Chapter 17: The Morning After
The grey light of dawn found its way through the shutters, slicing the room into slabs of shadow and pale, cold illumination. Y/N woke to it, and to the weight of another body against hers.
It was a foreign feeling. Not unwelcome. Just… immense.
Missandei lay curled into her, dark hair fanned across the furs, one hand resting flat on Y/N’s chest, just above her heartbeat. The rhythm of her breathing was slow, deep. Asleep. Y/N didn’t move. She watched the light creep across the stone floor, listened to the distant, familiar sounds of Winterfell stirring—a clang from the smithy, the lowing of a goat from the yard, the shuffle of guards changing post.
Last night was not a dream. The memory was etched into her skin more sharply than the sigil. The press of a mouth, the slide of hands, the astonishing collapse of a wall she hadn’t even known was holding up the roof of her world. She felt stripped bare in a way that had nothing to do with nakedness.
Missandei stirred. Her fingers flexed, feeling the scar tissue under her palm before her eyes opened. They found Y/N’s immediately. No disorientation. Just a slow, soft recognition that made Y/N’s throat tight.
“The castle is waking,” Missandei whispered. Her voice was sleep-rough, intimate.
“I know.”
“I should go.” She said it, but she didn’t move. Her thumb traced a small, circular scar on Y/N’s sternum. “Before the whispers start. My queen does not need her advisor gossiped about in the kitchen.”
Y/N nodded. The practicalities were a cold tide coming in. She sat up, the furs falling to her waist, and the morning air bit. She reached for her smallclothes and tunic, moving with the quiet efficiency of a soldier. Missandei dressed too, the simple grey shift slipping over her head, her movements graceful even in the dimness.
At the door, Missandei paused. Her hand was on the iron latch. She looked back, her profile framed by the rough-hewn wood. The scholar was gone. In her place was a woman with secrets of her own, her dark eyes holding something fierce and tender.
“We will speak again,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “Before you ride to war. Before anything else.”
“Yes,” Y/N said. It was all she could manage.
A faint, knowing smile touched Missandei’s lips. Then she was gone, the door shutting with a soft, final click.
The silence she left behind was different. It wasn’t the old, hollow silence of a fortress. It was charged, like the air before a lightning strike. Y/N stood alone in the center of the room for a long moment. She could still smell myrrh on her own skin.
She walked to the bronze mirror. Turning, she looked at her back in the greying light. The twin-headed raven. She didn’t reach to trace it. She just looked. Missandei’s words from the night before knotted in her gut. ‘It binds you to a person. To the blood of the Stark in Winterfell.’
It didn’t feel like a chain. Not right then. It felt like a tether. An anchor point in a world that had just tilted on its axis.
A louder, more insistent knock came. This one was all business. “Warden? The Queen requests you in the solar. Before the morning council.”
“I’m coming,” Y/N called back, her voice back to its usual gravel. She pulled on her leathers, the stiff, familiar weight a comfort. She buckled her sword belt, the leather hilt fitting into her palm like it was grown there. She draped the heavy bear cloak over her shoulders, covering the sigil, covering the memory of warm hands. She was the Warden again.
Sansa was already at the map table when Y/N entered the solar. She wore deep blue wool, her hair in a severe braid, but shadows smudged under her Tully-blue eyes. She looked like she’d been up for hours.
“Cerwyn,” Sansa said, without preamble. She jabbed a finger at the map. “A rider came in just before dawn. From a crofter loyal to House Stark, not to his lord. He says men wearing Cerwyn’s colors are hauling crates from the old slate quarry on the eastern border. At night.”
“Dragonglass,” Y/N said, joining her at the table. The map was a chaos of ink and notes.
“Or something else he doesn’t want me to see.” Sansa’s mouth was a thin line. “Lord Cerwyn’s last raven claimed his stores were depleted. That he needed more from Dragonstone to arm his men for the coming winter campaigns.”
“He lied.”
“Obviously.” Sansa sighed, rubbing a spot between her brows. “I can’t summon him here. It would be an accusation. It would force his hand, and if he’s hoarding dragonglass, he’s already thinking of forces that aren’t mine.”
Y/N studied the map. The route to Castle Cerwyn was not long, but it was through thick woods and frozen streams. Good for an ambush. “I’ll go. Today. A small party. Tell him it’s a routine inspection of his winter stores before the deep freeze. He can’t refuse that.”
“And if he shows you nothing?”
“Then I’ll look at what he doesn’t show me.” Y/N met Sansa’s gaze. “I’ll look him in the eye while I do it.”
Sansa held her look for a long moment, and Y/N saw the young girl she’d sworn to protect wrestling with the steel-hearted queen she’d become. The True Heir. The weight of the mark on Y/N’s back seemed to hum.
“Take five of your best. Quiet ones.” Sansa finally said. “If he is stockpiling weapons, he’s either afraid or ambitious. Both are dangerous.”
“I’ll take Arron, Dacey, the Umber twins, and Glover.” Y/N said, already turning the logistics in her head. “We’ll be on the road within the hour.”
“Y/N.” Sansa’s voice stopped her at the door. The queen’s expression had softened, just a fracture. “Be careful. The North remembers, but sometimes it remembers the wrong things. Old grudges. Perceived slights. You carry my authority. That makes you a target.”
“I’ve always been a target,” Y/N said, a faint, grim twist on her lips. “It’s why you keep me around.”
She left the solar, the mantle of duty settling onto her shoulders, layered now over the memory of a touch. In the courtyard, the air was a slap of cold. Her horse, a shaggy grey destrier named Frost, was already saddled. Her chosen riders gathered around, breath fogging, faces hard and expectant.
“Trouble?” Arron asked, checking his saddle girth. His beard was thick with frost.
“Maybe,” Y/N said, swinging up into the saddle. The leather creaked. “Just a look at Lord Cerwyn’s accounting. Keep your eyes open. His lands are nervous.”
She looked up once, at the high window of the guest chambers. She saw nothing. No face in the glass. But she felt it. A tether, pulling taut.
She turned Frost toward the main gate. “Move out,” she said, and her small company fell in behind her, their hoofbeats a steady, purposeful drum on the frozen earth, carrying them away from the fragile warmth of the castle and into the waiting, silent woods.