New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤 ✦ If he had to do something, he first needed to be clear on what was supposed to happen next.
During the king’s stay at Winterfell, which major events were already in motion?
Aeg searched his memory, forcing himself to recall the story.
Beyond the Wall, the wildlings had gathered under the King-Beyond-the-Wall in the high peaks of the Frostfangs, hoping to use the terrain to resist the Others.
After realizing the terrain would not save them, they had begun planning a move south.
Aeg desperately hoped that matter would have nothing to do with him.
Across the Narrow Sea, thousands of miles away, Daenerys Targaryen, still only a girl, was being sold by her brother and Magister Illyrio to Khal Drogo.
Her wedding was already being arranged, and there was nothing a transmigrator could do about it.
Inside Winterfell, meanwhile, Lord and Lady Stark had received a secret letter from Lysa Tully Arryn, widow of the former Hand and Catelyn’s sister, accusing House Lannister of murdering her husband.
That, too, seemed to have little to do with one black brother of the Night’s Watch.
Compared with those weighty events, the “accidental fall” of a troublesome boy from a great northern house, a boy who was not even the heir, looked like a trivial little incident.
Yet that small matter had now become directly tied to Aeg’s own interests.
Once news of Bran’s fall spread, Littlefinger would quickly use it to frame Tyrion as the man behind the attempt on Bran’s life.
On the road south after leaving the Wall, Tyrion would run into the furious mother of the injured boy, be seized in public, dragged to the Eyrie in the Vale, and suffer through no small amount of danger before escaping with his life.
On page or screen, that chain of events might have seemed exciting and fresh.
To be trapped inside it would likely be no less dangerous than facing the Others.
Aeg only wanted to follow the dwarf safely away from the harsh and dangerous Wall.
He had no desire to risk his life for a different flavor of adventure.
* * * From the Baratheon squires he had met at the feast, Aeg learned that the royal party would remain in Winterfell for another two weeks.
Eddard and Robert had not seen each other in years, and the two men, brothers in all but blood, had endless catching up to do.
As the younger brother of the Lord of the North and an important member of House Stark, Benjen Stark, whether out of courtesy or respect, had to remain near his elder brother and the highest ruler of the realm.
That was good news.
At the moment there were only two men of the Night’s Watch in Winterfell.
The First Ranger was occupied, and no one outside the Watch, no matter how highborn, had the right to order Aeg around as though he were their man.
That meant Aeg would be left mostly unsupervised for the next two weeks, with enough time to do what he wanted.
He had originally planned to use that time to scout terrain, gather information, and prepare an escape.
Now that Tyrion had promised to help him, escape no longer came first.
His priority had changed.
He had to find a way to make sure the dwarf’s journey south went smoothly.
The tragedy had not happened yet.
The best solution was to prevent it altogether.
As a guest, Aeg lived quite comfortably in Winterfell.
No one watched him train, and no work was assigned to him.
By day he wandered through the castle, talking to people and learning more about the world.
By night he returned to his room and read whatever he could find on the history of Westeros and the great houses.
From time to time he also had to keep inventing stories to satisfy Tyrion’s curiosity about the technology and culture of Caina.
His days were surprisingly full.
After several days of questions and investigation, he confirmed the site of the next important plot event: the First Keep.
Winterfell had indeed been built by Brandon the Builder, but perhaps because materials had first been diverted to the Night’s Watch for the construction of the Wall, Winterfell had not started with walls of its own.
Before its inner and outer curtain walls were raised, what had protected House Stark?
A fortress and a watchtower.
Both old defensive structures, relics from before the walls, remained in the northeastern corner of Winterfell.
* * * The Broken Tower had once been the tallest structure in Winterfell, but more than a hundred years ago, lightning struck it, set it ablaze, and caused the top to collapse inward.
By then, Winterfell already had proper walls, and the Starks stood securely as the foremost house of the North, so the useless watchtower had never been repaired.
It stood by the high wall in the northeastern corner, behind the old inner yard enclosed by the abandoned First Keep, the guardhouse, and the tombs.
Few people went there.
It was hidden, seldom visited, climbable, and high enough to kill a man in a fall.
In all likelihood, it was the place where the Lannister twins would be discovered in the act and Jaime would push Bran down.
But after inspecting it in person, Aeg found that the stairs inside the tower had already collapsed.
No one could climb up through it at all.
After half a day of confusion, and after searching all of Winterfell without finding a second abandoned tower, he turned his attention to the ruined fortress he had previously overlooked.
The First Keep was a squat round fortress standing beside the Broken Tower.
It was old and worn like the tower, but because it had been built far more solidly, it had never collapsed.
Once Aeg climbed to its top floor and looked down, realization struck him.
He had only thought the structure was low because its footprint was broad and round, and because the nearby Broken Tower was so tall that the eye instinctively compared the two.
Taken on its own, the First Keep stood four or five stories high, more than enough to leave a person crippled by a fall.
He knew the place now.
Standing in the weed-choked old inner yard, looking up at the Broken Tower and the slightly lower First Keep beside it, Aeg fell into thought.
How was he supposed to stop the plot from happening?
* * * ✦ ✦ ✦ Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.