Games of Thrones: The Heavenly Demon of North

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POV: Arthur Snow

Location: Winterfell – Training Yard, Inner Forge, and Godswood

Winterfell stirred to life beneath the grey sky. Smoke rose from the smithies, and snow melted sluggishly along the stone paths of the inner yard. But the castle felt different now—less like a stronghold, more like a body learning to move again after long numbness.

Arthur Snow stood over the map table in the old tower, Garron and Thom at his side.

"We'll need at least ten more furnaces if we want uniform blades before spring," Garron muttered, tapping the parchment with a callused finger. "But if we rework the forge-line like you said—stacked heat systems instead of scattered pits—we save coal. Time, too."

"And hands," Arthur said.

Thom nodded, arms crossed. "The guards have begun attending my instruction. Skeptical at first, but after last week's raid… they listen now."

Arthur studied the plans again, then looked to Vaeren across the chamber, pouring a pale liquid from one flask to another, steam rising between his fingers.

"Your solution?" Arthur asked.

"Distilled mint-ginger tincture. Good for lung rot. If we're keeping patrols in snow-heavy regions, they'll need it."

Arthur didn't smile, but his eyes softened slightly.

"We're not building warriors," he said. "We're building endurance."

Training Yard – The Girls

Lyanna moved between the girls like a cold wind — quick, sharp, without wasted motion. Four of them stood across the yard, slush soaking through their boots, wooden blades held unevenly. They were young, dirty, and tired, but still standing.

"Stance," she said.

The tall one with the crooked nose adjusted her footing, glancing at the shortest girl — freckled, red-knuckled, always watching others before she moved. That one had come from a hamlet along the White Knife, where a traveling gang had passed through last winter. Her mother didn't make it. Since arriving at Winterfell, she hadn't spoken more than a dozen words.

"You're bracing like you expect to lose," Lyanna told her. "That's not how you stand if you want to live."

The girl blinked, wiped her hand on her sleeve. "I'm trying."

"The graveyard's full of people who tried."

Another girl — broad-shouldered and still limping from an old wound on her calf — muttered, "Maybe we should be in the kitchens."

"No one's stopping you," Lyanna said without looking. "But if the next raider comes through the wall, he won't wait for stew."

The black-haired girl — the oldest, the one who had carried her little brother through a fire the night their village was sacked — glanced up.

"My uncle said women with swords bring bad luck."

Lyanna looked straight at her. "Your uncle ever fight off a starving sellsword in a snowstorm?"

"…No."

"Then he's in no position to talk about luck."

She stepped back and raised her blade. "Again. Guard stance. Breathe."

They moved together this time — not perfect, not clean, but better. The short girl stumbled but didn't fall. Not this time.

The black-haired girl exhaled through her nose. "I don't want to wait for someone to protect me anymore."

No one answered, but none of them stopped moving. The cold burned their lungs, but still they trained.

Sparring Yard – The Scouts

Two men stood blindfolded on the edge of the yard. One was tall and broad, with shaggy brown hair and a hunter's lean build. The other was younger, wiry, and moved like he had something to prove.

The poles were scattered through the snow — thin, barely visible, just enough to test a man's feet.

Sarra called out instructions from the side. "Ten paces forward. Quarter-turn left. Listen to your steps."

The tall one moved slow, careful, like a man who'd seen patrols walk into deadfall traps. He had — last month. Two of his cousins had gone out during a blizzard west of the barrows and never came back. He found what was left of them frozen upright beside their sled.

The younger scout, all nerves and pride, stepped quick and clipped a pole with his shin. He hissed, but kept going. He was from farther east — a holdfast that held through two winters but collapsed after one bandit raid. They sent him to Winterfell with a message that arrived too late. His old commander told him to run, and he hadn't stopped since.

"Too eager," Redna muttered, arms crossed. "Thinks speed makes up for instinct."

The tall one pulled off his blindfold in frustration. "This isn't how we trained back home. This is games."

"Really?" Redna asked, unimpressed. "Tell me—when's the last time a trap announced itself?"

He grunted. "I tracked elk through barrowlands. I don't need sticks and snow to prove I can move."

The younger scout adjusted his blindfold, more serious now. "Back home they just told us to run and not drop the message. But when I turned around, no one was following. Either they ran slower… or they didn't run at all."

Sarra's voice came cold. "The next time you run, it might be through a burning field with men at your back. Blindfolds are mercy compared to that."

They went quiet.

Redna tossed them a pair of leather-soled slippers. "Try these. Quieter. Start again."

They stepped softer this time, slower. Each mistake was met with silence, and each success earned nothing more than the cold watching of two hard-eyed women.

Redna didn't smile, but her tone softened just slightly. "We train so messages get where they're meant to go. The rest of the war rides on whispers."

The scouts didn't speak. But they understood.

Arthur watched it all.

They were not soldiers, not yet. But they were growing. Every motion more efficient. Every breath steadier.

Vaeren had even fashioned a chemical ink—glow-root and resin—that faded after one hour. Perfect for coded notes. Redna had her scouts mark four discreet outposts along the White Knife where messengers now passed with hollow coin pouches.

Whispers had already begun in market circles. The Demon of the North no longer walked alone. He had ghosts, hammers, poisons, whispers—and blades that smiled in silence.

But Arthur made no claim.

That night, Rickard Stark summoned him to the godswood.

They stood beneath the great heart tree as snow flurried in light spirals. The weirwood's face wept softly, and the air smelled of iron and age.

"You've changed this place," Rickard said.

Arthur replied simply: "It needed changing."

Rickard looked tired. "But change is like fire. It warms or it burns. Some houses see what you build and call it strength. Others call it ambition."

"I've claimed nothing," Arthur said.

"Exactly," Rickard replied. "And that's what frightens them — not what you've taken, but that no one knows what you're after."

They walked along the weirwood roots.

"You think the realm will leave you be?" Rickard asked.

"No," Arthur said. "And that's why I prepare now."

He gestured to the thick pages he'd brought.

Rickard Stark's gaze drifted to the thick stack of parchment Arthur had brought—neatly inked crop diagrams, irrigation routes, revised command trees, and something that looked suspiciously like a modular rationing system based on household sizes and seasonal yield.

He raised a brow. "All this… where did you come by it?"

Arthur didn't look up at first. He slid one diagram to the side to reveal a second—an overlay comparing snowfall trends and frost cycles around the White Knife basin.

"I've been reading in the east tower," Arthur said. "The old maester's ledgers, shipping records from White Harbor, a treatise on dryland farming in the Disputed Lands. I cross-referenced yield failure rates from the Vale against our own soil density."

Rickard stared.

Arthur continued, matter-of-fact.

"The third-century famine near the Honeywine taught them to plant hard-root barley before the snows—so I adapted the spacing technique. The irrigation system is from the Ghiscari method, filtered through slope grading from the Shadowlands. As for command structure—House Redwyne once trained captains by pairing them with scribes instead of squires. It cut mistakes by half."

He tapped a separate parchment. "Also, I've begun designing a winterproof grain kiln. Smaller, portable. Ideal for traveling stores and remote garrisons."

Rickard blinked. "You've done all that… recently?"

Arthur finally looked up. "Since arriving at Winterfell , Maester Luwin don't speak much when I'm around, but he don't stop me either."

Rickard gave a quiet, disbelieving exhale. "Gods. How long?"

Arthur tilted his head. "Seven months. Eight, if you count the first weeks in the tower."

Rickard gave a low whistle and stepped back, studying the young man with something caught between awe and unease.

"You were built for the blade," he said. "But it's your mind that worries me now."

Arthur didn't answer.

Rickard shook his head slowly. "The more brilliant you become… the more I start to fear what you might want."

Arthur's voice was quiet, steady. "Fear the man with too many hungers. Not the one who's learned to live with his."

Rickard let that hang between them for a long moment. Then, without a word, he reached into his coat and handed over a sealed pouch.

"Ten wagons of grain from the Manderlys. No name on the ledger. You'll see to its use."

Arthur bowed slightly. "I will."

And once again, the godswood was still.

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Later, alone beneath the godswood canopy, Arthur sat in meditation. His sword lay across his lap, the snow not daring to touch it.

He exhaled once, slowly.

Qi flowed through his veins—slow, deep, methodical. He could feel it now—not just as power, but as structure. The internal balance he had once lost in his fall through worlds was returning. He was close—close to the Fourth Meridian Gate.

Iron Forged Bone. Copper Vein Expansion.

He could name them all now, even if the world around him could not.

He opened his eyes and whispered:

"Not yet what I was... but almost."

In the distance, a raven called once. A sharp croak that made the foxes in the underbrush scatter.

Training Yard – Morning Chill

Benjen crouched low in the training yard, alone, mimicking the step-pivot Arthur had shown Lyanna that morning. His posture was tight, off-balance, but he repeated the motion again and again, teeth clenched against the cold. He didn't expect praise. He just wanted to stop falling behind.

Inside the sparring hall, Thom knelt beside two guards, a linen wrap stretched between his hands. One of them frowned, glancing down at the roll.

"Never used cloth like this for ribs," the guard muttered. "What's the point?"

Thom didn't look up. He tightened the wrap and said, "Because if your lung's cracked and you breathe too shallow, you'll drown in your own blood before the pain kills you. This holds it steady."

The second guard blinked, suddenly very still.

Garron, near the forge doors, cursed under his breath as a furnace hissed too low. He shoved a coal rake into the pit, adjusting the airflow. Two apprentices looked on, trying not to flinch at the sparks.

"Not like that," Garron snapped. "You're feeding the fire, not choking it. Let it breathe. You ever try to boil a stew with the lid slammed shut?"

They nodded, wide-eyed.

Vaeren, hunched beside a set of clay jars on the worktable, didn't turn.

"Smaller bellows," he said, calmly. "Less pressure. You're searing the outer clay but the inner layer's still raw. No use if the pot shatters on first heat."

One apprentice opened his mouth to argue, then wisely shut it.

And above them all, Maelen stood motionless in the high tower arch, a long cloak wrapped around her against the wind. She watched the yard in silence, breath misting against the frost-bitten stone.

Even in storm or hunger, the birds avoided the godswood now. Their wings always bent wide around it—like they sensed something beneath the snow they wanted no part of.

Final Moments -Godswood

Arthur remained seated beneath the weirwood, its pale face streaked with frozen tears. Snow gathered on his shoulders and sword, but none on the blade itself — the cold refused to touch it.

He opened the pouch Rickard had given him. Inside, nestled between folded grain counts and sealed supply lists, was a torn map — old, salt-stained, Ironborn by the look of it. Three locations were circled in red: Valys Point, Deepwood Motte, and Seastrike Cove.

The handwriting wasn't Rickard's.

And the coordinates weren't northern.

Arthur's fingers lingered on the frayed edge of the parchment, tracing each mark slowly, memorizing angles. Not a declaration. Not yet. But something was being laid — a path, perhaps. Or a challenge.

Valys Point. A narrow harbor surrounded by cliffs, long rumored to harbor spies and salvage crews who never returned what they found.

Deepwood Motte. A Stark holding once, but now a doorway to the western wilds — and old feuds.

Seastrike Cove. Wind-lashed, unclaimed, and whispered about in Drowned Men's chants. A place where something sank long ago, and where something else might now be rising.

Arthur folded the map again, slower this time.

He didn't speak, but his mind was already moving — reshaping terrain, timing routes, picturing quiet landings in moonlight and supply caches buried in frost-hardened soil.

Not war. Not yet.

But preparation.

Another gate to open, perhaps. Another thread to follow through the storm.

Above him, the weirwood branches creaked softly in the breeze — as if remembering something.

Far below, a raven shifted on a high limb, black wings tucked tight. Watching.

Waiting.