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The torches in the corridor had been burning for most of the night.
Tallow dripped down the iron brackets and congealed into patchy clumps on the stone floor.
As Aven walked past, the firelight flickered across his face, then dimmed again.
The entire corridor held only his footsteps, and somewhere from a distant room, a muffled tangle of voices — probably Robb and Theon still at it, over gods knew what.
He stopped before the door to Eddard’s study.
A sliver of candlelight leaked from beneath it, thin as a compressed river.
Aven knocked twice.
No response.
He waited a few seconds and knocked twice more.
This time a low, muffled “Come in” came from inside.
Eddard’s voice — but not the daytime version.
The stiff hardness of the Warden of the North was gone.
What was left was the weariness of a middle-aged man who had been grinding away at his desk far too deep into the night.
Aven pushed the door open and entered.
The study was not large, but bookshelves and scrolls had filled every inch of it.
The hearth had burned down to mostly embers, a few reddened coals flickering in the ash.
The heat they gave off was not enough to warm the whole room anymore, barely holding on in the small patch of floor directly in front of the fireplace.
Several letters lay spread across the desk.
The inkpot sat uncapped, the quill resting against its rim, a drop of nearly dried ink congealing at the nib.
Eddard sat behind the desk, one hand propped against his forehead, the other pressed flat against a sheet of parchment, his knuckles faintly white.
He heard the door.
He looked up, saw Aven, and the expression on his face shifted, from “which holding’s mess is this now” to something looser, more at ease.
“Little Aven.” The weariness in his voice had not fully cleared, but the tone had already softened.
“What is it?”
Aven walked to the desk.
He did not stand.
He dropped into the chair across from Eddard, the one ordinarily kept for guests and household retainers, its cushion velvet worn pale from use.
Far better than standing.
“Uncle Eddard.
Still at it this late?”
In private, that was how he addressed him.
Eddard had permitted it.
The first time had been on his third day at Winterfell.
Aven had carried tea into the study, hesitated at the threshold, and said “Uncle Eddard.” Eddard had glanced up from his scrolls, looked at him for a moment, made no correction, and nodded once.
That was how it had been ever since.
Not a secret inside Winterfell, but not exactly announced either.
Catelyn knew.
Robb knew.
Jon knew.
No one ever made a point of bringing it up.
It was like a path worn into the ground by footsteps alone: narrow, but it went somewhere.
Eddard leaned back in his chair.
His fingers left his forehead and tapped twice against the edge of the desk.
“That’s what it is to be a lord,” he said.
His tone had loosened, like a man letting something out that had been sitting on him, but measured about it, not wallowing.
“There’s always something unfinished.
Wildlings slipping across somewhere.
Some place hit by disaster that needs grain sent.
Some figure of unknown origin turning up out of nowhere.
Two days ago word came that a party of merchants from the south had passed through the Neck, carrying quite a few fine goods.
Merchants or spies.
Who knows.”
He reached for the cup on the desk.
Found it empty.
Set it back down.
“The worst are the minor nobles.
Today this one accuses that one of crossing the boundary to cut his trees. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Tomorrow that one accuses this one’s horse of eating his grass.
Too light a judgment and it won’t do.
Too heavy and it won’t do either.
Sometimes I think those petty territorial disputes are more exhausting than an actual battle.”
Aven listened.
The words came at an even pace, neither rushed nor slow, just a man who had finally found someone he did not have to hold himself together in front of, talking because he could.
In private, Eddard actually had a great deal to say.
A different person entirely from the Warden of the North who spent his daylight hours rationing every word.
Maybe because he genuinely thought of Aven as a Stark.
Or maybe it was simply that the night had gone too long, and he had sat too many hours alone before candlelight and letters, and needed a living voice in the room.
“About what happened today…” Aven began.
Eddard stopped the hand that had been about to turn over a letter.
He raised his head, gaze moving from the desk to Aven’s face.
The candlelight jumped once in his grey eyes, then held steady.
“Oh —” He drew the sound out, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
“Little Aven.
You mean that arrow.”
He set the letter down, leaned forward a little, and folded both hands on the desk.
“It was indeed brilliant.”
The way he said it, like a father watching his son do something he had not expected.
Pride, plain and unguarded.
Aven did not pick up that thread.
He shifted forward in his seat and let the candlelight fall across his face.
“Uncle Eddard.
I’ve been curious about something.
The North hasn’t seen direwolves for a very long time.”
The study went quiet for a moment after that.
A coal in the hearth cracked.
A spark leapt out onto the stone floor, flashed once, and died.
“Do you keep the old gods, Aven?”
The question came out of nowhere.
Aven did not hesitate.
“Of course I do.”
Eddard nodded.
His gaze drifted from Aven’s face to the reddened coals in the hearth, as though searching for something in that low, shifting light.
“Makes sense.
Northerners all keep the old gods.”
A few seconds of silence.
“As I said today.
Perhaps this is a gift from the old gods.
I have seven Stark children, and now He has sent me seven direwolf pups.”
Seven children.
The phrase made Aven’s fingers shift slightly.
Not six.
Seven.
Jon was counted in.
Aven was counted in.
Eddard said it without deliberation, without pause, as though it were simply the way things were.
I have seven children, and the old gods sent seven wolves.
Aven did not linger on it.
He changed angles.
“And the shadowcat?”
Eddard’s gaze came back from the hearth and settled on Aven’s face, carrying a trace of surprise.
“The shadowcat?”
“I have an interesting thought,” Aven said, keeping his tone easy, the kind of easy that says don’t take this too seriously, just something rattling around in my head. Find the original chapter at novelping . com.
“It’s been turning over in my mind.”
Eddard leaned back in his chair.
His folded hands loosened, one hand resting on the armrest.
The daytime lord stepped aside; the late-night elder took his place.
“I’ve always known that little head of yours is full of thoughts.” A faint curve at the corner of his mouth.
“Your father Rickard said the same.
He wrote it in a letter once — ‘This third son of mine, his head holds far more than it ought to for his age.'”
He paused.
“Go on, then.
I’m listening.”
Aven stood.
Without a word, he walked around the desk to the row of bookshelves along the wall.
He crouched down and reached behind the third shelf.
There was a loose board back there.
Behind the board, three bottles of wine.
He knew this spot.
He had found it in his second month at Winterfell, not from looking but by accident, helping Eddard organize the shelves one afternoon, his elbow had knocked the board loose.
Eddard had been standing nearby.
He had glanced over, said nothing, and left the wine exactly where it was.
After that, whenever Aven came to the study late at night, he would sometimes catch Eddard reaching into that same spot after finishing the last of his letters and pouring himself a quiet cup.
Lady Catelyn did not permit Eddard to drink while working.
She had a complete theory about it: alcohol dulled reactions, slowed judgment, and a Warden of the North had to stay clear-headed at all times.
She was right.
But when Lord Eddard needed a drink, he always found a way.
Aven pulled one bottle out and grabbed two cups along with it.
The bottle had no label, but the color said Dornish red.
Who had sent it, or when it had been hidden there, nobody could say.
A thin layer of dust coated the glass.
From behind the desk, Eddard watched him and shook his head.
Not a refusal.
A silent, resigned permission.
The kind that said: you little rascal.
Aven walked back, set both cups on the desk, pulled the cork, and poured.
The wine was deep red, nearly black under the candlelight, but where it clung to the inside of the cup it ran purple, thick as congealed blood.
He placed one cup in front of Eddard, took the other, settled back into his chair, and took a shallow sip.
The wine slid down his throat carrying an oaken astringency first.
Then the sweetness of fermented grapes.
Then something harder to name at the finish, like earth and rust pressed together.
“Uncle Eddard,” he said, resting the cup on his knee, both hands cupped around it.
“As you know, I’ve always had a strong interest in the sigils of the Seven Kingdoms.
Maester Luwin has taught me a great deal about them.”
Eddard lifted his own cup and took a sip.
Slower than Aven.
He held the wine in his mouth longer, as though tasting it, or giving himself a moment.
“You’ve always loved learning,” he said.
“I know that.
Knowledge, martial skill, riding.
You’ve always loved learning.”
“Because you said so yourself,” Aven said, turning his cup slightly, watching the wine traces on the inner wall catch color in the candlelight.
“You wanted me to become Robb’s bannerman and serve him well.”
He raised his head and looked at Eddard.
“I am working toward that.
I take every lesson you teach me very seriously.”
➤ Next: Omen — Words Unspoken
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