Chapter 6: The Training Yard Challenge
The world shrank to a ribbon of brown road, then exploded into a vastness Rhae could never have imagined. For weeks, the journey north had been a shedding of skins. First, the blazing ochre sands and razor-sharp mountains of Dorne gave way to the rolling, green-gold hills of the Reach, smelling of cut grass and warm earth. Then the turbulent rivers and endless skies of the Riverlands, where the air grew heavy with moisture. Finally, the Neck, a sucking, mist-choked labyrinth that made Obara scowl and even Oberyn fall into a watchful silence.
And then, the North.
It didn’t simply appear; it enveloped them. The air changed first. It lost all memory of the sun’s touch, becoming a cool, clean blade that slipped inside the carriage and made Rhae’s lungs ache with each new breath. The trees were different—great, dark sentinels of pine and towering green giants she learned were called weirwoods, their leaves a rustling choir. The sky was a vast, pale bowl, bigger than any Dornish sky, and the light had a thin, sharp quality that made everything seem etched in stone.
Rhae, bundled in a borrowed woolen cloak far too big for her five-year-old frame, spent most of the final leg of the journey with her face pressed to the carriage window, her violet eyes wide. The fearlessness Oberyn nurtured in her expressed itself not as bravery against threat, but as an overwhelming, devouring curiosity. “What’s that?” she’d ask for the hundredth time, pointing at a moss-covered standing stone.
“A thing older than your House, little one,” Oberyn would answer from his horse, his breath misting in the air. He rode alongside their party, his black leathers a stark contrast to the grey landscape. “Older than mine. This land has long memories.”
Winterfell appeared not as a castle, but as a mountain range fashioned by men. It hunched against the horizon, a series of granite walls and drum-towers fused together over centuries, smoke from a thousand hearths curling from its chimneys to merge with the low clouds. It was nothing like the airy, sun-drenched palaces of Sunspear. This was a fortress of earth and rock, built not for beauty but for endurance.
“It’s grey,” Rhae whispered, her nose leaving a smudge on the glass.
Oberyn laughed, a sharp, warm sound in the cold. “Everything here is grey, or green, or white. You’ll learn new colours. The colour of frost. The colour of a hot spring’s steam.”
The courtyard of Winterfell was a cacophony of northern life that halted to observe their entry. Stableboys, knights in grey tunics, men with thick beards and thicker furs all stopped to watch the Dornish party with open, cautious interest. The Martell banner—a red sun pierced by a golden spear—seemed a vivid, almost violent splash of warmth against the weathered stone.
Lord Eddard Stark awaited them on the steps of the Great Keep. He was a tall man, grave and quiet, with a long face and eyes the colour of a winter sky. He wore his solemnity like a cloak. Beside him stood a boy.
Robb Stark was eight, already bearing the promise of his father’s height and the clear, earnest features of the Starks. His auburn hair was a touch of fire against the gloom. He stood very straight, his hands clasped behind his back, trying to emulate Ned’s stillness. But his eyes, the same cool grey, were alive, darting over the exotic arrivals, lingering on the strange, dark-haired girl stumbling out of the carriage, tripping over her oversized cloak.
Formalities were observed in the Great Hall, a vast space warmed by a roaring central fire but still chilled at the edges. The words flowed over Rhae’s head—talk of tariffs, of wool shipments, of Dornish olives and northern steel, of “mutual interests” and “respectful distance from the capital.” She fidgeted, absorbing impressions: the smell of wet dog and woodsmoke, the rough texture of the stone bench beneath her, the way Lord Stark’s voice was so low and steady it seemed to calm the very air.
Oberyn’s voice, in contrast, was a fluid, playful instrument. “The King enjoys his peace, my lord. We merely ensure our people enjoy their prosperity. Trade needs no royal permission, only willing partners.”
Ned’s gaze flickered, just for an instant, to where Rhae sat swinging her legs. “Prosperity is a worthy goal. Stability is another. The North values both.”
Later, after venison stew and dark bread, the children were released. “Robb,” Lord Stark said. “Show our guests the castle. Mind the inner walls are safe. And the crypts are for history, not for play.”
“Yes, Father,” Robb said, with solemn duty. The moment they were out of the Hall’s heavy doors, the duty dissolved into eager energy. He looked at the Martell cousins—Obara, Nymeria, and the others who had come—and finally at Rhae. “Where would you like to see first?”
Rhae didn’t hesitate. She pointed up. “The highest place.”
That was all it took.
Robb’s planned tour of the glass gardens and the library vanished. Rhae was a darting shadow, a spark of impulsive motion. She saw a low, sloping roof off the armoury and was halfway up it before Robb could finish saying, “We’re not supposed to—” The slate was slippery with cold moisture, but her Dornish-bred balance held. She scrabbled to the ridge, stood precariously, and grinned down at him, the world spread out behind her.
“Gods,” Robb muttered, then, with a grin breaking through his caution, he followed her.
He chased her through the Godswood, a silent, white-weird place that hushed even Rhae for a moment. The heart tree watched them with its solemn red eyes. Then she was off again, racing between the dark pools, challenging him to a stone-skipping contest on the largest, blackest one. Her stones plunked and sank. His, honed by northern practice, skipped four, five times.
“Show me,” she demanded, not upset at losing, but consumed by the need to know how.
He showed her the grip, the flick of the wrist. Their fingers, small and cold, brushed over the smooth stone.
The crypts were next. The heavy, iron-bound door groaned. The air below was ancient and still, smelling of cold stone and forgotten dust. Rows of stern statues sat in niches, iron longswords across their laps, stone direwolves at their feet. The Martell cousins hung back, whispering. Nymeria declared it “creepy.”
Rhae walked slowly down the central aisle, her footsteps echoing. She wasn’t afraid. She was... curious. These were the memories of this place, made solid. She stopped before a statue of a young man with a gentle stone face. “Who’s he?”
“Brandon Stark. My uncle,” Robb said, his voice subdued in the holy quiet. “He died before I was born.”
She looked from the stone face to Robb’s living one. “Do you remember him?”
“No. But my father does. So he stays here.”
She nodded, as if this made perfect sense. To remember was to keep someone. She understood that.
Their friendship was cemented not in quiet moments, but in motion. She was the flame, he the steady hearth she danced around. He knew the safe paths, the hidden alcoves, the rhythms of the guards. She had the mad ideas—could they climb the inner curtain wall? Was there a way onto the roof of the Great Keep? What was in the old broken tower?
He’d caution, “My father said…” or “Maester Luwin says it’s unsafe…”
She’d fix him with those astonishing violet eyes. “Are you scared?”
He never was. Not of the height, or the dark, or the trouble. He was scared of failing his father’s trust. But looking at her, at the sheer, fearless joy in her exploration, the trust seemed to bend. “Come on,” he’d sigh, and lead the way.
One afternoon, they found themselves in the kennels, a warm, barking, straw-strewn haven. A litter of new direwolf pups had been born, their eyes still milky blue. The children sat in the hay, a squirming mass of grey fur and tiny teeth in their laps. Rhae held a small female who persistently chewed on her finger.
“She’s the smallest,” Robb said, stroking another. “But she’s fierce. She fights for milk.”
“She’s like me,” Rhae said, with utter certainty.
Robb looked at her, at the pup, and smiled. It was a true, unguarded smile that lit up his serious face. “Aye. Maybe she is.”
Up in the lord’s solar, over cups of bitter northern ale, the fathers spoke in a different language.
“She has the look of her mother,” Ned Stark said quietly, staring into the fire. The words were not a question.
Oberyn swirled the ale in his cup. “In Dorne, many have dark hair and fine features. She is my brother’s natural daughter, come to live under my protection after her mother’s tragic death. A common enough story.”
“A story that would be less common if her eyes were a different colour,” Ned said, his gaze lifting to meet Oberyn’s. “The Targaryen eyes are not so easily forgotten.”
“The world is forgetting,” Oberyn said, his voice losing its playful edge, becoming as sharp as the spear he was named for. “It wants to forget. Robert drinks and hunts and pretends the past is a beast he slew. Jon Arryn manages the realm. They look for dragons, Lord Stark. Not little girls with dark hair who laugh too loud.”
Ned was silent for a long time. “Why come here? The North is far from the schemes of the capital.”
“Because the North remembers,” Oberyn said simply. “And because you, of all men, know the cost of a child’s safety. You helped bury the bodies. I am helping one live. This trade... it is a start. A thread between two kingdoms who owe the Iron Throne little, and understand the price of loyalty too well.”
“She is a child, not a pawn.”
“She is both,” Oberyn said, no cruelty in it, just a stark fact. “As is your Robb. As are all high-born children. I would have her know there are places in this world built on honour, not just fire and blood. Let her remember the North as a place of solid stone and steady hands. It may be a memory she needs one day.”
The escapade that sealed their bond involved the broken tower. The one everyone said was unstable. The one clearly, utterly forbidden.
Rhae saw it as the final, great challenge. “We have to,” she told Robb, as they stood in the shadows of the inner yard, looking up at its jagged teeth against the grey sky. “It’s the only place we haven’t been.”
“It’s falling down,” Robb argued, but his eyes were on the crumbling staircase visible through a gap in the masonry. “The stones could come loose.”
“We’ll be careful.”
He knew he would say yes. He always did.
The climb was treacherous, exhilarating. They moved like mice, quiet and quick, finding footholds where none seemed to exist. They reached a floor where the floorboards were mostly gone, looking down into a dizzying well of darkness. Light streamed in through great holes in the wall, and the view was breathtaking. They could see all of Winterfell, the winter town beyond, the forests turning black in the distance.
Rhae whooped, the sound echoing in the hollow tower. Robb shushed her, but he was grinning, his heart pounding with the thrill of it.
The sound of heavy footsteps on the stable roof below killed the joy instantly. It was Ser Rodrik Cassel, the master-at-arms, his voice booming. “Who’s up there? By the gods, if that’s you, Stark boy, you’ll feel my cane!”
Panic flashed in Robb’s eyes. They were caught. They’d be hauled before his father. Disgrace. Punishment.
Rhae bit her lip, her fearless bravado faltering for the first time. She looked at Robb, expecting anger, blame.
Instead, he put a finger to his lips. He took a deep breath, and before she could understand what he was doing, he called down, “It’s me, Ser Rodrik! Just me! I’m coming down!”
He motioned for her to hide in a deep shadowed alcove where the wall was still whole. “Stay there. Don’t move until we’re gone.”
“But—” she started.
“Just do it!”
He climbed down alone, meeting Ser Rodrik’s bristling fury. Rhae pressed herself into the cold stone, listening.
“—lost your wits, boy? This tower could’ve come down on your head!”
“I’m sorry, Ser Rodrik. I just wanted to see the view.”
“You’ll see the inside of the cellars if your father hears of this! A week of mucking out the stables for you! Now, march!”
Their voices faded. The courtyard below fell silent. Rhae waited, her heart a frantic bird in her chest. Slowly, she crept down and slipped across the yard, unseen, back towards the guest quarters.
She found Robb later, outside the stables, already carrying a heavy bucket. The smell was foul. He looked up, his face smudged with dirt.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, her voice small.
He shrugged, a gesture already so like his father’s. “It was my idea to go up.”
It wasn’t. They both knew it.
“You took the blame,” she said, the concept forming slowly, wondrously, in her mind.
“You’re a guest,” he said, as if it were the simplest equation in the world. “Besides, you’d have made a mess of mucking out stables. You don’t know how.”
He said it not to shame her, but as a statement of fact, and then he offered her a half-smile. “Want to learn? It’s not so bad.”
In that moment, standing in the cold northern yard amidst the smell of hay and horse dung, Rhae felt something unlock inside her chest. A warmth that had nothing to do with the Dornish sun. It was the warmth of a shared secret, of a burden lifted not by fear, but by choice. He had stood between her and the storm. Not because she was a princess, but because she was his friend.
She remembered the feeling of her mother’s arms, the scent of her hair—but those memories were soft, fading portraits. This was solid. This was a boy with dirt on his hands, taking a week of punishment so she wouldn’t have to.
“Okay,” she said, her voice thick. She picked up a spare shovel, her small hands gripping it fiercely. “Show me.”
As she struggled with the heavy, filthy work, laughing when she almost dropped the shovel on her own foot, Rhae realized she was building a new memory, strong as northern stone. Not of loss, but of finding. For the first time since the world had gone red and then black, she was not alone.