A Song of Sovngarde (Skyrim/ASOIAF)

[Cxjenious]

Summary: Old Vjorn, the Dovahkiin and Lord of Sovngarde, has died, leaving his granddaughter, the young and untested Hilda Ysmir, to rule over the Nords. Her distant cousin, Thorunn Jorrvaskr, commander of the greatest army in Essos, has betrayed King Robert, the ruler of Westeros, by wedding Daenerys Targaryen, sister to Viserys Targaryen, who is the rightful heir of Westeros. By doing so, Thorunn has put her people in grave jeopardy, for the king hates nothing more than the spawn of Aerys Targaryen. To save her people, Hilda must play the game of thrones, and she must win.

A Song of Sovngarde
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Hilda I

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[Cxjenious]

Hilda ​

The cold wind needled Hilda's bare arms, like a thousand icy pinpricks. She inhaled the frigid air until her lungs burned, closed her eyes, and felt tears trickle slowly down her cheeks. I shouldn't cry, she thought. Tears are useless.

And yet, the tears still came, burning cold trails down her face, one after the other, as if marching solemnly to a dreadful death.

To the west, a hundred coves and inlets, the rocky outcroppings blanketed by grey-green moss, cradled the churning western sea that stretched endlessly beyond the horizon. Jagged mountains rose in the northeast, beyond the Wolfswood, fading from grey to white as they climbed past the Wall into the frozen far north. Surrounded by ancient spruce, ironwood, and soldier pines, shrouded in thick mist, eyes closed, Hilda saw neither the sea nor the mountains nor the sky, but she could feel them, hear them, as surely as she could feel the wool of her gown, the leather of her breeches, hear her heart beating in her chest.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Death has claimed one of your blood, the sea had whispered to her the week before, as she stood upon the beach and watched the dark waves break green and white against the outcroppings. And death comes for you, the mountains had rumbled. The sky only ever told her to rejoice, even when black and angry. In each of them she saw Kyne, the mother of all Nords, master of all elements. She could feel the goddess reaching into her soul, speaking directly into her heart.

Death comes for you, she heard again. Rejoice.

The morning was cold and crisp, the wind biting, the sky grey and somber. Hilda's breath misted in the air, and as she listened for new omens, as the crows sang their mournful song, and the waves churned, more tears marched down her cheeks. She wept for her the loss of her lord grandfather, whose death the sea had foretold. His bones and belongings had arrived with the dawn, ferried across the Narrow Sea by her cousin and Thane, Thorfinn Deathbrand.

But that was not all she wept for.

Her cousin, Gunnar, one of her housecarls, who had returned west with Thorfinn, told her that her grandfather had killed a hundred men before one of them put a sword through his belly. He said that Old Vjorn had shouted them to death even as his innards seeped out of him, crushed them beneath the weight of his mace and the might of his thu'um. Gunnar's twin and her second housecarl, Gunther, said that Vjorn was drunk on mead and still buried in a woman when the battle came, tit in one hand, mace in the other.

Hilda couldn't be sure which of her housecarls was telling the truth, if either of them were, knowing the sort of man her grandfather was, and the sort of men they were, given to grand boasts and fanciful tales. All she knew for certain was that her grandfather was dead, had known it since the sea warned her. He sups in the halls of Sovngarde now, she thought solemnly, as the wind twisted about her bare feet, curling around her toes, chilling them, sending her gown aflutter. Sovngarde was home to all Nords who died valiantly; the castle-city she ruled had been named for it.

That's why he went east, she told herself. So that he might achieve glory and spend eternity with our fallen kin in Shor's hall. Hilda had been sad, at first, when Thorfinn brought his bones to her, but now, in the forest, as she cried beneath the gray sky, blonde tresses wisping in the wind, her sadness and frustration turned to anger, for now she had to bear the weight of the dead, and the living, all alone.

She was the Keeper of Sovngarde, the Dovahkiin, chosen of Shor and his wife Kyne, the Hero-God Ysmir made flesh. She had assumed all the titles when her grandfather went east, seven years hence when she was but a girl of eleven, but they had shared the responsibility, back then. Now, all that weight, all those expectations and beliefs, were as anvils chained to her limbs and neck, strangling her, drowning her beneath haunted, black seas.

Damn him, she thought, and took another deep breath. She scented pine in the air, felt cool earth beneath her feet. The wind rose to a piercing whistle, swept green-gold spruce and pine needles from their branches, sent them fluttering to the forest floor. Beneath the wind, a queer sound reached her ears, a low rumble like quaking stone, rising up out of the shadows. For a moment her breath stopped, mind leaping to the tales she had heard shared amongst her people, of draugr and daedra. They're dead and gone, she told herself, heart quickening. Or far away besides, beyond sea and ice.

She opened her eyes, finally, and looked out into the forest. The mist stretched and coiled through the woods like ghostly fingers. Glowing yellow eyes stared at her through the fog, dozens of glittering topaz gems that shined as bright and golden as the moon. She recognized them immediately.

Gods damned wolves. Can I get no peace? There were half a dozen that she could see; all of Jorrvaskr, no doubt. Even wolves born outside the clan took up residence in their mountain holdfasts. The small pack prowled the gauzy shadows, utterly silent as they encircled her, except for the rumbling growls, low and constant.

Hilda grabbed her sword, the leather grip cold and stiff in her palm. Her grandfather had had the sword commissioned for her shortly before her thirteenth year, after her woman's blood came. It was a truly beautiful sword, with a hand and a half hilt, twin blood grooves running the length of the blue steel. The black gem set in its pommel didn't shine so much as it absorbed light, a dark abyss fashioned into a jewel.

I have another sword now, she thought. My grandfather's sword, the legendary Miraak, the blade of the first Dragonborn. Thorfinn had presented it to her, but she hadn't the heart to wield it just yet. It was still in her chambers, wrapped in a white lion's pelt, along with her grandfather's other spoils of war; great chests of gold and silver, jewelry and gems, diamonds, pearls, finery, tapestries, weapons, and half a hundred other things. Even a few women, little more than girls really, for all that they were her age or older, beautiful and weak in the way that pampered women were. And all with child. I would send them back east elsewise. Grandmother will not approve.

They would be her aunts and uncles, those children, and they would never truly know their father, save through her, until they died themselves. Her sadness crept back, slowly, and her lip began to tremble.

"Leave me to my sorrow," she commanded the wolves, seizing the annoyance their presence wrought, using it to stifle her sadness. At the sound of her voice, a stillness fell over the wolves; their breath rose to join the fog, mixing in the chill air. The largest of them, a great, broad-shouldered, copper furred she-wolf with long, slender, muscled limbs, crept closer.

"Leave," Hilda said again, scowling. "You need not know my wrath on this day." If her breath hitched, the wolves gave no indication that they had heard. She pulled her sword from its sheath, the weight of it in her hand as comforting as a mother's caress. "Hircine could always use more beasts for his hunts," she threatened. "Perhaps I should send you to him."

The she-wolf crept closer still, head bent low. Her shoulders reached as high as Hilda's chest, and her teeth were like curved daggers, sharp and gleaming. And yet Hilda showed no fear; she bared her teeth and raised her sword as if to swing, and the she-wolf, a killer of men and beasts alike, rolled to her back and let out a long keening whine.

Hilda dropped her sword arm and breathed out sharply, huffing. "Fine, Maela. You may stay. The rest of you leave. Now." Sulking, whining, snapping at one another's heels, the pack left her, fading into the mist like ghosts. She waited until the dark shapes were completely gone before she spoke. "Jarl Wulfgar sent you?" She watched the beast shift and shrink, fur shedding, bones snapping, melding, reshaping beneath the skin, claws melting into fingers. The sound was wretched, the sight even worse, but Hilda had seen the change hundreds of times. Thousands, even. She was used to it.

"No," answered Maela Jorrvaskr, when the change was done. Hilda was tall, but even she had to look up at Maela. She had strong, almost masculine features, but her lips were plump, and the curves of her tall, muscled body left no doubt as to her femininity. "I came of my own volition, as soon as I heard about Vjorn." Maela dipped her head in respect, then stepped closer to Hilda, the mist clinging to her naked form. Her thick red hair, seemingly braided with pine needles and bits of bark, hung down her back, and her pale skin was patterned with winding tattoos from her shoulders to her feet. "Have you-"

"No, not yet," Hilda said, already knowing what Maela was about to ask. "I would properly mourn his life before I seek him out in death. Even though I hardly knew him."

Maela frowned. "Your grandfather loved you more than you could ever know."

"Then why did he abandon me when I needed him most?" His wisdom, his sword. His name, and the history behind it. I need them all. Especially now.

Slowly, the sun began to peek out from the slate grey cover of clouds that dominated the sky, and a trickle of golden light spilled through the trees. "He did not abandon you, my lady," Maela protested. "He sups in Sovngarde now. His counsel is yours, until-"

"Until I walk the halls of Sovngarde myself. I know, Maela. I'm the Keeper, now. The only Keeper. I know. Even now I can feel him. He is sitting with the gods, with his kinsmen, with his ancestors, and he is happy."

"Then go and see him," Maela urged her. "There's no need to mourn him. Celebrate him instead, for the great life he lived and the glorious death he sought. Eternity is his now. Rejoice."

She does not understand, Hilda thought, even as her spine tingled at the reminder of Kyne's words to her. None of them do. Not her, not mother… Sovngarde was all her people seemed to care for, save for the wolves, who, upon death, were claimed by Hircine, Lord of the Hunt.

Nords lived and loved and died to reach Shor's Hall, to live amongst their ancestors and kinsmen, drinking and fighting their way through eternity. But life is more than death. Hilda wanted more than that. Needed more than that. She preferred the castle Sovngarde in the living realm, as opposed to the great hall of death that her seat had been named after.

"He is of little use to me in Sovngarde," she said. Her tears were gone now. "We live in the realm of men, not spirits. The northern and southron lords cannot reach him in Sovngarde. They respected him, respected his word, his sword-"

"His blood," said Maela. "You are of his blood."

"Aye, I am."

"Then why do you weep? I watched the Hagraven pull you from your mother's womb. I have known you since your first breath. Never once have I seen you cry."

Hilda pushed her thick golden braids over her shoulder and started to pace, back and forth, back and forth. Her grandfather had worn his hair like hers, braided and wrapped in strips of leather, in the Nordic tradition. It was another reminder of what she had lost, and what she yet stood to lose. "Magnus sent word from King's Landing," she began. "The king's Hand is dead, and the king himself rides north for Winterfell as we speak, presumably to appoint our liege as his new Hand." She felt a twinge of pain in her palms, and only just realized how tightly she was clenching her fists. "He means to take Wulfric hostage."

Wulfric Ysmir. Lord of Sovngarde. Her younger brother.

Maela loosed a rumbling growl, fingers lengthening into claws, teeth growing into fangs. "I won't allow it," she ground out, voice deep and guttural. "I'll kill him before he puts a hand on that boy. I'll rip out his heart and feast on his fat, kingly flesh."

The decision isn't yours to make. "You won't ask why he wants Wulfric as a hostage?"

Maela shook her head. "It doesn't matter. He can't have him. Right?"

Hilda wished it were that easy. "Thorunn wed Daenarys Targaryen," she said. "The Mad King's daughter. Thorfinn believes that he has pledged his men to help Viserys Targaryen claim his birthright, the very throne that Robert Baratheon sits. A throne that we helped sit him on."

Maela dropped her head. "Aye, I know, I was there. I fought alongside your father. Stood with him, when he died."

Hilda smiled. Her mother had told her the story dozens of times, of how her father had fallen against the white knight, Ser Barristan the Bold, on the banks of the Ruby Ford. "And I thank you for that. I always have and I always will." She leaned against a crooked ironwood, the bark still damp with morning frost, and her smiled turned melancholic. "Thorunn has warred his entire life. He was weaned on war; it is all he has ever known or desired. He yearns for it as a hungry babe yearns for his mother's milk." She looked down at her hands, as if she might find some answer in the lines of her palms. "I imagine he's somewhere fighting now; a pitched battle against sellswords, a tavern brawl, perhaps even in one of the slavers' arenas."

Maela almost snarled. "And knowing the sort of man Thorunn is, you still mean to send Wulfric south. To let him be taken."

Hilda sighed. "For now. I can do little else."

Maela was silent for a very long while. "And what of Thorunn?" she asked finally, almost painfully. Thorunn, like her, was of Clan Jorrvaskr, though he had spent most of his life in the far east. They were blood kin, and no Nord would ever wish ill on their own blood. And yet, she asked, "Will you perform the Sacrament?"

Hilda was reluctant to use the Black Hand against her own people, but she could not ignore the danger Thorunn represented. "If no other option presents itself," she admitted.

"You'll find another way. You're a clever girl, and tenacious. You've your mother's wit."

"Thorunn cares nothing for my wit. He only respects strength."

"Aye, he does. But you have that too."

"Only just. My grandfather could have stopped him. Curbed his stupidity, or his lust, whichever led him to wed the Targaryen girl. King Robert trusted my grandfather. Loved him. Even if Vjorn couldn't have stopped Thorunn, he could have dissuaded the king from taking my brother, reassured him, something. King Robert has neither trust nor love for me, for all that my father died for him. If Thorunn makes an attempt for the throne my brother will die." She looked towards the heavens; only slivers of the sky were visible through the canopy. "Now do you see how my grandfather abandoned me? Do you see why I weep? He couldn't have died at a worse time."

"If King Robert kills Wulfric, he and his won't be long for this world," Maela promised. "Every Nord would take up arms, old and young alike. We would burn this land to ash."

Some of it, Hilda thought. But not all. Westeros is too large. "You asked why I weep? I weep because I am afraid. Because I am angry, and frustrated, and alone. Because I don't know what to do, or where to turn. My people know war. We know death. But for the two centuries we've lived here, for the Houses we've married, and the seas we've explored, we are still strangers to this land. Outsiders, to all the lords below the Neck. A war with the crown would spell our demise. Thorunn must know this."

"He knows that with our full strength, and his full strength, we could carve ourselves a great portion of this land. The North, the Iron Islands, the West... all could be ours. Call upon the Blood Flower, and the rangers, and all the Nords who went south. You need not fear a war against the throne."

Hilda shook her head, annoyed at Maela's insistence on battle. "I would rather stop war, not encourage it."

Maela scoffed. "We are Nords. We aren't meant to stop wars. We are meant to end them."

Hilda said nothing to that, standing still for several breaths before she turned away to start the long, familiar trek back to Sovngarde. The trail seemed to sprout up out of the ancient forest, twisting for a little over a mile through dense woods and sparse, wet meadows, out into the misty, moss covered bog, where the trailed died and the road began. Maela shifted back to her wolf form and followed behind her, padding silently through the undergrowth. Hilda heard the other wolves return, heard their yips and snarls, but they kept to the trees; she was equally irked and touched by their devotion and discretion. The bog soil was moist and spongy; she had to walk quickly and lightly lest she sink into the muck, until she reached the solid road. She saw what looked like moose tracks cutting across the trail. Two of the wolves stopped to sniff at the tracks, then took off deeper into the woods.

The road was wide, pitched in places and cobbled in others, with ditches dug along the sides for rainwater, markers for distance, and bridges that arced over the more treacherous stretches of the bogs. The road was busy too, as traders and travelers made their way from Sovngarde to Winterfell and beyond. It stretched east for over a hundred leagues, dotted here and there with small villages and hamlets, cutting through the Wolfswood and all the way to Winterfell, with several branches: one curved down through Torrhen's Square, around Salt lake, and on to Barrowton through the hills, and another wound down to the Stony Shore and the lands of House Blackbriar, across the Rillwater and through the rills to the seat of House Ryswell.

She wondered, as she walked, Maela trotting behind her, if her grandmother might want to visit her brother and nephews at the Rills, and if her mother would return now from Dawnfort, in the far North. Wulfric would want to see her, she knew. No doubt he had heard by now what the king had demanded of him. The Hrothgar would have told him at the first opportunity.

Heavily laden wagons rumbled up and down the road, a couple pulled by upwards of twenty horses, passing every half hour or so. Traders and merchants traveled absent guards through New Skyrim, for even before the roads had been built, Hilda's five times great grandfather, Thorvard the Mighty - who wed Sarra Stark and sired Helga the Heavenly, the Axe-maiden and third Dovahkiin to rule Sovngarde - had tasked his warriors with regularly patrolling the lands as far east as the western fork of the White Knife.

The drivers, as she came upon them, called out blessings and prayers, for her, her father, and her grandfather, and forced gifts upon her, as it was considered a bad omen amongst Nords, traders and merchants especially, to not share their goods with the Dovahkiin whenever possible. It was considered an even worse omen for the Dovahkiin to reject them.

She received a lovely tan mare from the first merchant, a tall, wrinkled woman with stark white hair named Agatha who refused to let her walk barefoot all the way to Sovngarde and berated Maela for not demanding Hilda ride her. "Shor's beard!" she had exclaimed upon recognizing Hilda. "Dovahjud, you mustn't ruin those feet of yours on this hard earth! And you, wolf! What use are you, eh? A shame to the Jorrvaskr name! Lord Markus should have you shaved. Take one of my horses, Dovahjud, please; I would be honored for you to ride her."

The second merchant gave her a beautiful shadowskin cloak, a deep black that was slashed with white; he was a ranger too, by the faces of Kyne woven into his garments, and he scolded her for being out in the cold with little more than a sleeping gown. "We Nords were born of the ice, it is true," he had said, his beard so thick that Hilda couldn't see his mouth move, "but that is no excuse to be out in your undergarments, Dovahkiin!"

The third merchant, another woman, heavy-set and almost as tall as Maela, gave her a wool gown and a wineskin; the fourth, a man in fox and ferret furs, cooked her a much needed meal of grilled leeks and cabbage, mutton, fried potatoes, and shrimp paste on hard bread, washed down with honeyed mead. The fifth gave her a silver brooch to fasten her cloak, and a ring with a beautifully cut garnet; the sixth, who rode with her two young sons, gave her a pair of sturdy boots to better spur her horse, but only after cleaning her feet and making her a rasher of whale bacon. She thanked each of them, genuinely, prayed with them and for them, ate with the one, blessed the woman's sons, and all the while the sun continued its slow journey through the northern skies.

With the horse beneath her, who she decided to call Qonos, Lightning strike in the common tongue, she made much better time back to the castle-city, and Maela seemed to enjoy the opportunity to run.

A few of the travelers Hilda came across weren't Nords, and even she could smell their fear when they looked upon Maela, who, on four legs, looked like nothing so much as a direwolf with the musculature of a bear.

And then, there it was, beyond the wetlands, half hidden in the heavy fog: Sovngarde, the seat of House Ysmir. The castle itself had been built on the southern arm of Sea Dragon Point, atop ancient First Men ruins. The city around it sprawled across a vast tract of land, in the center of which was a high hill crested by seven ancient weirwoods, left untouched after the Carving.

The Nords called it "Seventree Hill"; back during the reign of Ragnar Redbeard, a great hero and the son of the first Dovahkiin to rule, carpenters had carved the Nordic Gods into the bone white boles above the solemn faces of the northern Gods, only to watch them weep blood.

Thinking them some strange, northern magic, Ragnar had wanted the trees burned out root and stem, but a Northman showed him that the blood was only sap, and the wood was valuable, for it never rotted. After learning this, Ragnar cut down all but seven of the trees, and used the wood to fashion rafters, furniture, and weapons. His seven foot longbow still hung in Sovngarde's great hall, beneath rafters fashioned from the same trees.

Massive walls of slate grey stone as tall as old spruce trees rose out of the earth and stretched for a mile in either direction, with towers that were spaced every few hundred or so yards. Hilda smiled as the city came into view, for she loved her people as much as they loved her, despite the burden of her responsibilities. The din of the city was as a siren's song, calming her nerves and settling her thoughts so much that she smiled widely, almost overcome.

She knew, suddenly, exactly what she would do, how she would placate the king, how she would curb Thorunn's aggression. She heard wrens and warblers chirping almost frantically, and Maela, sensing her changed mood, loped closer and yipped at her like some wet-behind-the-ears pup. Beneath the midday sun, the city seemed to glow, and even Qonos was unbothered by the massive wolf trotting at her side.

The outer wall branched out from the barbican, with its turreted corners and dragon's head crenellations; behind the stout structure was the city, whose tallest towers and buildings seemed as if to disappear into the heavens, standing proudly above a second inner wall that was even taller than the first, crested in black iron, black dragon banners flying high above the conical spires, roiling in the wind.

The portcullis, so wide that fifty horseman abreast could comfortably ride through, was wrought from latticed steel, and monstrous moats had been dug around both the outer and inner city walls, each moat several dozen feet deep and wide. Hilda saw otters swimming in the outer moat as she crossed the black oak bridge into the barbican, knifing through the dark waters. There was a loud splash; she looked back and saw one of Maela's wolves frolicking in the water, chasing after otters.

Sovngarde, she had heard spoken, was the grandest castle in all of the north, grander even then Harrenhal, some whispered, for the great builders who had sculpted the castle had put their souls into the stone and made it living, to be shaped as easily as clay, and giants and mammoths had set the living stone, stacked its mountainous walls and dizzying towers. It stretched across several thousand acres; if not the grandest castle, Hilda thought, it was certainly the grandest city. According to the many travelers who visited Sovngarde, only the capital, King's Landing, and Oldtown were more populous.

The citizens and soldiers milling about at the gate all bowed as she passed, giving blessings, condolences, and one of them asked if she might see fit to take a message to his dead kinsmen.

"Write down your message," she told him, and all the rest who might have been afraid to ask, already feeling the headache that would come when she ventured to Shor's Hall, "and the name of who you wish to receive it, and leave it for me at the temple."

The portcullis rattled and clanked its way shut; she continued across the second, longer bridge, and into Sovngarde, pushing Qonos into a gallop.

She had messages to send, and dead souls to visit.

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[Cxjenious]

Part 1 of Thorfinn I:

Thorfinn​

"Bugger the king and bugger his demands," cursed Arlan Stormcloak, gruff voice echoing in the vaulted council chambers. He paced beneath one of the bay windows that looked out to the sea, chainmail clanking as he stomped about. "Wulfric is not the Dovahkiin, but the blood of Ysmir runs in his veins all the same. To give him up without a fight is to shame not only all Nords, but the gods as well!"


Overhead, great crystal chandeliers of glittering gold hung from the high ceiling, positioned to catch and magnify the last rays of the sun as it fell into the Sunset Sea. The dark granite walls were blanketed by tapestries gathered from all over the known world, most brought by Thorfinn himself.


"There is no shame in acquiescing to the demands of a king," the Hrothgar said. Further down the table, Gildheim nodded in agreement. "Nor would I presume to speak for the gods. Such is Hilda's domain." He twirled his ash-white whiskers around a wrinkled finger. "Does Jarl Wulfgar share your sentiments?" The Hrothgar was surprisingly soft spoken for so large a man. He sat at the head of the weirwood table, robed in blue and grey, his beard so long that he had to tuck it in his belt. Thorfinn had no worries as to which way the Hrothgar's opinion would fall – before he assumed his position, his name had been Ralof Ysmir. During his youth, he had followed his cousin Old Vjorn like a lost puppy, according to Gildheim. The Blackbriar lord had once told Thorfinn that Vjorn could have shit on a plate and called it a delicacy and Ralof would have eaten it with a smile on his face.


He was even more besotted with Hilda.


Arlan scowled, and Thorfinn tried not to sigh. Arlan had been arguing his point for what seemed like hours now, and only Lorheim Jorrvaskr, a greater warmonger than any scion of Stormcloak, agreed with him. But what can one expect from wolves and bears, Thorfinn thought.


Like most Nords, Arlan was all too ready to go to war. He was bred for it; it was said that the Stormcloak brothers fell from the womb armored in plate, with axes fashioned from their mother's bones. Thorfinn had fought beside both of them in Essos, and could attest to their prowess, but of the two, only Jarl Wulfgar seemed to have any sense.


Thorfinn wondered why the Jarl had sent his brother to serve on Hilda's council. Surely he had another relative who wasn't so stupid?


"We all feel the sting of shame," Tsilda said. "None of us, I think, more so than Lady Hilda herself. But you saw her when she returned to the city. She said she has a plan. I trust her, as all Nords have trusted her line since the World Eater cast our home to ruin."


If Thorfinn's heart hadn't already been claimed by another, he might have taken Ser Tsilda for a wife. The lady knight, like most women of Dawnstar, was a great beauty, tall and strong, with blond hair so pale it was almost white. She was still unmarried, and apparently chaste as a maid, but her twins were evidence that she well knew the touch of a man. The Dawnstars had adopted the southron practice of titling themselves ser, but instead of swearing false oaths to false gods, they swore their service to Meridia, Queen of the Dawn, and their oaths were simple: Protect the weak, and defend the realm from evil. Sons and daughters of house Dawnstar went as far north as the Lands of Always Winter to obey that oath, fighting against the ice draugr, though in recent years, they hadn't needed to venture so far to find them.


Further down the table, seated with the representatives from the lesser houses, Ser Balmir Greymane grunted his agreement. "Aye," called out Sofie and Robar Darkbrother. "Aye," echoed Thranson Silveren. Garlund Nightgale, however, a wily thief who was as quick with a dagger as the sun was bright, stood up and said, "I too, trust Lady Hilda. Her mind is as sharp as Miraak, for all that she is young, untested, and gentle besides. Still, I trust her." Arlan returned to his seat, and Helsif, the last member of the council to arrive, finally took her place across from Thorfinn. Ser Tsilda narrowed her eyes at Helsif; for the briefest of moments, Thorfinn that the Dawn knight might attack her.


The vast room had seemed uncomfortable before, with its dark stone and black marble floors, but now the tension seemed as if to choke the very air from the room, and sap the heat as well, for all of a sudden, the torches dimmed and a chill fell over the hall.


But no one said anything. Was he imagining it?


"It is this southron king whom I do not trust," Garlund continued. "I was in King's Landing when he had his war against the false dragons. I was there when the bodies of Rhaegar's children were presented to him. He–"


Thorfinn stood up, and Garlund grew quiet. "This council did not convene to discuss whether or not to send Wulfric south," he began, in the same sort of voice that saw him command fleets through treacherous storm in the Shivering Sea, and even worse storms in the Summer Sea. "Hilda has already decided. We know not to trust the king, as he is neither a Stark nor a Nord. We know of every shameful thing he has ever done, every freshly flowered girl he's sowed, every bastard he's sired. One of them serves on my ship."


He felt Helsif's eyes on him like spear tips that had been dipped in poisonous, and resisted the urge to shudder. He had sailed beyond the Thousand Isles, walked through the Shadow beyond Asshai, fought brindled men and wyverns, even a kraken, and still, Helsif's red eyes made his flesh crawl. He couldn't imagine how foul the Bloodflower's presence must be. Strange, he thought, that so beautiful a woman can be so vile. "Garlund, sit, please." After the thief sat down, Thorfnn continued, "There are two things that Hilda wished for us to discuss while she journeyed to Shor's Hall, and two things only; how to quietly mobilize our levies and long ships, and finding her a husband."


The arguments continued, but the king and Wulfric were never mentioned. They bickered, they fussed, they complained. Arlan wanted Hilda to wed his son, Aidan, who Thorfinn already knew had his heart set on a Wull girl. Tsilda's son, Feifnir, was four years younger than Hilda, but he was offered up all the same, along with her nephew, Ser Harkon. Sofie and Robar put forth every unwed male from the Darkbrother clan. Garlund advocated for his son, as did Thranson.


Thrankull, Thorfinn had to admit, would be a good match. He wasn't particularly comely, but he wasn't homely either. His looks didn't really matter; Hilda was beautiful enough for the both of them. He had a good head on his shoulders, was frightening with a bow in his hands, and he was devoted to his people. Of course, the same could be said for most of the Darkbrother boys, and Feifnir and Ser Harkon too. Ser Harkon and Feifnir had the benefit of being handsome, but they were Knights of the Dawn, or in line to be, and their first loyalty was to Meridia.


The Hrothgar looked to Helsif for a suggestion. Thorfinn pondered the revulsion he felt for her. It wasn't a new feeling, but old and familiar, like a nord's first sword. He'd been the same as a child, he remembered. Uneasy in her presence. Wary. Watchful.


"Are we all so smitten with Hilda that we must keep her for ourselves? Her father wed a Nord, yes, but her grandfather married a Ryswell, and his father married a Stark. In fact, not since Ragnar Redblood has any firstborn of the Dovah line married a Nord. Even Helga the Heavenly, who killed her first betrothed, wed an Umber. We will need the North in the times to come. She should wed one of them."


"She cannot wed Robb," the Hrothgar said. "He is to be the Stark in Winterfell. The boy Bran is too young, though she is fond of him. Little Rickon is even younger."

Sofie said, "There are other Starks."


"Aye," agreed Gildheim. "The Starks of Moat Cailin. Rodrik is not yet betrothed, nor is Elric."


"They stand to inherit," chimed Ser Tsilda. "Neither of them will do. But the others might. The twins are too young, but Edwyn is old enough to sire children."


Helsif laughed, and the sound made Thorfinn's hair stand on in. It echoed unnaturally, bouncing from one wall to the other, then to the ceiling, and back down to them. "The Starks of Moat Cailin are worthy, but they hold no dominion over the north."


"There are no other Starks left to consider." Arlan pointed out, still upset that his suggestions had been rebuffed by nearly the entire council.


"There is one," Thorfinn said. "The Bastard of Winterfell. Jon Snow."


The silence turned heavy. Nords cared little for the Faith's disparagement of bastards, but no Dovahkiin had ever wed a bastard before.


"He is beloved by Lord Stark," the Hrothgar said.


"And by his brother as well," added Sofie. "By all his siblings."


"Lady Stark hates him, though," Robar argued. "She thinks him a threat to her children's inheritance. What will she think when he becomes the husband of the Dovahkiin? House Stark has never had a vassal house as strong as ours; she will worry that he will seek to usurp the lordship from her son, and her hatred of him will become hatred of us."


"Perhaps," Helsif allowed. "Perhaps not." She shrugged. "It was only a suggestion. Ultimately, Lady Hilda will decide. It would be nice, however, to reach a consensus, or something resembling one."


"Lady Stark is a fool, like all southron women," Ser Tsilda said. "So what if she fears the bastard? She will never be Lord of Winterfell."


"The boy has honor," Arlan grumbled. "And he isn't half-bad with a sword. What? I've seen him fight against the boys in Wintertown on several occasions. Aidan speaks highly of him."


"He's a mopey little shit," Lorheim said. Garlund thought that was hilarious, and laughed himself into a coughing fit. Thorfinn had almost forgotten the wolf was there. How could so large and hulking a man sit so quietly? Thorfinn was a big man himself, but Lorheim, as was the norm amongst the Jorrvaskr men, was over seven feet tall, with thick red-hair and intricate markings winding down his from shoulders to his feet.


Thorfinn found it funny that the Jorrvaskr wolves in their human forms were so large, and yet, beneath the light of the full moon, the bears were almost thrice their size. Not that the bears, in human form, were in any way small. Arlan was approaching seven feet himself.


"He's a bastard in a world that hates his kind," Garlund said. "A little moping is understandable. He will not be so reviled if he were to join us. I am certainly not opposed to the idea."


"Nor I," said Tsilda.


"Nor I," said Sofie and Robar together.


Save Lorheim, they were all in agreement. They would put forth Jon Snow's name as a viable husband, along with, it was decided, the Nord boys, as well as a few second sons from southron houses who might be of some use, should the realm fall to war. Loras Tyrell was one, though Sofie and Garlund both whispered that he was a pillow-biting milk-drinker who would sooner lay with Wulfric than Hilda. Quentyn Martell was another, but Gildheim, who had spent almost a decade in Dorne after Robert's War, didn't think that the dornish prince would have anything to do with a northern banner. Thorfinn agreed. He had walked the sands of Dorne a few times in his life; the north had might as well been in another continent, to them. None dared put forth Tyrion Lannister, and no other great house had a second son or third son to spare.


There was much less discussion about how to best gather the levies. There was to be a festival in Sovngarde in eight months; the best time to gather the men would come then. It would take nearly half that time to carry the messages all across the north and south, so slow was the only way to go, unless they wished to risk using ravens or pigeons and have a message intercepted.


Thorfinn, as High Admiral and Lord Vigilant, would see personally to the long ships himself. It made sense, he figured, as he would have to see to the fleet anyway, for Hilda had given him other tasks as well. From where did your devious mind arise, sweet Hilda?


The Hrothgar adjourned the meeting. The representatives trickled out until only Helsif and Thorfinn were left. Ah, he thought. Of course.


Helsif smiled crookedly. The tip of a fang peaked over the edge of her ruby lips. "Do I still unnerve you so, little cousin? The great Thane they call Deathbrand? Surely not so terrible a killer is afraid of little old me?"


Thorfinn didn't grace her with an answer. "You should be careful of Ser Tsilda," he said instead. "Meridia hates your kind. She'll kill you if she gets the chance."


"She will try. I will stop her. If she can even work up the nerve to go against Hilda, which I doubt. Jarl Asmund is my kin, same as you, and Lady Sigrid is Hilda's own aunt; Tsilda will have to go against her Jarl and her queen both. Two queens; Hilda wears the crown, but Lady Helena is still her mother." She laughed in such a way as to convey how absurd she thought the idea of Tsilda killing her was. "Tsilda is much too dutiful and honorable to move against me." She stood smoothly, as if a snake rearing up to strike. Thorfinn fought the urge to grab his dagger. "You, on the other hand… you are playing a dangerous game, cousin. Hilda has enough to worry about. I don't think she will appreciate-"


"Hilda doesn't know," he said, angry all of a sudden. "And you won't tell her." He stood up as well, and stepped away from the table. "Like you said, she has enough to worry about. She named me her Thane for a reason; have never failed her before, and I don't intend to start now."


"Very well, cousin. I will keep my silence. For now." She walked to stand in the window, and didn't even wince at the sunlight that spilled through. How long could she withstand the sun? he wondered. "You killed one kraken. Let us hope you need not kill another."

/~/~/​

 

[Cxjenious]

Vanora​

A scruffy brown-haired boy with a dagger riding his hip sprinted down the stony lane, yelling, "Cod! Fresh cod! Two pennies a pound, two pennies a pound, fresh cod for sale, two pennies a pound!"

Vanora tensed as he ran past, fingering the knives hidden up her quilled sleeves. She imagined the cobbles painted in wet crimson. She imagined hounds tearing at his flesh, fighting for scraps of gristle. The images exhilarated her. The images disgusted her. Sweet Ramsay, what have you done to me?

Fisherman's Alley bustled beneath the noonday haze. Despite its name, the Alley was more than a mere alley; it was several of them, in fact, two long lanes that spanned the entire western wall, crisscrossed by a dozen streets, with stalls and storefronts in neat little rows. The entire district was devoted to the sea, and every stall, store, and warehouse took their wares from it. From the peak of the Street of Mead, which crossed through the center of the Alley, Vanora could see a thousand and more fishing sloops sailing the frigid waters beyond Harbortown.

The air was thick with shouting fishermen, ringing bells, singing gulls, the rumbling wash of waves against the shore, the steady murmur of thousands of voices. Everything smelled like fish. The air stank of it; when she breathed through her mouth, she could taste it in the back of her throat.

She was starting to hate fish. Hate the taste, hate the smell. Every once in a while, she wanted to eat suckling pig, or a nice cut of veal – even a rabbit would do. Something that walked on four legs and didn't swim through the fucking ocean. Something bloody. She didn't even like being in the district for the fishy smell, but she and Maeve had just come from visiting the Hagraven's mother, Lady Margret, who grew vital herbs in her glass gardens, and had made her home in the hill tower that sat atop the Street of Mead

From Hag's Tower, as it was called, Fisherman's Alley was the fastest way to the Dread Father's shrine, and the underground chambers of the Black Hand, which was in turn the fastest route back to the castle. There were hidden entrances to the chambers hidden all around the city, connected by a warren of dank, dripping tunnels: In the temples that surrounded Seventree Hill, in a choice few slope-roofed homes, in the castle cellars, down on the rocky beaches.

As the girls shouldered their way through the press of bodies, and Vanora wrestled with murderous urges, a fishmonger called out, "Hey there pretty lassies! I've got good whale meat here, horned, blue, grey, and some already smoked. Come have a taste, free…of…"

Vanora had turned towards him halfway through his pitch. A black hand stood proudly over her heart, embroidered on her white satin gown, palm up, fingers spread. The black leather choker about her neck was adorned with a tiny white skull.

"I… you…" His eyes flickered up to her face. At the sight of her near colorless eyes, he became, if anything, more wary. She might have laughed at his caution, if she had been the sort of person to be given to mirth. "Forgive me, Lady Vanora. I meant no offense." There was a false note to his tone; he hated her, she knew, but his fear was much greater.

She could almost hear his frantic thoughts. Don't summon the Bloodflower upon me. Great Shor, father of all Nords, shield me from Sithis and his vile children.

Shor is a child of Sithis as well, she wanted to tell him, knowing his mind. We were all born of the Dread Father. And it is to him that we will all return.

Maeve, sharp nosed, soft-tongued, and slim as a willow, with eyes the color of burnished brass, said, "Fret not, noble fisherman. I do not believe that my friend took offense. Why, you only offered us a bit of fish!" She snatched up one of the offered slivers of smoked fish, tossed it in her mouth, and moaned in delight at the taste.

The fisherman didn't look any more at ease by her declaration. Maeve's eyes were evidence of her Glenmoril blood, and the black gem hanging about her neck most likely contained the soul of some poor, helpless beast or a foolish Northman.

Or maybe it was only a sculpted hunk of obsidian.

Vanora curled her lips into a crooked smile, and the fishmonger paled further. "No offense was taken, good man." Her voice was soft as sighing wind, less than a whisper, but somehow loud enough to be heard over the Alley din. "Blessings be upon you."

"Blessings," he echoed hollowly.

Maeve thanked him, grabbed Vanora's hand, and pulled her along further down the alley. Maeve, like Vanora, was one of Hilda's many handmaidens, and the daughter of a powerful entity amongst their people. Born of the Hagraven and a son of House Darkbrother, Maeve was both Vanora's distant cousin and a fellow heiress, though not half as reviled. Nords, as a whole, where mistrustful of magic, but none could doubt the benefits of its use. Maeve was only a middling user of magic – most witches were, besides the Hagraven – but she was a highly skilled alchemist, with an expertise that belied her youth, and her potions could cure most any ailment, mend cuts, and heal bruises.

Her poisons were likewise coveted.

All the commonfolk feared Vanora's kind, though, for the Darkbrothers were the chosen of Sithis, sons and daughters of the abyss. The commoners might have banded together to burn them out if not for the patronage of House Ysmir. Since Vaskr the Valiant himself, who was the first to step upon the western shore those many years ago, and who had lain the first stone of their great city, a Darkbrother had remained close to the Dovahkiin, with sons and daughters growing up as brothers and sisters, as treasured companions and trusted servants.

Vanora and Hilda shared such a relationship. As babes, they had drunk milk from the same tit, slept in the same crib, and after being weaned, ate from the same plate. As girls, they shared everything: clothes, knives, beds. They had sat the same lessons, until Hilda's thu'um began to manifest, and Vanora discovered that she, like her mother before her, could enter the Void where the Dread Lord dwelled. That only brought them closer, for they had come to share a burden that few others could comprehend. Vanora loved Hilda as much as a person could possibly love another, more than her own kin; more than herself, even.

But lately, that love had begun to sour. Resentment had reared its filthy head, and every day, her resentment grew, and shame too, that she would think ill of her most beloved companion. The thoughts came as buffeting winds in an autumn storm, incessant and unceasing. Her mother used to tell her that love and hate were the same; just lights skewed through different prisms. Her feelings had begun to reflect that belief.

No one feared Hilda like they feared her, for all that Hilda could break them with mere words. From her golden hair to her ravishing smile, she was everything Vanora wasn't: Tall, statuesque – long-legged and narrow-waisted, with high, full breasts – and unmistakably beautiful, almost ethereal, with soulful, slate-blue eyes that were flecked with silver and sparkled like stars, sun-gold hair as soft as down, and a voice sweeter than heaven's nectar. People wept joyously to see Hilda smile, and wept ever the more to hear her sing.

Vanora was short, closer to plain than comely, and lithe, but flat-chested, with hair that was dark and coarse, like black-iron wire, and a cruel mouth given to twisted smirks. Her eyes were pale as mist; she had dead eyes, some said, the color of ghosts drifting about a lichyard, as empty as the graves of the wandering undead.

It wasn't for her looks that Vanora resented Hilda, she oft told herself. Hilda had always been beautiful, and Vanora had always been aware of it. It was good that Hilda was so beautiful; her people loved her all the more for it, and foreign folk were utterly smitten by her. When she and Hilda were together, people tended to forget about her, to overlook her, and that suited her perfectly.

People thought Hilda gentle, and only that, as if her beauty somehow put her above darker emotions and motivations. The notion was laughable, in Vanora's mind. Hilda was very loving, true, and she could be gentle, but there was ruthlessness in her, hidden cruelty, for how else could she command such men and women as Nords? The blood of Ysmir did not suffer soft hearts. Vanora likened her to a blue steel sword sheathed in glittering gold and sparkling jewels; utterly gorgeous to behold, but hiding a sharp edge that could carve through bone like whale butter. Vanora, being what she was, couldn't help but love her, and yet…

In the weeks since the king's decree, time and time again, Hilda asked Vanora to venture into the Void to communicate with her mother and the Bloodflower, knowing how it affected her, how it deadened her. Delving into the Void was not a task to be taken lightly; the writhing darkness stole slivers of her soul every time she ventured into its depths, piece by piece, slice by slice, bite by bite, like a wolf gnawing at its dying prey. That was how her mother had become the vile woman that she was, she thought; the Void had stolen all from her that was good and true, leaving only darkness. It would happen to Vanora too, it was inevitable, but she wished it weren't her best friend, her sister, forcing her to it.

Perhaps it is best that it is Hilda, she would tell herself. She couldn't fathom damning her soul for anyone else, not Old Vjorn, and certainly not her black hearted mother. Her reasoning did nothing to assuage her feelings, did nothing to silence her thoughts, so she ignored them, buried them beneath her shame, her guilt, and there they festered, like an infected wound.

And then, there was the matter with her half-brother. Sweet Ramsay. That, more than anything, weighed on her mind, for it meant that perhaps the Void had already stolen more than she realized. She shouldn't have ridden with Rorlund to the Dreadfort. She should've kept her distance from Ramsay. Hilda would hate her, for what she was becoming. It was Hilda's fault she was becoming what she was. Blood flowed through her fingers, thick and red. Screams reverberated in her ears, wet and gurgling.

Sovngarde seemed to reflect her dark thoughts. Clouds had moved in from the north, thick and grey, blanketing the sun. The city sprawl was wrought of smooth dark granite, from the cobbled streets to the tallest towers. In the daylight, the sun would catch on the quartz in the stone and make the city glimmer like one great, black jewel. At night though, the stone seemed as if to absorb the pale glow of the moon, greedy for its light. Black stone walls, black stone buildings, black stone streets. When the sun fell beyond the sea, shadows ruled in Sovngarde.

Vanora and Maeve followed Fisherman's Alley down to the gatehouse, past wooden stalls of clams and lobsters and crabs, hanging seal skins and whale leather, shark-toothed combs and necklaces, assortments of pearls, and narwhal horn spears. The numerous guards, familiar with their faces, hardly paid them any attention as they passed through gatehouse and across the trestle bridge to Harbortown.

Harbortown was the only district of the city where the buildings were more timber than stone; open to the sea, it was the most vulnerable as well. A soggy tract of soft-soiled bog lay between Harbortown and the western wall, swarmed with shrubs and stippled with stunted alders. The shrubs grew thick and wild; there were blueberries, cranberries, white and pink and yellow orchids, and strange little green shrubs that were covered in pink-hued bristles. Beneath the stench of fish and the salty smell of the sea, Vanora scented spicy vanilla, sweet lemon, and something delicate and airy, like roses, almost. Maeve picked handfuls of the orchids that grew beneath the bridge, and stuffed the fragrant petals into the leather pouch hanging at her side before continuing on to the docks.

"For a potion?" Vanora asked, seeking reprieve from her miasmic ponderings.

Maeve shook her head. "No. For rushes and perfumes. Hilda asked me to make a batch for when we go to Winterfell."

Vanora almost scowled before she stopped herself. There it was, swimming in her chest, an inky mass of resentment and shame, toxic, sickening even, and utterly immovable. And beneath it, far more familiar, a yearning ache that had been with her as long as she could remember.

She needed to talk to someone, but she hadn't a clue who. Maeve wouldn't understand. Hilda would – no she won't – she always did, but Vanora couldn't bear the thought of revealing her anger, her bitterness, her shame. She certainly couldn't tell her mother, nor Rorlund, for that matter; he was a Nord down to the pits of his soul, and the both of them hundreds of leagues away besides. He had never known any feelings for the Dovahkiin but love and respect. Helsif, maybe? Or Yanora? Of Aenora's four daughters, Yanora was the most sane, the most stable, but also decrepitly old, with a failing memory. Elnora was a mad as their mother, and Lenora was every bit as cruel as her father. She even had his smiling eyes. Just like Vanora had her father's eyes. We're all damned, she thought. All of the night mother's children, damned by birth.

"Is there something ailing you?" said Maeve. The wind coming up off the sea swept her reddish-blond locks across her face. "You seem really pensive lately, ever since you came back from the Dreadfort, but it's gotten worse in the past few weeks. You never really talk to us anymore. … Did something happen with Rorlund? Are you afraid for Wulfric?"

Vanora gave her a scathing look, but Maeve was utterly unbothered, having long since grown used to them. "I am afraid of nothing."

"I only ask because… I have never known you to keep your thoughts so guarded. You know the saying just as well as I: Share your ails and see your heart unburdened. You can talk to me, you know. I can keep a secret as well as Hilda, if for some reason you don't want to talk to her…"

Vanora shook her head, ignoring the tiny, frail voice that urged her to share her feelings lest they continue to rot, casting it off into the vast blackness of the Void. "It's nothing."

Maeve didn't seem convinced, but she kept her silence and didn't press.

The buildings here had sloped roofs of timber and slate, all crowned with dragon heads, like the bow of a longship. The shrine to Sithis had been carved into the sloping rock that evened out into the quay, wedged between a mossy tavern and a timber warehouse and closed in by a latticed iron gate. The shrine sank deep into the stone, the hollowed out space thick with moss, the air damp and moldy; if one knew where to look, the chamber cut even deeper into the rock, and to the tunnels they sought.

The effigy of Sithis, a white skull carved from whale bone, its forehead adorned with an obsidian hand, sat atop a short, stout column, staring out with empty eyes. The ground was littered with nightshade petals, like rushes strewn across a room. Vanora stepped up to the skull, and kissed its lipless mouth. There was a faint, grinding sound, and then the face of the column swung open, revealing a narrow set of stairs that spiraled down beneath the chamber. The smell of mold thickened.

Maeve called light to her hand and descended first. Vanora followed after her, and the column swung shut with a groaning rattle.

Everything creaked and croaked. Maeve's meager light was little more than a candle flame. There was no wind flowing through the tunnel, but Vanora could still hear it whispering, a gentle, whistling howl that came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The sound of the waves was louder here, and the stone glistened with slimy wetness. Not a single stretch of rock was dry.

"Ooh!" Maeve exclaimed excitedly, pointing. "Look! The mushrooms are growing nicely. Especially Namira's Rot. They'll be ready for picking soon."

Vanora, like most of her kind, knew a little about alchemy; enough to craft a poison or two. "Have you figured out how to filter out the hallucinogens?"

"… No. Not quite. Gunther asked for a potion after a particularly tough bout against his brother. His bruises healed, but he nearly killed one of the serving girls thinking she was a 'tentacled hell-beast from the shadow planes beyond Sovngarde'."

Vanora managed a laugh. It echoed oddly against the walls, came back to her ears twisted and distorted, a mocking laugh, instead of one of mirth. She pressed her lips together, angry all of a sudden. Was this all that she would ever be? A poisoned blade, absent hope and happiness, left with only bitterness and rage?

They came across a few Initiates, fewer Priests, and even fewer Hands. Vanora's family, though large, could not see personally to any and every little problem that arose; for more mundane work, there were Initiates, who were baptized into Sithis' brotherhood, entrusted only with messages and other menial tasks. And then there were the Priests, a rank beyond Initiates, who lived the word of Sithis in their every waking moment, keeping to the dark out of respect for the Void. They were more wraiths than men, but able enough killers. Brothers were those Priests who had proven their devotion and skill, and been accepted into the blood.

They all nodded to Maeve with nary a word, one by one as the girls passed, but when their shadowed faces looked to Vanora, they took to their knees.

"Night Daughter," they all called as one, voices massing into a wet, slithering eel that coiled through the echoing caverns and clogged its tunnels. "Blessings," the priests murmured, bowing to kiss the ground. "For Sithis," said the Brothers, fists crossed over their hearts.

Vanora said nothing. The Void tickled at the edges of her vision. She heard screams. Sweet, sweet screams, and begging, and blood splattering. He had begged, hadn't he? Begged like a bitch. She saw a face with beady eyes and wormy lips, and blood, so much blood, flooding the floor, drenching the walls, rouging her lips. And barking. She couldn't forget the barking.

"Vanora?"

Her vision cleared. Maeve's face was a picture of concern. They had exited the tunnels to a massive cavern, lit here and there with flickering torches. She heard waves crashing against the beach beyond the cave, and calling gulls. She saw four armored silhouettes near the mouth of the cave, and a hulking stairwell off to the side of them. "I'm fine," she said. "I just…" She shook her head, feeling for the knives hidden in her sleeves. It wasn't me, she thought. It was the Void.

It was you, something whispered back. It was always you.

"You just what?"

"Nothing." Vanora pressed on, taking the perilous stairs two at a time. As girls, she and Hilda had sprinted up and down these stairs with no light at all. She clung to the memory of them as they were, if only to chase away the thrashing shadows in her mind. "Come on," she said. "Hilda is waiting."

The halls smelled like wildflowers. Sunlight slanted through the leaded windows set high in the walls, splashing purple and silver over the corridor. She heard laughter echoing from somewhere deep in the wide, labyrinthine corridors, and pattering feet. Child servants, she thought, enjoying Hilda's lax regard for propriety. Lady Brendalyn had already departed for the Rills; she would not have suffered servants playing in the corridors.

Tapestries lined the walls, spun from silk as soft as air. The past Dovahkiinne dominated every motif. The alcoves were decorated with furnishings from across the known world, gilded stools from Qarth, cushioned benches from Volantis, and strange, rocking seats from beyond the Saffron Straits. Each alcove was guarded by a suit of armor, some silver, some gold, some jade, some bronze. Glass candles in crystalline ensconces lighted the way.

"One might think that Vaskr's sons meant for all of our people to live in this castle," Maeve complained behind her. "They needn't have made it so bloody big."

"You forget, cousin, that giants helped erect these walls. Real giants, not those hairy beasts from beyond the wall."

"Yes, yes, I know the story. When they died their bones were interred in the stone, and their souls forever bound to the crystal spires, so that they might defend in death what they crafted in life."

They climbed another set of stairs, passing servants and guards and courtiers, then walked the length of the castle to a third stair, down a long, narrow hall lined with arching oak wood doors and glass-enclosed casings of ancient weapons and jewels and armor. Vanora recognized some of them from the tales and myths that were told of their old home, before the gods led them here, to Westeros.

One jewel in particular caught her eye. It always did, for it seemed that she had caught the jewels eye as well. Black as blood, blacker even than obsidian, it gleamed with a sort of malicious intelligence that set her hair on end and prickled her skin. There was certainly no giant's soul trapped inside of it. Sometimes, she imagined she could hear it speak to her.

Finally, they came upon Hilda's chambers.

The rooms were large and airy, the high ceiling supported by great beams of ironwood. It was furnished as richly as any room in the castle. The floor was a sea of white and yellow rushes and Myrish rugs, and one of the five hearths spit tendrils of white smoke from smoldering ashes. A gallery overlooked them, supported by fluted columns, connected to a hanging bridge that stretched to the opposite wall, where it ended at an iron studded door of ashen weirwood.

The quartet of double-paned latticework doors in the western wall opened up to a vast balcony that looked down upon Harbortown, veiled by thin curtains that flowed this way in that in the gentle sea breeze sweeping through the cracked doors. Twenty people might've slept in Hilda's pillared black oak bed, had they been so inclined, and a mammoth could have swaddled himself in the cloth-of-silver curtains that fell from its tester. All of the room's furnishings seemed to have been crafted for giants; Hilda was a tall woman, but she looked like a doll as she lounged against the high-backed settle athwart the bed, its purple pillows stuffed heavily with down.

The coiling stair in the north wall led up to the gallery. Two giggling serving maids came running down it in a tangle of limbs, one green and hairless with big round eyes, the other with skin the color of beaten bark and thick, wooly hair. They were being chased by a slender, dark-haired girl with a long face and pale grey eyes who was waving a toy sword.

"Come back!" the girl shrilled, eyes alight. "Face me, you knaves!"

The three girls came to a sudden halt when they saw Vanora. Even children knew of her families fell reputation. Especially children.

"What did you get us?" asked Sarrah Snow, uncaring of public opinion. Vanora was close to Hilda, and her mother and fathers thought well of her; in Sarrah's mind, their opinions were the only ones that mattered.

"New rushes to lay, and flowers for perfumes," Maeve said, stepping past Vanora, "and clams, and crabs, and a hunk of whale butter. Helsif had it all taken down to the kitchens, excepting the rushes. If you run quick, you can watch them boil and squeal!" She splayed her fingers like claws and spoke in a rasping voice.

"Crabs and clams don't squeal," mumbled the green girl, eyes downcast. Hilda had named her Jewel for her sparkling emerald eyes. She, and nearly all her sisters and brothers, were shy as maids.

"You shouldn't eat meat anyway," Nissa chimed in. "Killing is a terrible thing, even when it's only animals." The dark-skinned girl scowled at them, but with her round face and childish features, she only managed to look adorably petulant, even to a black heart like Vanora's.

Nissa had been taken from Naath as little more than a babe, claimed from a slave ship headed to Slaver's Bay, but she still adhered to the way of her homeland, never partaking of meat.

"Have you seen my brother?" asked Sarra, giggling.

Maeve shook her head. "No," Vanora said. "But knowing him, he's down in the yard with Wulfric."

"He's with his fathers," rang a melodious voice. "But I imagine Wulfric is with them as well."

As one, the girls scurried off to go see.

Hilda, who had been laying with her eyes closed, breasts near spilling from a sheer gown that a polite woman might have called indecent, stirred as they drew near. "Dearest sisters," she said in greeting as she sat up, though neither of them was anything of the sort. They weren't even cousins. Maeve did have cousins though, the daughters of her aunts, and they came stomping out of the room with the weirwood door, bickering about the properties of hanging moss and giant's toes.

"Has the council put forward a candidate for marriage yet?" Maeve asked, emptying her pickings over the table after pulling up a stool.

Vanora scowled, hiding her expression by dipping her head as if to examine a loose thread on her gown. She claimed a seat next to Hilda. Their knees brushed, and a jolt raced through her. Her anger peaked, only to be swallowed by shame.

"The list is somewhere around here," Hilda said with a wave of her hand. "Helsif recommends I should wed Jon Snow, if I mean to have a child soon."

Vanora bit her lip.

"Is that the plan?" Helgi and Evette said as one. They looked very much like their cousin, only Evette, the youngest of the three, was easily the tallest, of a height with Hilda. "To be wedded," said Helgi, "and bedded," said Evette, "and whelping a babe before the year is out?" Helgi finished.

"Possibly," Hilda admitted. "The line must continue." She turned her piercing gaze to Vanora. "What do you think I should do, V?"

Vanora didn't trust herself to speak. There it was again, that surge of roiling black, and a strange heat, and a deep, almost painful longing. "I… I think you should do whatever you think is best."

Hilda looked oddly disappointed by her words. "I've been doing that," she said. "Dealing with the messes left to me by Grandfather. Dealing with Thorunn's ambitions. Between your's and Thorfinn's efforts, I should have the freedom now, for this decision at least, to choose my heart over my duty."

Vanora shrugged. Hilda wrapped her arms about her shoulders, and leaned against her, sighing. Her golden hair tickled Vanora's nose; she smelled of vanilla and lavender. Like hope and happiness. Like love. Like hate.

Dark urges surged in her heart, but the heat of Hilda's skin banished them.

Her shame remained.

"You are my dearest friend, Vanora," Hilda whispered in her ear. Vanora withheld a shudder. "And I know that I have asked much of you; too much, I am beginning to think. I was too concerned with my people as a whole to see how my… requests affected you. For what it's worth, I am sorry." Her hair shifted; Vanora felt warm breath against her cheek. And then lips, pressed to her skin, branding her.

"I forgive you," she managed, stomach twisted in knots. "But… you still mean to make the request. Don't you."

Hilda sighed again, absently stroking her fingers through Vanora's hair. I hate her, Vanora thought. I love her. "Maeve, Evette, Helgi? Might Vanora and I have a bit of privacy?"

"You can have more than a bit," Maeve said, having separated and bundled her pickings into whatever strange system she had dreamed up, then swept them back into her pouch. "If you need us, my sisters and I will be down below the kitchens. These ingredients certainly won't brew themselves. Many blessings, oh beloved Dovahkiin!" She curtseyed with a flourish, and her sisters repeated the farewell.

Hilda laughed, a ringing chime like crystal bells and bird song, and shooed them on. Vanora's skin tingled; the knot in her stomach tightened until it heart. She thought not of blood, or darkness, or the Void, but Rorlund, and his strong arms and rumbling voice and tender kisses. She thought of how inadequate they seemed, in hindsight, sitting now with Hilda.

Her love had not soured, she thought. Despite the bitter resentment and biting jealousy, it had only grown. Perhaps… perhaps she needed the Void to take her feelings away. She couldn't keep going on like this.

Or maybe the Void wasn't splintering her soul – maybe it was only unleashing what was buried within?

The Glenmoril girls swept from the room in a swirl of fiery-blond hair and reedy voices. Vanora could hear them bickering as the door swung shut. Then it closed with a heavy thud, and she and Hilda were left alone.

"Something is troubling you," Hilda said. She leaned back against the pillows, releasing Vanora's shoulders. "Not the Void. Something else."

Vanora looked away, shivering at the loss. "No. It's nothing."

"I don't believe you. Ever since you returned from the Dreadfort, you've been… different. What is it, Vanora?" A beat, and then, "Look at me."

Vanora lurched to her feet, intent on escape. All her cruelty and coldness crumbled in the face of Hilda's light. She couldn't tell her, she wouldn't understand, she couldn't –

Slender, corded arms embraced her from behind, pulling her close. She felt Hilda pressed tightly to her back, felt Hilda's face against her hair, felt Hilda's hands caress her hips, slender fingers tracing wide, slow circles. "Tell me," Hilda demanded. And softer, "Please."

Vanora melted against her. I hate you, she thought. I love you. "I killed Ramsay," she murmured. "He'd poisoned Rorlund, alluded to poisoning Domeric… and Roose… Roose just sat and watched it all."

"You've killed men before."

She shook her head. "Not like this. This wasn't quick or clean. I made it last. His screams…" Her breath hitched, and she shuddered. "They were so sweet."

Hilda stroked her hair. Vanora leaned into her touch, and gave no resistance when Hilda led her over to the vast featherbed. She lay against the mattress; her breath hitched again when Hilda curled next to her. It had been so long since they shared a bed – since before the Dreadfort.

"I'm a vile person, Hilda. You should send me away. To Windhelm, or Dawnfort. The Void… what if it takes too much? What if it's already taken too much? What if it turns me against you?" It was already trying, she thought. Trying to drive a wench between them, to taint her feelings, to prey on her insecurities, tearing her, ripping her.

"It hasn't, and it won't," Hilda said. "The Void is no different from Sovngarde; neither is truly meant for the living to visit. They feed on our doubts, on our fears. They test us. If you cannot trust in yourself to remain strong, then trust in me to keep you safe." Her voice softened to a breathy whisper. "Give me your heart, Vanora, and I will see that it comes to no harm."

Vanora turned to face her. Trust in Hilda? She could do that. She could do it easily. How had she ever doubted? She loved her.

She ignored the traitorous voice that whispered that Hilda was using her, like she always had, playing her, toying with her. Hilda can be ruthless, the voice whispered. She knows cruelty. She keeps it hidden. She doesn't love you. No one could love something like you. You hate her.

Tentatively, she reached out and cupped Hilda's face. Her thumb brushed against the corner of her mouth. The voice snarled, raved, thrashed. Hilda smiled, kissed her fingers. Vanora's heart near burst. "Call your mother to Winterfell," Hilda said. "And send word to the Blood Flower. Tell her it's time."

Vanora took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and fell into a churning sea of oily shadows. Hear me, Night Mother. Hear me, Blood Flower. Hear me…

 

[Cxjenious]

The first third or forth of the next chapter. This is the last new character I'm introducing for a while. The next chapter is from Hilda's POV. I worry that this scene is too info-dumpy. What do you lot think?

Thrain​

Thrain Silveren heard the sounds of revelry on the wind, drums and harps and flutes, faint now but growing louder with every swift gallop of his mount. Such music meant only one thing. "Gods be damned," he cursed, reining his horse to a gentle amble. A blood bay, she seemed as relieved to be free of the Neck as he. "The weddings already over." There was no use rushing now. Better to let the horses rest a bit.

His band of twelve, brothers and sisters united under Kyne, whose heavenly visage was branded over every heart and etched into the chest of every tunic, rode at his back. Rangers they were, husbands and wives of the wood, and Thrain their lord.

"Ser Torrhen will not mind our tardiness," said Halfdan Ironfist, an old rangersmith who had shadowed Thrain during his southern ranging. It was for him that Thrain's mail gleamed like beaten silver, that his arrowheads were slim enough to slip between mail links and sharp enough to punch through plate.

"Nor will Harald," said Mina, the only one of them who truly knew the Jorrvaskr heir. "He will be enamored with his pretty Royce bride, and worried about accidentally breaking her." Mina had come south four years hence, a bastard of Lord Markus and half-wolf herself; she could not shift, but beneath the light of the full moon, one could not quite call her human.

"Aye, the wolves are a gargantuan bunch," Aenar called out, urging his horse over to Thrain. "I've heard it said that Hrolf's wife is even taller than he is," he said in an aside.

Thrain smiled. When he had gone south, he left behind a brother two years his junior. Hrolf had been taller than him even then, more highlander than ranger since he arrived squalling from their mother's womb. It was to Hrolf that their father had bequeathed the Silveren greatsword, a five-foot length of wicked blue steel. He wondered how Hrolf would look now, and if his Jorrvaskr bride was pregnant, and just how he dealt with her monthlies. Mina was a terror when the moon was on her.

"Jorrvaskr women are tall," sang Wysteria in her trilling voice, "But their men are as giants. Harald was an inch shy of seven feet last I saw him, and muscled like a beast. That was almost seven years ago." Wysteria had the Glenmoril look, her hair almost orange, her eyes amber, her nose sharp, but her cheeks were round and her lips plump. She was stouter than any witch Thrain had ever seen, rounder of hip and heavier of breast. Rumor was that she was a Manderly bastard, but she had never said for sure, and none of the band had ever cared to ask.

"I seen em' since," said Rorik Blacknife. "'Fore I came back south." Blacknife was a Darkbrother, one of Yanora's brood who had learned his trade at King's Landing, converted from Sithis to Kyne and blessed at Seventree Hill by the Dovahjud herself. Ranger or no, his blood still ran black, and he could kill a man as quick as a blink. Darkbrothers had no certain look like Glenmorils – the Children of Sithis were as many and varied as the ways they dealt death. Rorik looked much too sweet to be such a dangerous man, with his flaxen curls and mint green eyes. "The lad's well over seven feet now, and hard from warring under Thorunn. Five years East, he spent. M'cousins say he developed a taste for human flesh."

Thrain grimaced. That was a problem with wolves too long at war in foreign lands. The Dovahkin did not allow wolves – or bears – to consume human flesh in the North. Mina had told him how sweet it smelled when the moon was on her, how rich and fragrant – as if Thrain didn't know himself – and one drunken half-forgotten night, Blacknife had shared how the Night Mother lived on the flesh of men, made nigh immortal through its consumption. Thrain had killed his fair share of beasts and men, but he had only ever eaten the former, and had no desire to try the latter.

"Good for the bride," said Sten of Riften from atop his brindled stallion, "so long as Lord Harald licks and don't bite." Aenar and Olfina laughed on either side of him. All three were born of Riften and all three bragged that they were born of Blackbriar blood, albeit by now the Blackbriar was little more than a drop, thinned by the get of city folk and mountain folk and river folk.

Thrain missed Riften too, almost as much as he missed Sovngarde. Silverwood wasn't far from Riften – as boys he and Hrolf had ridden through the tracery of paths about swamps and over the slate hills to trade wooden jewelry for knives and arrow heads with the mountain folk, and once they had sailed to Flint's Finger across the squid infested Blazewater Bay on riverfolk longships. The Lord Flint had taken well enough to Silveren boys in his lands, but Thrain still bore the scar across his shoulder when one of Flint's guards had taken the eleven year old for a bread thief.

That guard had lost his hand from Thrain's return salvo, and had almost lost his head for his lord's wrath. Fond memories, the lord ranger thought.

He breathed easier now that the last of the damnable bog was behind him. His own keep stood at the heart of a wetwood, and he had ranged through many forests throughout Westeros, and bogs and mires too, but the Neck was a realm unto itself, a murky, fetid hell of slumbering death and creeping gloom, lizard-lions lurking in every scummy pool and pond. He did not envy Howland his lordship. Such beasts did not trouble beaten paths about Silverwood.

How long had it been since he had walked the timbered halls of his home, tasted the crisp air of the half frozen swamp, heard the harsh cry of the grey herons that swarmed the weirwood? The dank underquarters of the keep had frightened him as a child, with their deep, echoing shadows, but he had long since grown past fear, be it of men or phantasms. He recalled the feel of the subterranean walls under his fingertips, baked hard as stone and warm to the touch. He had felt nothing of the like since. An old Hagraven from decades past had laid the powerful enchantments that heated the earth and cooked the mud to stone, and in the years since, wandering covens would come annually to see them renewed.

And now, finally, after nigh on a decade, he was returning North. Returning home.

He rode past the two story inn of stone and timber that stood strong athwart the road, its muddy yard thick with clucking chickens and squealing pigs. Half a dozen weasels stood watch along the fence, beady eyes peeled for snakes. They looked to be the same weasels that Thrain had seen standing watch a decade ago when he had first gone south. He had tried his own hand at training weasels, goaded by the elder rangers who had seen him south, and wound up feverish from their scratches and bites. The wounds had long since healed, but he could still remember the heat of infection burning its way through his veins; the pain had driven him near mad, and his sleep had been haunted by fever dreams of moonless nights and black skies. Death might have claimed if not for the witch's potions and poultices.

He glanced back at her, riding between Halfdan and Mina. Wysteria was no Hagraven, but Thrain trusted her with his life.

Five men-at-arms in mail and dented plated guarded the fenced in yard, passing a wineskin between them, breath fogging the air. The Wiley Weasel was a fine enough inn by the words of travelers bearing south, and certainly lucrative to afford five men-at-arms, even such a straggly bunch as this. At this hour the innkeep was probably just serving supper, the meat still hot and fresh off the spit, the ale and mead still plentiful. But Thrain had always preferred the open wilds to a stuffy room and a flea-ridden bed, even as nice a bed as those supposedly had by the Wily Weasel. He and his had their own provisions and pavilions besides, and each of them a cask of Arbor wine to drink the night away.

Still, the inn was a welcome sight after so long riding through the Neck. The three great towers looming across the Fever was even more welcome.

Moat Cailin was as stout as he remembered. The gatehouse squatted at the end of the bridge, circled by a scum choked moat and crowned with frowning turrets, crossbows peeking down from the many crenellations. A northerly wind swept between the drum towers, gusting over the thirty-foot black basalt curtain wall to ripple the tussocks and wild shrubs that fringed the road, caressing Thrain's naked cheeks. Direwolves writhed atop the bridge that spanned the canal, pennons snapping. They crested the three towers too, though each wolf there was different. There was a red wolf howling in a field of green, which flapped atop the tallest tower and all along the bridge; a green wolf snarling in a field of grey, the tower beneath it blanketed in thick moss; and, flying above the stoutest of the towers which was wrought of pale, black-veined stone, three wolves prowling about a bronze iron-studded shield. The Starks of Moat Cailin, the Starks of Mossdown Tower, and the Royces of the Bone Tower, respectively.

The red oak bridge that spanned the canal was dozens of feet wide, and required two teams of twenty men to work the lever that raised and lowered it. Thrain could see them clustered beside the gatehouse, a formidable structure wrought of granite and basalt, pocked with arrow holes by the dozen. Turrets reached up from the corners of the gatehouse, and towers stretched high on either side of its face. The shores beyond the Saltspear were shrouded in clinging mists, and lined with towerhouses and timber quays. A few small sloops floated in the water, winding beneath the stone legs of the bridge.

He and his band pushed forward to the canal, mud spraying in their wake.