The first major plot twist is coming.
Tension is rising, masks are falling, and political moves are beginning to show their cost. Nothing is guaranteed — not alliances, not loyalties. What began as a game of strategy may spiral into irreversible disaster. Get ready: the story's first major turning point is approaching.
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📖 Currently, the manuscript has 26 completed chapters.
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The day after Tyrion Lannister's departure brought a strange silence to Winterfell. To Robb, it was the silence of a courtroom after the verdict had been read, but before the sentence was carried out. The action, the arguments, the adrenaline of manipulation—those had passed. What remained was the waiting, a subtler and perhaps crueler form of torture.
Morning found him in his father's solar, where he had spent the night in an armchair near the hearth, now filled with cold ashes. He hadn't slept. The castle—his home—felt vast and indifferent, its stone corridors echoing with the ghosts of his decisions. On the table, two wine goblets—one still half full—stood as a silent monument to his victory the previous night. A victory that tasted like ashes.
He rose, his young body aching from lack of sleep, and walked over to the great map of the North spread out over the table—an animal hide skinned and marked with the veins and arteries of his domain. His fingers traced the line of the Kingsroad, a pale vein cutting through the gray and green vastness of the map. He no longer saw a drawing; he saw a path of dangerous possibilities, an equation with too many variables for his comfort.
They must be crossing the last river before the Neck by now, he thought, the mind of the strategist feverishly calculating distances and speeds with precision. He could picture the small entourage: the three grey wolves of his guard and the two golden lions of Tyrion, an island of mutual distrust moving through an indifferent landscape. Alekk will keep a strong pace. He understands the urgency, even if he doesn't know the full reason behind it. He's a good soldier, a man who follows orders. Hallis will be the problem. His anger is a weakness, an open door. And Tyrion… Tyrion is the greatest master of open doors the world has ever known. He'll see Hallis's rage and use it. He'll try to exploit it.
His thoughts were a whirlwind of theory and fear. He had acted like Hobbes' sovereign, imposing his will to prevent the chaos of a war of all against all—a war he knew lurked like a wolf in the snow. He had acted like Machiavelli's prince, using deception and coercion as tools of state, sacrificing virtue on the altar of necessity. But those philosophers wrote of power as if it were a science—a series of logical equations. They hadn't written about chance. They hadn't written about a horse's stubbornness, the fury of a summer storm, or a mother's uncontrollable grief.
His mother. She was the variable he couldn't control—only intercept. The heart of his plan. The source of his deepest anxiety.
My plan depends on the ability of three men to contain the force of an emotional hurricane. He replayed the conversation in the armory, the weight of each word, the look in each man's eyes. He hoped his warning about her recklessness would be enough. He hoped the oath they swore with their hands on Stark steel would be stronger than the reverence they felt for the wife of their former lord. It was a gamble. A calculated gamble, based on his analysis of their personalities—but a gamble nonetheless, its outcome now in the hands of others, on a road hundreds of leagues away.
He had made his move. Now, all he could do was wait and see if the board would turn against him.
He spent the rest of the day in a state of fevered vigilance. He tried to train in the yard, but his movements were mechanical, his mind distant. He reviewed the account books with Maester Luwin, but the numbers danced before his eyes, transforming into maps and faces. The old maester watched him with concern.
"My lord, you carry too heavy a burden for your shoulders," Luwin said gently, pushing a mug of herbal tea toward him. "Worry is a poison that consumes the spirit."
"It's the mantle my father left me, Maester," Robb replied, the half-truth slipping out easily. "I must learn to wear it."
But in his thoughts, he screamed. You don't understand the size of the burden. It's not the weight of Winterfell that bends me. It's the weight of everything that hasn't happened yet.
At dusk, unable to bear the claustrophobic stillness of the solar, Robb climbed the stone steps of the Great Keep to Winterfell's walls. The northern wind was biting, bringing with it the scent of snow and endless emptiness. He walked to the edge, hands gripping the worn, cold stone.
Below, Winterfell was a patchwork of flickering lights and deep shadows. Life continued, unaware of the desperate game its young lord had set in motion. He looked south, toward the darkness that had swallowed the Kingsroad. The path was empty.
He had made his move. He had lied, manipulated, and coerced. He had bound good men to a terrible oath. He had acted like a king—or perhaps a tyrant. And now, there was nothing more he could do. The pieces were out of his reach, moving in a game whose rules only he knew—but whose outcome chance could still steal. For the first time since awakening to his new consciousness, he felt truly powerless. A blind king in his castle, a strategist awaiting the report from a distant battle. The feeling of solitude was an ocean, and he was drowning in it.
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Obrigado por entrar nesta história.
Para mim, é realmente incrível escrever em um universo que passei tanto tempo lendo e admirando.
Recentemente, perdi meu emprego e decidi me dedicar integralmente a este hobby. Espero sinceramente terminar esta fic e, para isso, seu apoio significaria muito.
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