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Eddard

The visitors poured through the castle gates in a river of gold and silver and polished steel, three hundred strong, a pride of bannerhts, of sworn swords and freeriders Over their heads a dozen golden banners whipped back and forth in the northern wind, e of Baratheon

Ned knew many of the riders There caold, and there Sandor Clegane with his terrible burned face The tall boy beside him could only be the crown prince, and that stunted little man behind them was surely the Ie hts in the snohite cloaks of the Kingsguard, seeer to Neduntil he vaulted off the back of his warhorse with a fa "Ned! Ah, but it is good to see that frozen face of yours" The king looked hied at all"

Would that Ned had been able to say the same Fifteen years past, when they had ridden forth to win a throne, the Lord of Storm’s End had been clean-shaven, clear-eyed, and muscled like a maiden’s fantasy Six and a half feet tall, he towered over lesser reat antlered heliant He’d had a giant’s strength too, his weapon of choice a spiked iron warhammer that Ned could scarcely lift In those days, the s to hi to hiht Ned had last seen the king nine years before during Balon Greyjoy’s rebellion, when the stag and the direwolf had joined to end the pretensions of the self-proclaiht they had stood side by side in Greyjoy’s fallen stronghold, where Robert had accepted the rebel lord’s surrender and Ned had taken his son Theon as hostage and ward, the king had gained at least eight stone A beard as coarse and black as iron wire covered his jaw to hide his double chin and the sag of the royal jowls, but nothing could hide his stomach or the dark circles under his eyes

Yet Robert was Ned’s king now, and not just a friend, so he said only, "Your Grace Winterfell is yours"

By then the others were dis forward for their mounts Robert’s queen, Cersei Lannister, entered on foot with her younger children The wheelhouse in which they had ridden, a huge double-decked carriage of oiled oak and gilded metal pulled by forty heavy draft horses, was too wide to pass through the castle gate Ned knelt in the snow to kiss the queen’s ring, while Robert e-lost sister Then the children had been brought forward, introduced, and approved of by both sides

No sooner had those for had said to his host, "Take me down to your crypt, Eddard I would pay my respects"

Ned loved hi her still after all these years He called for a lantern No other words were needed The queen had begun to protest They had been riding since dawn, everyone was tired and cold, surely they should refresh themselves first The dead would wait She had said no more than that; Robert had looked at her, and her twin brother Jaime had taken her quietly by the arm, and she had said no ether, Ned and this king he scarcely recognized The winding stone steps were narrow Ned went first with the lantern "I was starting to think ould never reach Winterfell," Robert complained as they descended "In the south, the way they talk aboutas the other six combined"

"I trust you enjoyed the journey, Your Grace?"

Robert snorted "Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck I’ve never seen such a vast emptiness Where are all your people?"

"Likely they were too shy to co up the stairs, a cold breath froht in the north"

Robert snorted "More likely they were hiding under the snow Snow, Ned!" The king put one hand on the wall to steady himself as they descended

"Late suh," Ned said "I hope they did not trouble you They are usually mild"

"The Others take your mild snows," Robert swore "What will this place be like in winter? I shudder to think"

"The winters are hard," Ned admitted "But the Starks will endure We always have"

"You need to come south," Robert told hiarden there are fields of golden roses that stretch away as far as the eye can see The fruits are so ripe they explode in your mouth--melons, peaches, fireplums, you’ve never tasted such sweetness You’ll see, I brought you soood wind off the bay, the days are so hot you can barely ht to see the towns, Ned! Flowers everywhere, the ood that you can get drunk just breathing the air Everyone is fat and drunk and rich" He laughed and slapped his own airls, Ned!" he exclai "I swear, women lose all ht beneath the castle Even in the streets, it’s too daowns, silk if they have the silver and cotton if not, but it’s all the sa and the cloth sticks to their skin, they hed happily

Robert Baratheon had always been a e appetites, a e anyone could lay at the door of Eddard Stark Yet Ned could not help but notice that those pleasures were taking a toll on the king Robert was breathing heavily by the time they reached the bottoht as they stepped out into the darkness of the crypt

"Your Grace," Ned said respectfully He swept the lantern in a wide seht touched the stones underfoot and brushed against a long procession of granite pillars that marched ahead, two by two, into the dark Between the pillars, the dead sat on their stone thrones against the walls, backs against the sepulchres that contained their mortal remains "She is down at the end, with Father and Brandon"

He led the way between the pillars and Robert folloordlessly, shivering in the subterranean chill It was always cold down here Their footsteps rang off the stones and echoed in the vault overhead as they walked a the dead of House Stark The Lords of Winterfell watched them pass Their likenesses were carved into the stones that sealed the to out into eternal darkness, while great stone direwolves curled round their feet The shifting shadowspassed by

By ancient custosword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep the vengeful spirits in their crypts The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the hosts were free to roam the castle now He hoped not The first Lords of Winterfell had been men hard as the land they ruled In the centuries before the Dragonlords ca thes in the North

Ned stopped at last and lifted the oil lantern The crypt continued on into darkness ahead of them, but beyond this point the to for their dead, waiting for him and his children Ned did not like to think on that "Here," he told his king

Robert nodded silently, knelt, and bowed his head

There were three tombs, side by side Lord Rickard Stark, Ned’s father, had a long, stern face The stonenity, stone fingers holding tight to the sword across his lap, but in life all swords had failed him In two smaller sepulchres on either side were his children

Brandon had been twenty when he died, strangled by order of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen only a few short days before he was to wed Catelyn Tully of Riverrun His father had been forced to watch him die He was the true heir, the eldest, born to rule

Lyanna had only been sixteen, a child-wo loveliness Ned had loved her with all his heart Robert had loved her even more She was to have been his bride

"She wassaid after a silence His eyes lingered on Lyanna’s face, as if he could will her back to life Finally he rose, ht "Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?" His voice was hoarse with rerief "She deserved more than darkness"

"She was a Stark of Winterfell," Ned said quietly "This is her place"

"She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean"

"I ith her when she died," Ned re "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father" He could hear her still at times Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses Proth and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes Ned reers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling fro They had found hirief The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand fro her flohen I can," he said "Lyanna wasfond of flowers"

The king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh "I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her"

"You did," Ned reminded him

"Only once," Robert said bitterly

They had coether at the ford of the Trident while the battle crashed around thereat antlered helaryen prince armored all in black On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight The waters of the Trident ran red around the hooves of their destriers as they circled and clashed, again and again, until at last a crushing blow froon and the chest beneath it When Ned had finally coar lay dead in the strea waters for rubies knocked free of his arht," Robert admitted "A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves"