Games of Thrones: The Heavenly Demon of North

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POV: Lyanna Stark – Wolfsblood Ridge, Pre-dawn

The blade struck the post again. Then again. The sound echoed through the snow-laden godswood sparring yard. Lyanna moved without pause—her tunic soaked with sweat, her palms raw and stinging.

She couldn't sleep lately. Not for any strange visions or omens—just the pressure. Of eyes watching. Of expectations piling.

Every day Arthur trained the others harder. Every day Rickard asked more of her in the yard, or at the table, or during drills with the younger wards. And every night she lay awake, listening to the wind scratch the walls of the keep, wondering if the restlessness inside her would settle or sharpen.

The post cracked under her next blow. She let the training sword fall and stood over the splintered wood, chest heaving.

"If the South thinks we'll break," she muttered, "they've forgotten what winter means."

She didn't say it to Arthur, or Rickard. She didn't need to. She wasn't training for their approval. She was training so no one could question what she'd earned.

POV: Rickard Stark – Winterfell Solar, Late Morning

Rickard sat before the hearth in the solar, rereading the letter from Oldtown for the third time that morning.

To Lord Rickard Stark, Warden of the North,

We request clarification on training practices conducted under your protection...

It went on for three pages, filled with polite concern from the Conclave, stamped with seven seals, each line heavy with implication.

The Citadel was not blind. Merchants, travelers, and southern lords had begun talking. Rumors of foreign training, strange breathing techniques, children mimicking foreign forms with northern steel.

Not heresy, not yet—but the tone was clear.

"We respectfully remind House Stark," the letter read, "that the preservation of order, unity, and the Seven's peace remains paramount."

Rickard set it down. His jaw tightened.

The Seven's peace, they called it. They had never stood at the Wall. Never felt the bones of kin freeze beneath their hands. And now they thought they could dictate how the North prepared for the next storm.

He looked toward the open window. Beyond the inner court, the rise of the Hollow Vale could just be seen through the mist.

They were already afraid. Good.

But fear made men stupid.

He would answer Oldtown, yes—but on his terms. Not theirs.

POV: Arthur Snow – The Hollow Vale, Afternoon

Arthur stood in the long hall beneath the Hollow Vale, where scrolls of posture sequences and training diagrams were spread across the table. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, sweat still clinging to his skin from morning drills.

Sarra held the Citadel's letter without speaking. Arthur read it once. Then again. Then he dropped it into a shallow brass basin.

"Burn it," he said.

Sarra didn't move. "Rickard wants a formal reply. Something that shows we're not hiding anything."

"We're not," Arthur said. "We're just not showing them everything."

He stepped behind the table and pulled out a quill.

"We'll send them a list of basic drills. Form corrections. Breath-count patterns we could teach in a riverlands sword camp."

Sarra nodded. "And books?"

"Keep it dry. Maps. Endurance treatises. A few siege histories. Add Garron and Thom to the instructor list. Leave my name off."

Sarra's mouth twitched, halfway to a smile. "So we lie without lying."

Arthur didn't look up. "We answer the question they asked. Not the ones they're afraid to write."

She handed him a seal. He pressed it into wax without pause.

POV: Lyanna Stark – Evening, Upper Wall of Winterfell

Lyanna sat beside Benjen on the highest part of Winterfell's inner wall. Snow drifted over the edge, carried by a low wind. Neither of them spoke for a long while.

She glanced sideways. The boy had grown quiet lately. Less questions, more watching.

"You heard about the Citadel?" he asked.

She nodded. "They've always distrusted anything they don't invent."

Benjen frowned. "But Arthur's helping. Everyone sees it. Even Maester Walys teaches his breathing stuff sometimes."

"That's not what bothers them," Lyanna said. "It's that they didn't permit it. Southrons don't like when Northerners choose their own path."

Benjen kicked at the snow between his boots. "You haven't been sleeping. I've heard you walking the halls."

Lyanna leaned back on her hands. "I train when I can't rest. That's all."

"I thought maybe you were angry," Benjen said. "Or worried. Or both."

Lyanna let out a quiet breath. "I'm tired, Ben. That's different."

After a pause, he added, "Arthur says we should prepare without waiting to be attacked."

She nodded. "Then we keep preparing."

POV: Arthur Snow – Nightfall, Hollow Vale Cavern

The chamber was dark, buried beneath the northern hill of the Vale, shaped by pick and time. Arthur sat cross-legged on the bare stone, spine straight, breath slow.

The air was cold. Still.

His focus was not on expansion, or cultivation of power. He had long passed the point of chasing thresholds. His practice now was refinement. Stability.

Qi moved through him—not rushing like a torrent, but flowing with the rhythm of steady snowmelt. Quiet. Grounded. Hidden.

Then—he felt it.

A ripple.

A distant sensation across the weave of breath and pulse. Not in the North. Not nearby. But trained. Focused. Like another practitioner breathing with intent far to the south.

Arthur let the awareness go. There would be more soon. Not allies.

Observers.

He opened his eyes in silence.

POV: Rickard Stark – Near Godswood, Later Night

Rickard stood with Arthur beneath the godswood's outer branches. The trees whispered faintly in the breeze. Ahead, training posts waited in silence—wood worn smooth by repetition.

"They've seen enough," Rickard said. "The South, I mean. The stories, the whispers... the training. They think you're dangerous."

Arthur was quiet.

"I can't hold the North with silence and grit alone. Not when the Karstarks are stalling, and the Dustins grow cold. You're not the threat—but you are the excuse."

Arthur didn't look away from the trees.

"Then take the excuse from them when you need to."

Rickard's brow creased. "You'd leave?"

Arthur gave a small nod. "If the weight grows too loud. I'd go quietly. Without titles. Without names. Let them chase a shadow."

Rickard studied him for a long moment, then looked toward the horizon.

"Just be sure the shadow doesn't outlive the man who cast it."