Four winters had passed since the night Orys had counted thunder between lightning strikes on Storm's End's battlements.
In those years the sea had not grown gentler, nor had the wind lost its hunger for stone. But the boys within the walls had changed in ways the storm could not shape. Limbs had lengthened. Voices had deepened. Bruises had given way to scars that would not fade as easily.
At fourteen, Orys Baratheon no longer stood at the edge of the training yard observing.
He stood within it.
He had grown tall, taller than Robert now by a narrow measure, his build lean and tightly bound with muscle earned through repetition rather than natural bulk. His shoulders had broadened, his movements grown economical. The softness of childhood had sharpened into something more deliberate, the angles of his jaw more defined. His hair remained cut short and practical, close at the sides, longer only enough to lie flat when damp with sweat. He kept it that way by preference. It did not fall into his eyes when he fought. It did not obscure his vision.
Robert had grown louder.
Stronger.
His strength now carried weight enough to stagger grown men in the yard. When he laughed, it seemed to claim the space around him without effort. Knights clapped him on the back openly now. Stormlords spoke his name with expectation.
And when Lord Steffon announced that he would ride north to Winterfell to renew bonds between House Baratheon and House Stark, it was no longer a journey meant to amuse boys.
It was a journey meant to display them.
The road north proved longer than Orys remembered from maps.
The Stormlands fell away first, the salt air thinning, the forests changing character, the ground losing its steep defiance against the sea. By the time they crossed into the Riverlands, the sky seemed broader, the land less clenched. Villages grew sparser the farther north they rode, and the wind carried a chill even under a pale sun.
Robert rode near the front, cloak snapping behind him when the air stirred. He treated the journey like an extended hunt, calling challenges to passing riders, laughing at mishaps, recounting the Stepstones campaign as though it had happened in some grander age.
Orys rode slightly behind.
He listened more than he spoke.
The North revealed itself slowly. The trees grew darker, thicker. Frost clung stubbornly to shaded ground even when midday light should have burned it away. Smoke rose from distant settlements in thin grey threads that vanished quickly into cold air.
When Winterfell came into view, it did not loom the way Storm's End did.
It emerged.
Grey stone against a grey sky, broad and grounded, as if it had been grown rather than built. Steam drifted faintly from within its walls, softening its silhouette without weakening it.
Robert exhaled sharply. "Gods," he muttered, not loudly this time. "It looks older than the world."
"It is older than our walls," Orys said.
Robert grinned at him. "Everything's older than our walls."
The gates opened with steady deliberation.
Stark men stood ready within, cloaks heavy against the cold, spears upright. They did not shout. They did not cheer. They watched.
Lord Rickard Stark descended to greet them, tall and composed, his presence commanding without noise. Formal words were exchanged. Banners dipped in acknowledgment.
Orys felt the difference at once.
In the Stormlands, noise filled silence.
Here, silence held its own weight.
Robert dismounted first, boots striking stone decisively. His energy pressed outward, eager and uncontained.
And then he saw her.
Lyanna Stark stood near the steps of the Great Keep, braid falling loose over one shoulder, dark hair stirred by a wind that did not quite reach the southern riders. She was near his age now, perhaps a year younger, but carried herself with an assurance that did not rely on ornament or display.
Robert approached as though the yard had cleared solely for him.
"My lady," he said, sweeping into a bow only half-remembered from instruction. "The North hides its sun in strange places."
Lyanna's mouth curved faintly.
"And the Stormlands hide their manners," she replied.
Laughter flickered through the Stark retainers, quiet but present.
Robert only laughed harder.
Orys approached more slowly.
He inclined his head, neither deeply nor dismissively. "Lady Lyanna."
Her eyes shifted to him.
They were grey, not storm-grey, but winter-grey, clear and cool. They did not dart about the yard as Robert's had. They assessed.
"You ride quietly," she observed.
"It wastes less breath," Orys said.
She studied him another moment. "Do you waste much?"
"Only when required."
Something in her expression shifted, not amusement, not challenge, but consideration.
Robert was already speaking again, gesturing broadly as he recounted some exaggerated moment from the Stepstones, his voice carrying across the courtyard. Stark men listened with measured politeness.
Orys watched Lyanna instead.
She did not glow under Robert's attention the way other girls in the Stormlands had. She tolerated it. Amused perhaps. But not overtaken.
In the days that followed, the northern cold settled into bone.
The yard at Winterfell was broader than Storm's End's, the ground packed harder. Sparring took on a different rhythm here, less spectacle, more endurance. The Stark boys moved efficiently, conserving strength, never overextending.
Robert embraced the challenge eagerly.
Lyanna did not remain at the edge.
On the third morning, she stepped into the ring with a wooden blade in hand.
"You fight as though the earth yields to you," she told Robert plainly. "It does not."
Robert grinned, delighted. "It yields often enough."
Their bout drew attention quickly.
Robert pressed with familiar force, but the North's yard was not sanded and forgiving. The ground bit back. Lyanna moved low and quick, boots sure on frost-hardened stone. Twice she slipped inside Robert's reach and tapped his ribs before he could correct.
The watching Starks did not cheer wildly.
They watched.
When Robert finally disarmed her through sheer power, he looked as pleased as ever, but slightly winded.
Lyanna retrieved her blade.
"You rely too much on being stronger," she said.
Robert laughed, though less loudly than before. "Strength wins."
"For now," she replied.
Later, in the godswood, Orys found her standing near the pale trunk of the weirwood. The carved face watched without judgment, red leaves unmoving in air that seemed colder there than elsewhere in the castle.
"You did not cheer," she said without turning.
"I was measuring."
"Measuring what?"
"Where he tires."
"And you?"
He regarded the pool at the base of the tree, thin ice forming along its edges.
"I do not tire quickly."
"That is not what I asked."
He considered her.
"In battle," he said at last, "noise draws attention. Attention draws blades."
She turned then, studying him openly.
"You do not burn like he does."
"No."
"Fire is warmer."
"It is," he agreed. "Until it consumes what it warms."
Her expression grew thoughtful.
"The North remembers," she said softly.
"So does the sea."
"The sea forgets."
"It waits."
Silence lingered between them, not awkward, but heavy with something unspoken.
That night, frost gathered along the inner edges of Winterfell's windows, tracing thin white veins across dark glass. The air beyond the walls lay still and sharp, as if the world itself had drawn breath and chosen not to release it.
The chambers prepared for the southern guests were warmer than Orys expected. The heat from the springs beneath the castle crept through the stone, subtle but steady, softening the bite of the northern air. A brazier burned low near the hearth, casting wavering shadows against the walls.
Orys sat at the edge of the bed provided for him, unlacing his boots slowly. The furs were heavier than those at Storm's End, layered thick across the mattress, practical rather than ornamental. He ran a hand over the coarse texture before setting his boots aside neatly.
Across the corridor, Robert's laughter echoed once more before dimming into muffled conversation.
He had spent the evening at table recounting hunts he had not yet taken and battles he had not yet fought, drinking deeply of northern ale as though it were stormland mead. The Stark men had listened. Some amused. Some reserved.
Lyanna had watched.
She did not glow under Robert's attention.
She observed it.
Orys lay back against the furs, staring up at the timbered ceiling. The quiet here was different from Storm's End. There was no constant roar of surf beneath the silence. No wind battering stone. Only the faint crackle of embers and the distant murmur of guards exchanging watch.
He found he preferred it.
In the stillness, thoughts arranged themselves cleanly.
Robert would return south believing he had impressed the North.
Perhaps he had.
But the North did not bend to laughter.
It weighed.
It remembered.
Orys turned his head toward the narrow window. A pale moon hung above the courtyard, casting silver light over snow-dusted stone. Somewhere beyond the walls, wolves howled—long and low, their voices threading through the night without haste.
He did not mistake the sound for menace.
It was territory. Presence. Endurance.
Storm's End defied the sea by refusing to fall.
Winterfell endured by refusing to move.
Orys closed his eyes.
Tomorrow would bring more sparring. More words measured between houses. More observation.