As they traveled through the rough terrain of the Westerlands, crossing the border from Dorne, Maria could taste the blood in the war. The war. The war between men, not beasts. For this land was not haunted by nightmares and monsters like Yharnam or the waking world she had once known. No, this war was the result of human folly, of pride and power, bloodshed for the sake of thrones and crowns.
But beneath that, Maria sensed a deeper, older power, one buried beneath the weight of centuries. This land had been shaped by war, but it had also been touched by something darker. Something she could feel like a pulse under her feet.
Blood sacrifice. It wouldn't last forever.
Her eyes followed the familiar path of the horse-drawn cart carrying her and her brother toward Winterfell. Eddard Stark, their adoptive father, rode ahead with a grim silence that matched the cold air. He was a man who knew the weight of responsibility, but Maria could see it in his eyes — a quiet war waging within him, one he didn’t speak of, one that no sword or shield could protect him from.
Eddard’s thoughts were tangled in the same threads of politics and deception that twisted the hearts of all who served the realm.
"I could pass them off as bastards, children of Ashara Dayne."
His voice was barely a whisper, but Maria heard it. His words, for all their casualness, were not meant for her ears.
The children were Jon Snow and Maria Snow — black-haired, eyes so red and blue they seemed to burn with a strange, unnatural fire. No bastard born of Ashara Dayne could claim such strange eyes.
The truth lingered just beneath the surface, but Eddard kept it hidden. He always had.
The sun began to set as they neared the massive walls of Winterfell, casting the landscape in shades of amber and gold, but Maria could feel nothing but the cold. Winterfell, the cold stone fortress of the North, a place that had long been a symbol of resilience and strength. Yet to her, it felt like a tomb.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
It was not her home. It was not his.
Maria didn’t feel the joy of returning to family, or the warmth of welcoming arms. She only felt the weight of inevitability, the grim knowledge that she and her brother were like the frost itself — fleeting, transient.
As they reached the gates, Eddard Stark’s heavy steps echoed through the silence. Catelyn Stark, his wife, stood at the entrance, her face strained with the weight of what lay ahead.
Her gaze turned cold, sharp as the winter air. She said nothing for a long moment, only looking at the children — Maria and Jon Snow — with a mixture of disdain and confusion.
“You’ve disgraced me, Eddard.”
Her voice was quiet, controlled, but there was no hiding the bitterness.
“You bring these… bastards into my house?”
Eddard Stark stood firm, his broad shoulders squared beneath the weight of his decisions.
“They are my children. I will not abandon them.”
Maria felt a tightness in her chest, the pull of something old and tragic in the exchange. She didn’t care about their quarrel. In the end, it didn’t matter. She was just a fleeting shadow of blood and magic.
“Bastards. But still my children,” Eddard added, his voice low.
Jon Snow stood silently beside her, his eyes distant. Maria watched him with quiet contemplation, wondering what went through his mind. She had always sensed something in him — something that didn’t belong in a child so young. His gaze was always drawn to that white tree with its human face.
Maria followed his gaze. There it stood, towering over the grounds of Winterfell, twisted and ancient. The weirwood tree, its bark as pale as bone, its face carved with features that looked almost… alive. Its hollow eyes seemed to watch them, to study them.
Maria felt something stir within her. A presence, dark and ancient, reaching from the roots of the tree. It felt wrong — abominable.
What is it? she thought.
But there was no answer. Not yet. Maria was too young to understand, too small to stand against the forces at play here. She felt a pang of helplessness.
There was nothing they could do. Not yet.
Jon Snow’s gaze was locked on that cursed tree, and Maria couldn't help but feel an unsettling connection between him and it. The same strange pull she felt whenever her blood magic stirred within her veins. A bond, perhaps — one of blood, but twisted and cursed, as if they were bound to the fate of that ancient tree, the source of some power she couldn’t yet understand.
When will it end? Maria wondered again. When will this endless cycle of blood, sacrifice, and magic ever cease?
Her vision blurred as she turned her attention away from the tree and back to her brother. She wished she could be like him, with his calm and quiet demeanor. But inside, there was only the knowing — the feeling that, no matter where they went, no matter who they became, they were already dead.
The blood sacrifices would not last forever.
And soon, they would return to the dirt.