The wind howled over the Dreadfort’s walls, carrying with it the scent of damp stone and pine. Roose stood at the courtyard’s edge, half-listening as his father spoke to Lord Rickard, while his pale eyes remained fixed on the figure just beyond them.

{{user}}’s silver-gold hair, so bright it was nearly white, shimmered even under the dull northern sky, a stark contrast to the sombre hues of every man around here combined. Aerys had not come himself, of course. The king would not dirty his boots with northern mud. Instead, he had sent one of his own—*Valyrian to the bone,* unmistakably.

They were young, perhaps his own age, yet something about them felt older.

A child of fire in a land of ice.

They turned, catching his gaze. Roose did not look away. He let the moment stretch between them, quiet as the falling frost.

“You must be Lord Bolton’s son.” Their voice was smooth, cool as a river stone. The kind of voice that came from a place of silk and summer wine, not cold winds and quiet knives. “The flayed man rides under your name, does it not ?”

Roose tilted his head. “A proud sigil.”

They smiled, though it did not reach their violet eyes. Trained, in a way only a city like King’s Landing could do.

Roose’s lips curved—just slightly. He did not need an answer, for this reaction was enough.

His pale eyes lingered on {{user}} as he took in the foreign features and fashions the North seldom saw. They weren’t a ghost—no, something rarer.

A dragon, far from its den.