The sword was unlike any he had ever held. Not Valyrian, no—its weight was heavier, its hilt wrapped in pale leather that did not fray with the wet. The blade was a ghostly silver-blue, edge catching light even when there was none. As he tested its weight, it thrummed—not with magic wild and searing, but deep and cold, like something ancient buried in the ice.
Frostfang.
Ghostclaw circled near the broken lake, unease still rippling through his fur. The direwolf bared his teeth not at the cold, but at the silence.
Cregan glanced around. Something lingered in the clearing still. A presence. He had not come alone—not entirely.
[Simulation Residual Detected]
Unbidden, the interface flickered in his vision again.
Return to Winterfell with Frostfang.
Seek out the woman from the vision.
Speak to the barrow-wights beneath the hills.
He hesitated. His instincts screamed to return, to bring the blade back and prepare for what was coming. But the vision of the woman—riding a dull-scaled dragon, her eyes not pleading but commanding—flared again in his mind.
He chose the second.
[Path Divergence Noted – Trait Activated: Dream-Tethered]
He turned southward, moving through the forest's skeletal limbs, trusting Ghostclaw's nose and his own sharpened instincts. The map in his mind, imprinted by the vision, drew him like gravity.
Hours passed. Trees gave way to open moor, and in the distance, a glint of firelight danced beneath a rocky outcrop. Smoke, faint and purposeful.
He crouched behind a crag, eyes narrowing.
A dragon lay curled in sleep—small by comparison to the ancient beasts, but no less dangerous. Its scales were dark bronze and grey, mottled with ash. One wing twitched in its dreams. Beside it, half-shadowed by the firelight, sat the woman.
Not Targaryen. Not Northern.
Her hair was dark with streaks of silver, braided in the manner of the Rhoynar. Her armor was mismatched—one vambrace Valyrian steel, the other boiled leather. She sharpened a dagger slowly, eyes fixed on the fire as though expecting him.
He stepped forward, blade sheathed but ready.
"You found the lake," she said, not turning.
"And the sword," Cregan replied.
"Then the North truly wakes."
He moved closer, Ghostclaw silent beside him. The dragon lifted its head, sniffed the air, then settled again with a gust of heat.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"A daughter of flame who walked too far north," she said. "And you? You're not just a Stark bastard anymore. The stone wolf bowed to you. That matters."
"What is it I'm meant to fight?"
She finally looked at him. Her eyes shimmered—one gold, one grey. "Not yet. But something has broken beneath the Wall. A breach that wasn't meant to happen for a hundred years."
The words chilled him more than the wind.
"And the crown? The dragons? Will they fight it?"
"No," she said. "They don't see it coming. Too busy with their own fire."
Silence again. The fire crackled. Her dragon shifted.
"There is an old pact," she said. "Between the fire-born and the ice-marked. It was broken long ago. But we can make a new one. You with your sword of memory. Me with what I carry."
She drew a scroll from her satchel, wrapped in seals Cregan did not recognize. When she offered it, his hand tingled.
[Artifact Detected: Flamebound Accord]
Accept?
He hesitated.
"If I take this," he said, "what happens next?"
"We wake the sleepers," she answered.
He took the scroll.
[Accord Accepted]
New Questline: The Breach Beyond the Wall
Journey north of the Wall to find the broken seal
Awaken the ancient guardians
Learn the truth of the Binding Flame
New Trait: Pact-Bearer – You are now bound to a living magical covenant. Certain beings—be they human, beast, or other—will recognize your authority, or fear it.
The wind shifted.
Above them, stars blinked through thinning clouds. The dragon rumbled low.
And far to the north, beyond forests and frozen rivers, something stirred.
The cold had returned. But it was no longer empty.
Cregan stood beside the fire, scroll in hand, sword on his back, Ghostclaw at his side.
And for the first time, he did not feel like a boy born of snow.
He felt like the North's answer.
To what question, he had yet to learn.