The year that followed brought winter once more.
Though Brandon’s reforms had transformed the Crown’s cultivated lands, the same could not yet be said of the realms beyond them.
The lords sworn to House Stark still tilled their fields in the old manner, and their harvests proved insufficient to carry them comfortably through the cold season.
As their liege lord, the Crown did not abandon them.
Grain from the royal granaries was sold to its bannermen at fair prices.
There was profit to be made, certainly, but King Edwyn had no wish to see loyal houses weakened by hunger.
The surplus was more than enough.
The forty percent of the harvest set aside for consumption alone could sustain the people of the Crown’s lands for two full years.
Even after every village and holdfast had received its due, the granaries remained heavy with stores gathered from the remaining sixty percent.
Nor did the Crown keep all of it.
The stores held enough food to sustain nearly a million souls for a year, while the lands directly ruled by House Stark held but a fraction of that number.
There was no wisdom in allowing grain to rot behind stout walls.
Thus, a portion of the surplus was sent beyond the Crown’s borders.
Not to every neighbor.
Only to those with whom Winterfell maintained tolerable relations.
The mountain clans of Flint’s Finger received wagons of grain.
So too did the petty kings of House Umber and House Ryswell.
The shipments were generous enough to see them safely through the winter, yet never so plentiful as to greatly strengthen kingdoms that remained, for now, outside Stark rule.
Even kindness had its measure.
The grain was sold well below the prices demanded by southern merchants, yet the profit remained considerable.
By winter’s end, the royal treasury had grown richer than at any point in living memory.
Yet winter brought more than silver.
It brought grief.
One morning, the servants found King Rickard and his queen lying peacefully within their chambers.
They had passed in their sleep.
The night before had been as ordinary as any other.
The old king had supped with his family.
He had laughed with his grandchildren. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
He had held little Princess Saara upon his knee, delighting in her laughter as though he himself had become a child again.
Later, he and the queen had spoken long into the evening, recalling the years of their youth, the wars they had endured, and the many winters they had survived together.
When morning came…
Neither awoke.
There was no pain upon their faces.
Only quiet contentment.
It was as though they had simply closed their eyes after a long and worthy life.
Winterfell mourned.
Across the castle, banners were lowered, and every hearth seemed colder than before.
By ancient custom, the stonemasons were summoned.
They began carving the likeness of King Rickard, every line of his weathered face worked patiently into the grey stone.
When the statue was complete, a bronze sword would be forged and placed across his lap, as tradition demanded, to keep the spirits of the dead within the crypts where they belonged.
Messengers rode from Winterfell in every direction.
Every lord sworn to House Stark was informed of the passing of their king.
Yet the North was vast.
A raven could only carry words.
Men still had to travel.
Many of the great lords did not arrive until nearly a moon had passed.
Only then did the funeral rites begin.
For the first time in his life, Brandon descended into the Crypts of Winterfell.
Stories had claimed the crypts stretched farther beneath the earth than Winterfell itself.
He had once dismissed such tales as exaggeration.
Now he understood they had fallen short of the truth.
The stone steps seemed endless, spiraling deeper and deeper beneath the castle.
The air grew colder with every level they descended.
Torches cast long shadows across ancient walls that had stood for thousands of years.
Then the statues appeared. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Winter Kings.
Lords of Winterfell.
Generation after generation watched silently from their stone seats, each with a bronze sword resting across his lap.
Direwolves lay carved at their feet, eternal companions guarding their masters even in death.
Brandon’s gaze lingered upon one statue longer than the others.
Brandon the Builder.
The founder of House Stark.
His face had been carved stern and unyielding, the weight of a kingdom resting forever upon his shoulders.
Across his lap rested a bronze sword darkened by age, while a great stone direwolf lay faithfully at his feet.
For a long moment, Brandon simply stared.
Thousands of years separated them.
Yet here they stood beneath the same earth.
He continued onward.
One king gave way to another.
Some had ruled in peace.
Others had spent their reigns drenched in blood.
He passed the statues of the Kings of Winter who had fought during the long struggle against the Barrow Kings—a conflict remembered in songs as lasting a thousand years, though Brandon knew from the records preserved in his boon that the war had truly endured little more than two centuries.
History had stretched the truth, as it so often did.
At last they reached the newest chamber.
There, the stone likeness of King Rickard was carefully lowered into its place among his forefathers.
The bronze sword was laid across his lap.
His direwolf was carved faithfully at his feet, just as the old king had wished.
No words were spoken.
None were needed.
Another King of Winter had joined the long line of those who had ruled before him.
The weight of the crown now rested fully upon Edwyn’s shoulders.
And Brandon knew that, before many years had passed, it would one day rest upon his own.