"Have you had enough?"
The white-armored knight's voice wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
It struck like a blade of ice—and the chaos froze instantly.
His indifferent gaze swept over Jai, still burning with fury, and Eddard, still struggling uselessly like a cornered animal.
Only the faintest trace of killing intent seeped from those deep blue eyes…
Yet it was enough to make two hot-blooded boys, still wet behind the ears, fall silent as if their throats had been crushed.
When they finally lowered their heads—no longer daring to et his stare—
Lance flicked his wrist and tossed them down into the mud like discarded baggage.
"You."
He looked at Jai first.
His tone was flat. Almost casual.
But the threat inside it was unmistakable.
"Waste one more second of my ti… and I'll bind you up and drag you behind my horse all the way to Riverrun."
Then he strode forward.
Boots crunching through wet filth, he stopped over Eddard's fallen body and stared down at him with cold contempt.
"Look around you, Lord Stark."
"Look at the people who died because your family's na ans sothing."
"Your father, Rickard Stark, has decided to carve his road with fire and blood."
"Either you pick up your sword and stop him…"
"…or you crawl back into the Red Keep's dungeon and keep wailing in the dark."
"But don't stand in my way while I go and kill the real culprits."
Then—like a hamr striking iron—
he delivered the last command.
"Mount up."
That order wasn't only aid at Eddard.
It was for all three hundred Crownlands knights.
Without another unnecessary word, Lance swung himself into the saddle, turned his horse, and rode back toward the Kingsroad.
He didn't shout.
He didn't curse.
Yet anyone could hear it plainly—
their commander was aching to kill soone.
---
Eddard lay face-down in cold slurry.
Before him were charred child-sized bodies, burnt black like broken dolls.
Around him thundered iron hooves, racing away.
Lance' words cracked across his mind like a whip—
shattering the last scraps of fantasy he'd clung to.
A sound tore from his throat.
Not a sob.
Not a scream.
A low, animal noise—sothing between grief and rage.
He grabbed a fistful of mud mixed with bloodwater and sared it across his face violently, as if trying to scrub away sothing unseen.
Then, without a word, he forced himself upright.
He didn't even glance at Jai.
He staggered toward his horse, picked up the mud-caked fur cloak that symbolized his new title, and draped it back over himself.
Hooves stord past him.
Filthy mud spattered across his body.
Not a single rider slowed down.
Because none of them followed a wolf.
They followed the white cloak ahead.
---
Balman rode up beside Lance, still unsettled.
"Where are we going, ser?"
Lance didn't answer right away.
His blue eyes turned north—
toward a massive fortress wall stretching across the horizon, jagged and endless like a wound in the land.
The na ca out like iron jaws snapping shut.
"Harrenhal."
---
When the dust-covered column of three hundred knights finally reached the black ruin of Harrenhal…
the heavy iron gate began to rise—
slowly—
The castle—its gates shut tight like a startled maiden guarding her virtue—had finally flung them open wide for the king's army.
The mont the black iron portcullis rose, servants and soldiers poured out in a rush, faces pale with fear, as though salvation itself had arrived.
"Seven save us… you're finally here!"
Lady Shella's voice trembled with emotion.
So moved she was that she all but forgot her manners—stepping forward in haste, tears swelling instantly in her eyes.
She wore a stately gown of deep blue velvet, but there was none of a noblewoman's composure on her face now—only raw relief mixed with sorrow, the expression of soone who had finally glimpsed a torch in endless darkness.
Yet when her gaze swept past Lance—
and landed on the direwolf sigil pinned to Eddard's chest—
sothing flickered in her eyes.
Fear.
Hatred.
A complicated bitterness she smothered almost at once.
She pressed a handkerchief hard to her reddening eyes, her voice thick with accusation and pleading:
"Those savage Northerners… they've been tearing through our lands like a plague! Flaying, burning villages, slaughtering innocents!"
"They say several villages have already—"
"I'm here because of exactly that, my lady."
Lance cut her off impatiently.
He didn't dismount. He simply tapped his armored boot against his saddle—his pure white warhorse imdiately stepping forward, carrying him into the castle at a asured pace.
"The rebels will pay for every cri in blood."
"Now take us to Lord Walter. As Captain of the Kingsguard, I will visit him on His Grace's behalf."
"O-of course, ser!"
At his words, Lady Shella's expression twitched—so briefly it could have been imagined.
A faint ripple of panic.
But she forced herself to smile and answered quickly:
"Only… my husband… he's fallen ill."
"The sickness clings to him like a curse. Several maesters have tried—none can help. And our fighting n were already few… now Lord Walter is bedridden, and we must still defend ourselves against those elusive rebels…"
She launched into frantic complaints, then hurried to add with desperate sincerity:
"But rest assured, ser—Harrenhal will obey your commands completely!"
"Our granaries, stables, barracks—everything is yours to use. We know every inch of these lands. If you give the word, the remaining n of House Whent and our guides will assist you in hunting down these vile Northern bandits!"
"Heh."
Lance answered with nothing but a cold, contemptuous sound.
His calm gaze swept over the trembling noblewoman.
"Let us eat first," he said flatly.
He glanced upward toward the battlents.
A pale shape flickered briefly in the tower above, then vanished.
Lance didn't react.
He simply urged his horse forward, crossing into the castle that now welcod them with its doors wide open—
like a smile that hid teeth.
---
Night
The top floor of the Tower of the Kingspyre
The room reeked of heavy herbs, rotting sweetness, and the stale breath of death.
The hearth-fire flickered over thick tapestries, casting shadows that danced across the bed.
Upon it lay Lord Walter Whent, his face sunken and grey, his eyes sealed shut.
His breathing was so faint it seed he could stop at any mont—
a dying ember in the wind.
Heavy curtains smothered the moonlight. The room felt suffocating, as though the walls themselves mourned.
And yet…
Walter's brother, Oswell Whent, stood behind Lady Shella—
and with his one remaining left hand, greedily slid beneath the velvet folds of her sleeping robe.
Shella didn't resist.
No—she leaned into it.
She liked it.
That thrill.
That danger.
"Kill him."
Oswell suddenly breathed the words.
"…What?"
Shella froze, confused, turning to look at him.
"Kill him… that's kinslaying. It brings a curse. Besides, Walter will die on his own. We don't need to rush—"
"No."
Oswell's gaze snapped into sothing feral.
He seized her jaw hard enough to hurt.
"I'm not talking about Walter."
His voice rasped with venom, every syllable soaked in hatred:
"Lance Lot."
Oswell's fury burst like a wound tearing open.
"Can you stand it, Shella?"
"Can you watch that butcher in white stroll through Harrenhal like he owns the place—trampling our dignity—and then leave alive?"
He leaned to her ear, breath hot, poisonous.
"Kill him. Here in Harrenhal. Tomorrow night—at the feast."
Shella shuddered violently, terror surging into her eyes.
"A… a feast?"
"No, Os—guest right… guest right must not be violated—"
"To hell with guest right!"
Oswell snarled.
His face twisted, warped by obsession.
"Ever since Harren the Black built this castle, the gods' curse has been here!"
"Hoare, Qoherys, Harroway, Strong…"
"This place is soaked in the screams of the dood!"
He wrenched her body around, forcing her to face the bed—
forcing her to look at Walter's half-dead corpse.
Forcing her to see Oswell's cold golden right hand gleaming in the firelight.
"Look."
"One brother is a cripple—ruined by the king and his white hound."
"The other is a walking corpse waiting to rot."
"House Whent… has already been eaten alive by the curse."
"Now we only want vengeance." Oswell hissed.
His intact left hand tightened around Shella's pale throat.
She gasped.
Her vision blurred—
and yet, sickeningly, her body responded.
A flush.
A tremble.
Pleasure.
His voice beca both threat and plea.
"Shella… help ."
"This is our only chance."
"The castle is filled with our n. We can drug his wine. Set an ambush in the hall."
"Once he's dead, Harrenhal will be free from the Crown's grip."
"And we…"
"…we will truly rule this place."
Shella stared into his eyes—those eyes filled with the madness of soone ready to burn the world for revenge—
and the choking grip at her throat only fed the sickness inside her.
She inhaled sharply.
And for so reason—
she saw it.
The cold blue eyes of the Kingsguard captain from earlier that day.
…Those eyes.
---
Much later, the "holy ritual" finally ended.
Lady Shella collapsed weakly onto the floor, panting harshly.
That sensation of surviving the edge of death—of being dragged back from it—
left her addicted.
Breathless.
Hungry for more.
Only after Oswell gently helped her up did Shella Whent finally look at him with resolve.
Fear had lted away.
In its place—
steel.
Beneath her wide collar, the sigil of House Whent—the nine black bats on yellow—peeked through like a promise of darkness.
She gripped Oswell's wrist, teeth clenched as she whispered:
"Do it cleanly."
"And bla it on those Northern raiders."
"When his n learn he's dead… they won't have proof to turn their fury on us."
Oswell smiled, satisfied.
He lifted his left hand and patted the top of her head—
as though rewarding a loyal hunting hound.
Then the "Kingsguard" swept his white cloak behind him and strode out of the Tower of the Kingspyre.
Shella watched him go.
But she didn't see—
the half of Oswell's face swallowed by shadow—
twist into a strange, eerie smile.
A smile like soone who had already won.
---
When he was gone, Shella Whent straightened her robes, opened the door, and accepted a cup of thick black liquid from a grey-haired maester.
She walked back quickly—almost eager.
Her voice softened into honey as she leaned over the bedside and gently roused the man who lay there like a corpse.
She smiled as sweetly as a saint.
"Ti to wake up and drink your dicine, Walter."
---
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