Chapter 7: The Dragon Ball
The fire in the Great Hall did nothing to warm the cold space between the two queens. They sat opposite each other at the long oak table, maps of the North and the Lands of Always Winter spread between them like a battlefield.
Daenerys broke the silence first, her fingers tracing the painted wood of Winterfell. “My Unsullied hold the eastern approach. The Dothraki range along the flanks. They are the finest fighting forces in the world. But they are not limitless. Their deployment requires… consideration.”
“Consideration of what?” Sansa’s voice was calm. “The terrain is what it is. Bogs, forests, frozen rivers. Your southern armies don’t know it.”
“They will learn,” Grey Worm stated, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Jon, seated beside Daenerys, looked like a man being pulled apart. “The army of the dead doesn’t care about terrain. It flows. It overruns. The only thing that matters is fire, dragonglass, and Valyrian steel. And unity.”
“Unity.” Sansa let the word sit. “A pretty concept. My sister and I spent our childhoods hearing songs about it. Then our father lost his head for it. Our brother marched south for it. Unity, it seems, is what Northern blood waters.” She looked directly at Daenerys. “What is your stake in this war, truly? You have a throne to reclaim in the south. Why bleed here?”
Daenerys’s violet eyes flashed. “The Iron Throne is mine by right. But the Great War comes for all men. If the dead win here, there will be no south to reclaim. I fight for the living.”
“A noble cause,” Sansa allowed. “And when the cause is won? Will your armies turn south, leaving us to rebuild with what’s left? Or will they remain, a reminder of where true power lies?” She leaned forward slightly. “Winterfell is the capital of an independent North. My father’s dream. Robb’s crown. I intend to see it endure.”
Tyrion Lannister cleared his throat, the sound dry as old parchment. “An independent North is a lovely sentiment. But sentiment doesn’t stop white walkers. The only way we survive this is together. A unified front. One leadership.”
Y/N, standing just behind Sansa’s chair, felt the words like a spark on tinder. Her voice cut through the thick air, low and deliberate. “One leadership. Like the unified front when Tywin Lannister butchered the Starks at the Red Wedding? Or when his soldiers sacked Winterfell and put your family’s banners on our walls?”
All eyes snapped to her. Tyrion met her gaze, his mismatched eyes wary.
“That was a different time,” he said.
“Was it?” Y/N didn’t blink. “I was eight when Winterfell fell. Not to the dead, but to your father’s bannermen. I was dragged out with the other orphaned squires. They didn’t know what to do with me. Too young to kill cleanly, too old to ignore.” She kept her hands loose at her sides, but every muscle was coiled. “Sold three times before I could grow hair on my chin. First to a Bolton captain who liked to use a knife on his playthings. Then to a travelling merchant from Dorne who found my… configuration… amusing. Finally to a pit-fighter in Mereen who thought a Northern girl with a scarred face would be a novel jape for his rivals.”
The hall was utterly silent. Missandei had gone very still. Daenerys watched, her expression inscrutable.
Y/N took a single step forward, her boots quiet on the stone. “I learned to fight in that pit. I learned that ‘unified leadership’ is just a phrase the powerful use so the powerless die efficiently for them. I clawed my way back here. To this. To the North.” She looked at Jon, then back to Tyrion. “So forgive me if I don’t trust a Lannister’s definition of unity. Or a Targaryen’s.”
Jon’s face was pale. “Y/N…”
“She speaks truth,” Arya said from the shadows near the hearth. She wasn’t looking at anyone, just polishing the tip of her dagger with a cloth. “Truth isn’t pretty. It’s just true.”
Daenerys stood, the movement fluid. “Your suffering is not unique. I was sold too. I was a toy for my brother, then a whore for a warlord. I rose from ashes. We are not so different, you and I.”
“We are entirely different,” Y/N said, her voice flat. “You rose to conquer. I crawled home to protect. There’s a canyon between those two things.”
The tension threatened to snap. Tyrion rubbed his eyes. “This… historical grievances, while poignant, will not kill a single wight. The Night King is coming. How will your independence help with that matter, Warden? Will your pride stop his army?”
Y/N felt Sansa’s hand, a subtle touch on her own where it rested on the back of the queen’s chair. A signal. Enough. Let me.
Y/N yielded, stepping back into her guardian’s pose, but her grey eyes remained locked on Tyrion, a promise of unfinished words.
Sansa folded her hands on the table. “Our pride, as you call it, is what binds every farmer with a scythe and every fisherman with a gutting knife to this castle. They fight for home, not for a distant queen’s dream. That is how we will help. With men who know every inch of this land, who will die on it because it’s theirs.” She turned her gaze to Daenerys. “Place your armies where our scouts advise. Use your dragons as we direct. Win this war with us, not over us. Then, when the dawn comes, you will have the gratitude of the North. Not its fealty.”
Daenerys’s smile was thin, cold. “Gratitude is a fleeting currency.”
“It’s the only one we mint,” Sansa said.
A long, heavy pause stretched. Jon looked between them, despair etched deep. Grey Worm’s hand hadn’t moved from his spear. Missandei watched Daenerys, waiting for a cue.
Finally, Daenerys gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. “We will discuss deployment. Tactics. Not sovereignty. For now.”
It was as much a concession as they would get.
The meeting dissolved into grinding, technical details—supply lines, dragonglass distribution, signaling plans. Y/N listened with half an ear, her focus split between the room and the lingering chill in her bones. Arya had slipped out. The servant lighting the torches seemed to linger too long. Every shadow felt deliberate.
As the group finally stood, the supper hour approaching, Tyrion lingered near Sansa. “Your Warden has a talent for dramatic timing,” he murmured, pouring himself a final cup of wine.
“She has a talent for truth,” Sansa replied, not looking at him. “You’d do well to remember it.”
Y/N walked Sansa back to her solar through the dim corridors. The silence between them was comfortable, worn smooth by years.
Once inside, Sansa let out a breath that seemed to deflate her regal posture. She went to the window, staring out at the gathering twilight. “You shouldn’t have told them that. About the pits.”
“Why not?” Y/N unbuckled her sword belt, laying it across a chair with a heavy thud. “Let them know what their families’ games cost.”
“It gives them a weapon. A vulnerability to probe.”
“They already have weapons. Dragons. Armies. My past is just a story. It can’t hurt me anymore.” She said it with more conviction than she felt.
Sansa turned, her eyes soft. “Can’t it?”
A knock came, swift and urgent. Before Sansa could answer, the door opened. It was a young serving girl, her face flushed. She bobbed a curtsy. “Your Grace. Warden. The… the guards at the east barracks. They said to come get you. It’s Ser Rodrik.”
Y/N was already moving. “What about him?”
The girl’s eyes were wide with fear. “He’s dead, my lady. They found him in his cell. He… he opened his own throat with a eating knife.”
The words hung in the herbal-scented air. Y/N stopped cold.
Sansa’s voice was a whisper. “Guilt?”
“Or silence,” Y/N said, the chill in her bones solidifying into ice. Rodrik was a fighter. A knight. Taking his own life in shame? Possible. But the timing was flawless, cutting off all questioning just as the real games began.
“The crow plucks out its own eyes,” she murmured, recalling the cryptic note.
“What?” Sansa asked.
“Nothing.” Y/N grabbed her sword belt, fastening it back on with swift, practiced motions. “I need to see the body.”
“Y/N.” Sansa’s voice stopped her at the door. “Be careful. Whoever did this, if someone did… they’re in our walls. They’re watching.”
Y/N met her gaze, a silent understanding passing between them. The dead were marching from beyond the Wall. But the betrayal, it was already here, warm and breathing in the heart of Winterfell. She gave a single nod, and stepped out into the cold, dark hall, where every shadow now seemed to have teeth.