During the year of progress and influence, snowflakes drifted and landed. Storms are settled and rivers frozen over.
-
Snow clung to the corners of the room like stubborn shadows. The fire burned low in the hearth, casting long flickers of amber light across the stone walls. Four boys sat in loose formation, boots discarded, cloaks drying, wooden cups cradled in cold hands. Their blades rested in a leaning pile near the door, untouched for once.
They hadn't planned to gather. They never did. But after supper, their feet carried them here, as they often did. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere their voices could still echo like they used to.
Domund Snow leaned back on his elbows, staring at the flames with a familiar glint of mischief in his eyes. "When spring comes, I'm going to beat you finally, you lumbering tree." His eyes on Brandon, the largest of their forming gang of notables.
Cregan Norrey, curled against a bundled fur cloak nearly twice his size, chewed a leathery slice of dried apple and snorted. "Ya said that after the first spar and haven't done it yet," his words made Domund look away with a slight pout.
Brandon Crowl, always a wall more than a boy, didn't bother to look up from the fire. "Sure you will..." His voice filled with monotone sarcasm. " When the wall falls." His whisper sounded off the walls.
The laughter came quickly, warm and simple. For a moment, it felt like when they first got together, when they were just adjusting, trying to hit each other with sticks in the yard, laughing too loud, swearing too much, and sneaking extra meat from the kitchens.
But it didn't last.
Domund's grin faltered first. He sat up straighter, frowning down into his cup. "He's taller now."
That was all he said. But the air shifted.
Torrhen Locke looked up from his cider, his expression unreadable. "I noticed too. Hands are thicker. Shoulders changed. He grew faster than any of us."
"He was barely to my shoulder," Domund said, quieter now. "Now he's a breath taller and his eyes when looking down to me..."
"People don't grow like that," Brandon said flatly. "Not so quickly."
"Maybe he just… had a spurt," Cregan offered, but even he sounded uncertain.
Torrhen exhaled through his nose. "He changed. And not just in size."
Domund nodded, his gaze heavy. "He barely talks now. I mean, he does, but it's all short. Simple. Quiet. He used to joke with us at least a few times. He used to say dumb things just to get me to laugh when I was feeling down. Feels like he uses that cloak and furs to keep away from us now."
Cregan looked down at his knees. "He still trains us."
Brandon lifted his cup. "Still watches out for us."
"Feels like he's somewhere else even when he's right beside you," Domund muttered. "Like his mind's walking in the woods while his body's sitting next to you though."
They were all quiet for a moment, not because they didn't know what to say, but because they did.
Domund leaned forward, elbows on knees. "My brothers at Karhold think I'm mad for staying here. They say I'm... that I'm Wulfric's maid.. That I'll end up dead beside him trying to stop being a bastard by following a bastard."
Torrhen didn't flinch. "Then go. No one's keeping you."
Domund blinked, startled. But Torrhen's voice wasn't sharp, just steady, certain.
Brandon sat up straighter. "I stayed because he made me stronger. Not because he's kind. Because he's the closest to what reminds me of home."
Cregan's small fists clenched over his knees. "He's my first friend. I don't care what happens but I think I'd rather stay than leave."
Domund looked at each of them, uncertain, but something in his chest steadied.
"I'm staying," he said. "Besides.. if i left, who else would make tor the bore here smile."
Torrhen nodded with a slight smirk. "Then that's it. We don't whisper about him anymore. If we've chosen to stay, we stay with him. Through whatever this is."
A long pause
"We need a name," Cregan said suddenly, eyes bright. "Not just 'Wulfric's boys.' Something better!
Domund tilted his head. "What, like… the Starkshields? Actually that sounds just bad."
"Wolfguard," Brandon offered.
"Used at least three times already," Torrhen said, half a grin playing on his lips.
Cregan leaned forward. "Snowborn?"
"Are you trying to make me mad?" Domund shot back.
The fire cracked. Torrhen spoke again, slower now: "He never bends. But he stood up for others at every instance. To the North he said he'd bleed for.
"Frozen," Brandon said. "But still a heart as warm as any other I'd say."
"Still fighting tooth and nail when needed," Domund added.
Cregan's voice dropped, almost reverent. "Bound by frost."
They all looked at him.
Torrhen nodded. "Frostbound."
The word settled in the room like fresh snow.
Cregan raised his cup first, hand small but certain. "Then to the Frostbound."
One by one, they raised theirs, cider steaming between them. No oaths. No sigils. No ceremonies. Just four boys with tired hearts and steady hands, choosing to follow the same shadow into the storm.
-
Steel rang out in the lower yard, sharp and bright in the stillness of mid-morning. Snow drifted lazily across the flagstones, settling on stone and shoulder alike. Domund swung hard, teeth clenched, the edge of his training blade cutting through the cold air. Wulfric caught it cleanly with a fluid pivot, deflecting the blow with a turn of the wrist.
"Seven hells!" Domund barked, stepping back and shaking out his arm. "You're not even trying!"
Wulfric didn't answer. He adjusted his stance calmly, his breathing steady, gaze watchful.
Domund came again, fast and angry, a flurry of strikes more reckless than measured. Wulfric caught the first, sidestepped the second, and gently turned the last aside. It wasn't a fight. It was a lesson.
"Stop doing that!" Domund shouted. "I'm not a child! You don't have to go easy on me!"
Wulfric's brow furrowed slightly, but his voice remained even. "I'm not."
Domund stared at him, chest rising and falling. "You used to sweat like the rest of us. Curse when I hit you good. Now it's like you're... gods, like you're just humoring me."
He pointed the tip of his blade down. "It's not training if it's just you watching me flail."
Wulfric said nothing for a while. The only sound was the soft crunch of snow beneath their boots. He looked up toward the battlements, then the archway. No one. The yard was theirs alone.
He let out a breath, then undid the clasp of his cloak.
Domund frowned, watching. Wulfric shrugged the heavy furs off his shoulders. Beneath them, his form was different, leaner but more cut, the shape of a man's frame carved beneath a boy's years. His arms bore faint lines of old bruises or maybe scars, faded but present.
And then, his face.
Domund's expression twisted in shock. Wulfric's features were sharper now, less round, more carved from stone. But the real change came in his eyes.
What once had been pure silver were now threaded with veins of green and red, like vines curling through molten metal. His pupils were no longer round, but narrowed, almost slitted, like a beast's.
Domund took half a step back. "What... what happened to you?"
Wulfric didn't hide it. Didn't flinch. "I asked for strength, vengeance, for a way to hurt the people that hurt me and my family…," he said quietly. "And I got it. But it came with a price, one where my very sight would haunt a child of their sleep..."
Domund's grip on his sword faltered. He looked away, then back. "You look like something from an old tale. A skinchanger or gods, something wulf.. why do this to yourself? No promise should be worth this?."
Wulfric let the silence answer.
"Fine… just… just stop with the moping and watching everyone?" Domund asked, voice small now, "it's creepy and no one likes it…"
Wulfric nodded once. "I remember the first time you picked up a blade. I remember your hand shaking when you told me you hardly handled a blade at home because everyone would beat you senseless in the training yard. I'll stop with silent acts as much as I can if you promise to keep that blade training everyday. No matter how many times, get back up and don't give in no matter how badly you get beat. Okay?."
Domund blinked, angry and ashamed all at once. "I hate how far ahead you've gotten."
Wulfric stepped closer. "Then keep chasing."
Domund hesitated. Then he lifted his sword again.
"One more round," he muttered, "and this time if I fall, I'm dragging you with me."
A ghost of a smile touched Wulfric's lips.
"Good. Show me your teeth, Snow." His smirk telling how he knew his words would rile his friend.
Steel rang out again, not in anger this time, but something akin to words spoken between two friends.
The gates of Winterfell creaked closed behind him.
Wulfric stepped down from the saddle without a word, boots thudding into packed snow. The wolf-head clasp of his cloak was damp with frost, his gloves stained with dirt and rock dust. He handed the reins off to the stablehand and turned into the courtyard, where Benjen stood waiting beneath the archway.
"I thought you'd come through the west gate," Wulfric said.
"I figured you'd use the main one if you didn't want questions," Benjen replied, arms folded. His tone wasn't sharp, but it wasn't light either.
Wulfric didn't respond. He started toward the inner keep.
Benjen followed. "I've been hearing things," he said. "About the quarry. About silver."
"We found it," Wulfric said.
Benjen's brow furrowed. "We?"
"The boys. The ones who stayed. The wards staying with us now.."
"They're children, Wulfric. Most of them barely older than you."
"They chose to follow," Wulfric said, turning briefly. "I didn't force them."
Benjen caught up. "You're barely ten, and you've got them digging, hauling, scouting. You've got a mine forming under Winterfell's nose, and you never brought it to me, or Rodrik, or Walys. What would you call that?"
"Necessary," Wulfric said.
Benjen grabbed his arm. Wulfric didn't flinch.
"You're acting like a man grown, but you're not. You can't just take what you want and disappear into the woods."
Wulfric turned to face him fully. "I didn't take anything. I found it. And I made it useful."
Benjen's voice lowered. "You're scaring people."
Wulfric's expression barely shifted. "Why? Because I'm not wasting time for snow to melt?"
"Because you're changing," Benjen said. "Because you look like something out of Old Nan's stories, of her monsters."
Wulfric's eyes flashed.
"Be careful," he said quietly.
Benjen blinked.
"I am your blood," Wulfric continued. "The blood of the North. Of First Men. Of the wolves who remembered what the rest of this realm forgot. Don't call me a monster because I'm finally becoming what this land needs."
Benjen held his gaze. "And what is that?"
"Something that doesn't break. Something that doesn't kneel. Something that doesn't forget who we are while the rest of the realm picks at our bones."
Snow began to fall again, soft and slow.
Benjen's voice lost its edge. "You don't think House Stark remembers? That we don't have the strength for the future?"
"I think House Stark survives, yes, but i also think we stagnate," Wulfric said. "Endlessly, patiently, dutifully. But the rest of Westeros doesn't see a wolf when they look North. They see a broken stone, a frozen corner, a land to strip for men and timber and meat. A tool. A resource. A pebble in their path."
He stepped forward. "I'm not trying to frighten anyone. I'm trying to make sure we're never used like that again."
Benjen studied him. The strange new sharpness in his face. The way the torchlight caught the threads of red and green in those silver eyes. He wasn't a boy anymore, not entirely.
"And what do you want me to do?" Benjen asked. "Stand aside while you build whatever you're building? Turn my back while you run scouts and dig mines and whisper to trees?"
Wulfric took a breath, then nodded once. "I'll give you reports. Every time we ride out, you'll know. Guards will go with us. If we find anything, stone, herbs, roots, paths, I'll tell you. All of it."
Benjen's jaw tightened. "That's all I ask."
There was a beat of silence. Wulfric broke it.
"I don't want to fight you, Benjen."
Benjen let out a tired and weary breath. "You're not fighting me. You're just walking too far ahead for me to catch up."
Wulfric turned his gaze toward the keep. "Then I'll slow down if only a little."
Benjen allowed himself a small smile. "Good. Because if you disappear into the snow one more time without warning, I'll put you in chains myself."
Wulfric smirked faintly. "You'd need a bigger set by the next day."
Benjen clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't tempt me."
The snow kept falling, quiet and steady, and for a moment the courtyard was still again, two wolves beneath the walls of Winterfell, both changed, but neither lost.
-
It was deep into night many moons past when Wulfric and Benjen spoke. When Wulfric's feet carried him past the usual paths, past the barracks, the training yard, and the warm-lit kitchens. He moved alone, hood pulled low, cloak heavy with lingering frost from his ride. His steps found an old trail behind the granary and kennels, a crooked path of uneven stones winding toward a sunken corner of Winterfell rarely visited in winter.
Few even remembered it, an enclosed patch of hard-packed soil, flanked by low stone walls and a sagging trellis overgrown with the bare skeletons of old vines. Once it had been a herb garden, kept by healers and cooks in warmer days. Now it was a frozen ruin, dried husks of turnip stalks, choked mint patches dusted in soot, a splintered bench sagging under the weight of snow. In the middle, a single wilted blue Winter rose.
Wulfric stopped near the edge, eyes sweeping the quiet space. No torchlight reached this far. Only the faintest sliver of moon cut across the garden wall, turning the snow to dull silver.
He crouched low, brushing aside brittle pine needles and ice-crusted straw with his bare hand. A stalk of wild turnip, limp and pale, stuck up like a dying finger. He tugged gently, testing the root. It resisted, stubborn, anchored in a crust of frost and old soil. His eyes crested the rose, a small and fragile thing right next to it.
He winced slightly, feeling the cold bite into the skin of his palm. Breath fogged from his lips in short bursts. Without thinking, he pressed his hand flat against the dirt beside the root, besides the rose, steadying himself. The chill clawed up his wrist.
He didn't know why he lingered there.
Maybe the silence. Maybe the memory of what Benjen had said, that people were afraid, maybe of the smile on his aunt's face as she danced with a blue rose in her hair when they rode out the gates the first time and played on a snow capped hill.
He stayed only a few moments longer before rising, shaking the frost from his fingers, and pulling his glove back on. He turned without a word and vanished again into the shadows between the walls.
The garden was still.
For a time.
Then, slowly, the frost beneath his palm print began to melt, not vanish in steam, but recede, gently, as if the ground had sighed. The soil, long choked with cold, loosened at the touch.
The wilted turnip stalk stiffened. Its sagging spine straightened just enough to lift a curl of leaf skyward. Color bled faintly into its veins, not vivid spring green, but something sturdier, heartier, coldborn. The blue wilted rose whispering its death tolls now straightened, bloomed and showed a brilliance that only the stars could match.
The surrounding straw, once dry as bark, darkened with faint moisture. The air seemed to hold warmth where there had been none. Not a glow, not a hum, just a quiet, invisible shift.
A single circle of soil, a little wider than a handprint, held life. Unseen and unheard but soon to be marveled. And somewhere deep beneath the frost, the roots remembered him. Called to him in rejoice as the one that brought life to the cold.