the singers. The ground underfoot sloped lower, and the dampness grew.
And then, in the flickering light, Bran saw him.
A figure stood at the far end of the vault, silent and still. For a moment, Bran's heart stopped.
Not a statue.
Too real. Too alive.
His Lord-cousin, Alaric Stark.
He stood before a massive statue, one Bran had never seen before. The man carved there was not crowned like a southern king, but wore a simple circlet of blackened iron and bronze over his brow. His face was broad and harsh, his beard wild, his sword heavy-bladed. One hand rested on the hilt; the other pointed outward, as if commanding unseen armies.
Two giant Direwolves sat, like quiet sentries protecting their liege, a contrast to the vast majority of the statues only have one such companion, usually lying at their feet.
Alaric did not turn as they approached. He only stared, his face shadowed and unreadable.
Bran swallowed and edged forward. Edwyn stayed behind him.
The torchlight played across the carving's base, revealing ancient, faded words cut into the stone. Bran squinted:
"Alaric Stark, First of his name, The Bane of the Andals, King of Winter."
Alaric's voice, low and distant, broke the silence.
"When the Andals came," he said, as if reciting from some old book, "many kings knelt. Many gave their daughters in marriage, gave their swords and their gods."
He raised his head slightly, his eyes still fixed on the statue.
"But not the Starks. They fought. Year after year, They drove them back. They burned their ships. They broke their armies. They would not let the Andal's tame the North."
Bran stood frozen. He had heard Maester Luwin speak of the Andal invasions, but never like this. Never with such weight.
Alaric finally turned, and his eyes found them both, Bran and Edwyn.
"You shouldn't be down here," he said. His voice was not angry. It was soft, almost sad.
"We wanted to see," Bran blurted. His cheeks burned, but he forced himself to meet Alaric's gaze. "The kings. The ones you told us about."
Edwyn edged closer, trying to peer at the statue too. "Is that really him?"
Alaric gave a faint smile. Not cruel, but not kind, either. A smile edged with old sorrow.
"It's him. Or what remains of him." He looked back to the old king, Alaric Stark's weathered face. "Statues crumble. Bones turn to dust. Names fade. But some things... some things linger."
Bran shivered, though not from cold.
Alaric reached out and touched the base of the statue lightly, almost reverently. "My name sake fought the Andals to a standstill, continuing the same campaigns his ancestor the Hungry Wolf set into motion. When the south burned and bent, the North endured. His blood runs in our veins, boys. Remember that."
He turned from the statue and began walking past them, up the sloping crypt.
Bran and Edwyn watched him go, the torchlight catching his broad shoulders, the slow, heavy tread of his boots on the stones.
Before he disappeared into the darkness, Alaric spoke one last time, his voice almost lost in the cold.
"Remember who you are."
And then he was gone.
Bran stared up at Alaric Stark's stone face, stern, proud, eternal, and for a moment he thought he heard something deep in the rock and earth itself.
A heartbeat.
A whisper.
A promise.
Bran barely dared to breathe.
Beside him, Edwyn shifted nervously, rubbing at his arms as if to ward off a chill that came from more than just the cold.
"I don't like it down here," Edwyn muttered.
Bran did not answer. He could not tear his eyes away from the statue, from the heavy brows that shadowed stone eyes, the hand forever reaching outward, as if grasping something just beyond reach. The wolves, too, seemed to watch him, their carved eyes gleaming faintly in the weak torchlight.
He took a step closer.
And another.
The ground beneath his feet was uneven, stones cracked by centuries of frost and root. The torch sputtered in Edwyn's hand, throwing long, twisting shadows across the ancient walls.
"Bran..." Edwyn's voice was small now. "Come on. We should go."
But Bran ignored him. Some strange pull dragged him forward, not fear, not even curiosity, but something heavier. A feeling like being called.
He reached out a hand, hesitated, and touched the stone wolf nearest him.
The stone was bitterly cold, colder than the air, colder than the ground. For a heartbeat, Bran imagined he could feel a pulse thrumming beneath the rock. A great slow beat, steady and sure, as ancient as the hills.
Boom. Boom.
He yanked his hand back, gasping.
"Bran!" Edwyn hissed. "What are you doing?"
"I... I don't know," Bran said. His fingers tingled, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. "I thought I felt something."
"You're imagining things," Edwyn said quickly, and Bran could tell he was trying to convince himself as much as Bran. "It's just stone. Old stone."
Bran nodded, but he wasn't sure he believed it.
They turned back the way they'd come, Edwyn leading the way with the flickering torch held high.
But Bran kept glancing back over his shoulder, back toward the statue of Alaric Stark, until the shadows swallowed it up completely.
They slipped back into the castle unseen. Edwyn doused the torch in a snowdrift near the smithy, and they crept along the wall-walks and around the kitchens like a pair of guilty shadows. Bran half-expected to see his Father waiting for them outside, grim and disapproving, but the courtyard was empty save for a few guards and a barking dog.
Only when they reached the Great Hall, warm with firelight and bustling with the evening meal preparations, did Bran finally breathe easier.
Edwyn punched him lightly in the shoulder. "We made it."
Bran nodded, but his mind was still in the dark.
That night, sleep did not come easy.
Bran lay in bed, listening to the wind howl against the walls of Winterfell, and the occasional creak of timber and stone settling in the cold. He rolled onto his side, then onto his back, staring up at the beams overhead.
And he dreamed.
[Within the Dream]
In the dream, Bran stood once again in the crypts. But they were deeper now, vaster, stretching on forever into blackness. The statues were all alive, turning their heads to watch him as he passed.
The Kings of Winter whispered among themselves, voices like the rustling of dead leaves. Their direwolves stirred, eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
At the end of the passage, he saw Alaric Stark again, both the stone king and his cousin, standing side by side.
"You are the blood of the wolf," they said together, their voices blending. "The blood remembers."
Bran tried to speak, but no words came.
Alaric Stark, the statue pointed outward with his stone hand, just as before, and Bran followed the unseen path.
Out into the woods beyond Winterfell.
Beyond the Wall.
Into endless snow and cold.
There, something stirred, a shadow bigger than any beast, with burning eyes of different color.
At first, he thought it was a warning of the Others, creatures Old Nan had told them stories of, and yet, although the eyes bore into him, they didn't feel hostile, if anything, they were inviting, like the cool breeze flowing through the godswood, like the creeks and rivers flowing about, like the trees gracefully billowing in the wind.
The wolves howled in unison, and Bran woke, heart racing, soaked in sweat though the room was freezing.
He lay there a long time, listening, half-expecting to hear the howl of a wolf outside his window.
But there was only silence.
Only the slow, steady beating of his own heart.
[The Next morning]
The next morning at breakfast, Bran was quiet.
He picked at his food, barely hearing the cheerful chatter around him, Robb boasting about his training bout, baby Rickon demanding honey on his bread, no words yet, just grumbles, Arya grumbling about sewing lessons. Even Jon, usually so steady, gave him a concerned look.
Alaric sat at the high table, speaking low with Maester Luwin and Old Nan. His eyes flickered to Bran once, sharp and knowing, and Bran looked quickly away.
Later that day, Maester Luwin caught him after his lessons.
"You look troubled, Bran," the Maester said kindly. "Did your studies tire you so?"
Bran hesitated. Then he shook his head. "Just a bad dream."
"Dreams often trouble the young," Luwin said. "They are no more real than mist in the morning."
But Bran wasn't so sure.
He remembered the stone wolf.
The heartbeat in the rock.
The whisper: Remember who you are.
And deep inside, beneath fear, beneath doubt, something stirred, a small, fierce spark.
A wolf's heart.
He would remember.
He would not forget.
[Winterfell, the next day]
The snow was falling again, blanketing the roofs of Winterfell in soft white. Bran sat stiffly on the wooden bench in Maester Luwin's tower room, trying not to fidget as the maester droned on about trade routes and tallies. Across from him, Edwyn kicked his legs restlessly, earning a sharp glance from the maester.
"Now," Maester Luwin said, setting aside a sheaf of parchment and picking up a thick leather-bound book, "since you both seem eager for a different lesson, perhaps something more suited to your imaginations."
Bran straightened. Edwyn grinned.
Luwin tapped the book's cracked spine. "The Annals of the Kings of Winter, copied by hand from scrolls found in the Vaults of Winterfell, many so old their letters had nearly faded. It is from these that we know of Alaric Stark, First of His Name."
Bran felt his heart beat faster. Last night's memory in the crypts still lingered, like the ghost of a dream.
"King Alaric I reigned during the latter half of the Andal invasions, when their warlords swept across the riverlands and the western hills," Maester Luwin said, flipping open the tome to a carefully marked page. "They came in iron and steel, bearing the Seven-Pointed Star, with swords better forged than anything the First Men could boast."
"But not in the North," Bran said, almost without thinking.
Maester Luwin gave a small, approving nod. "No. Not here. The North was a harder land to tame. Alaric Stark built on the works of his forebears, raising watchforts and rallying the mountain clans and various lords of the North. His was a reign of battlefields and bloody banners."
Edwyn leaned forward, eager. "Tell us about the wars. About the battles."
The maester allowed himself a small smile. "Very well. But listen carefully, both of you. These were not wars fought for glory alone."
He turned a page, revealing a map drawn in faded inks: the North, but stranger somehow, raw and wilder.
"First came Ser Gerold of the Golden Hand," Maester Luwin said. "A knight from the Vale, who sailed up the White Knife with a fleet of Andal longships. He built a wooden fort near the Fork and demanded fealty from the river clans. Many knelt."
"But not the Starks," Bran said.
"No. Alaric led a host down from Winterfell, three thousand strong, to meet them. In the Battle of the Whispering Pines, they crushed Gerold's forces beneath a snowstorm so fierce that the Andals said the Old Gods themselves were fighting against them. Gerold's head was sent back to the Vale, nailed to the prow of his own flagship."
Bran imagined it: banners snapping in a frozen gale, direwolves howling, Alaric riding at the head of his warriors, sword flashing like lightning.
"And then?" Edwyn asked, practically bouncing on his bench.
"Then came others," Luwin said grimly. "Ser Roderick the Red, who tried to land in the Bite and seize White Harbor. Alaric's kinsmen rallied the various clans near the mouth of the White Knife, and together they shattered the Andal fleet at sea."
Bran grinned. He liked that part. The North was winning.
"But the greatest threat," Maester Luwin said, his voice low, "was King Matthos I of House Arryn."
Bran stiffened. Even he had heard of the Vale kings.
"The Arryns had already conquered large swaths of the Vale and bent the old lords to their will. They crowned themselves King of Mountain and Vale, and they set their sights on the Neck and the North beyond. Matthos' armies were larger than any before: knights in gleaming mail, hundreds of heavy horsemen, thousands of foot soldiers, and sellswords from across the Narrow Sea."
"And Alaric beat him, too?" Edwyn asked, wide-eyed.
Maester Luwin's mouth curved down at the corners. "He fought him. The battles were terrible. The War of the Frozen Ford stretched on for nearly five years. Entire villages were burned. Rivers turned red with blood. There were defeats as well as victories."
Bran swallowed. He hadn't thought of that. He had imagined the North always winning, always strong.
"But Alaric knew his land," Maester Luwin said, a flicker of pride in his voice. "He harried the Andals. He led them into deep forests where the trees seemed to fight for him, into bogs where their horses drowned, into mountain passes where avalanches buried entire columns of knights. He fought as the wolves fight: striking hard, vanishing into mist and snow."
Bran's heart stirred at the image. He could see it: the gray cloaks of the Stark host disappearing into the trees, leaving fear and death in their wake.
"Finally," Luwin said, "at the Fields of Frost, near the Milkwater River, Alaric faced King Matthos in open battle. It was a grim day. Thousands died. But when it was done, Matthos Arryn retreated south with half his banners burned and broken."
He closed the book softly.
"The North was never conquered," he said. "And Alaric the First sealed a pact with the Clans surrounding the White Knife, ensuring that no king from south of the Neck would ever cross into the North again without blood being spilled."
The tower room was quiet for a long moment. Outside, the wind moaned against the stone.
Edwyn let out a breath. "He was the greatest king we ever had."
Maester Luwin shook his head. "The greatest king? mayhaps. The most stubborn? Certainly. But remember, boys: the victories we celebrate came at a terrible cost. There were winters that followed so harsh that even the wolves grew thin. War always carries a price."
Bran barely heard him. His mind was full of images: the Wild Wolf kings, direwolves running under gray skies, the whisper of old blood calling from the stones.
He wanted to be like them. Brave. Strong. Unyielding.
Bran sat a little straighter on the bench.
"We'll remember," he said softly.
Edwyn nodded beside him, face solemn for once.
Maester Luwin regarded them both with a weary fondness, then rose to stoke the fire.
"Good. Then let's hope you never have to pay the same price they did."
Bran wasn't so sure. The way Alaric's words had sounded in the crypt, Remember who you are, made it seem like one day, he would have to.
But he wasn't afraid.
Not anymore.