#####Chapter 6

Alaric Stormguard moved slower now not because age had caught him, but because a spear had. The wind dragged ash across the parapets of the Red Keep, and beneath its weight, even the banners hung heavy.

The wound throbbed in rhythm with each heartbeat, the bruises blooming purple under tightly wound bandages. He hated the chamber’s silence almost as much as the whispers beyond its walls.

Whispers. That was all King’s Landing seemed to hold anymore. Poisoned tongues beneath powdered smiles. Every hallway echoed with rumor, every servant’s glance held secrets.

Alaric leaned against the table in his chambers, fingers trembling slightly as he unfolded a letter sealed in black wax. It was unsigned.

“The wolf stirs. Cut it down before it howls.”

His lips drew into a line of steel.

For days, his refusal to carry out the King’s order to send an assassin to Catherine Valeris had churned the court’s tides. They called him honorable, foolish, outdated. In King Hadrian’s eye, loyalty now had teeth, not conscience.

Ser Elara Ironshield entered without knocking, her snow-colored cloak trailing after her like the blade sheathed at her hip. She had been his trusted guardian ever since his rise. “The guards talk openly now,” she murmured, voice sharp as broken ice. “They say the King favors Renly more than you.”

Alaric didn’t respond.

“You were attacked in daylight,” Elara continued, “and no one has been questioned. What does that tell you?”

“That justice is not a luxury the crown can afford,” Alaric replied bitterly.

Elara placed a worn sigil on the table. It was carved from Direwood bark, shaped like a white wolf mid-howl.

“The girl is gaining ground,” she said.

“She was born to rise.”

In the Eastern reaches of the realm, beyond the Mistbound Hills and across the Sea of Stones, Catherine Valeris walked barefoot across the training pits of Dothrak.

Dust clung to her skin like memory.

She had arrived weeks ago, drawn by whispers of a warrior tribe who respected no crowns, only survival. She had earned their eyes not by demanding, but by enduring. Her white she-wolf form had frightened them; her frost-fanged fury had won them.

Yet beneath her armor, Catherine’s heart pulsed not with vengeance, but with restlessness.

That morning, the dream returned.

She stood in a ruined court. Kaelyn Stormguard knelt at the base of a shattered throne, eyes burning, crown twisted and bleeding in his hand. A golden-eyed woman stood behind him, her breath forming frost. Catherine had tried to speak in the dream, but her voice came out as a howl.

She’d awoken breathless.

“You’re troubled,” said her handmaiden, a sharp-featured woman named Nyla.

“I keep seeing the same throne,” Catherine replied. “It burns, but it calls to me. And him.”

“Prophecy,” Nyla said, “is not a path. It’s a warning.”

Catherine turned toward the distant cliffs. “Then let it warn those who try to stop me.”

Back in King’s Landing, Lady Elira Stormguard sat by a fireplace, her face partially lit, her eyes unreadable. She pressed her fingers against a letter from Seraphine a formal decree demanding Tyrion’s trial begin at the Eyrie.

Elira’s thoughts weren’t on Tyrion. They were on Elara.

Her daughter had grown quicker than wolves aged sharp, silent, attentive. Elira feared not Elara’s blade, but her gaze. That girl had seen too much, known too much. She would one day either save their bloodline… or destroy it.

Elira had sent riders northward to call in old debts packs that owed her favors during the last Alpha Rebellion. If Catherine truly sought the throne, she would need to earn the alliances Elira had built in secret.

But Elira herself had doubts.

“She carries power,” she whispered to the fire. “But does she carry wisdom? Does she know when not to bare teeth?”

Far north, beyond the Vale, Kaelyn Stormguard stood at the edge of a frost-bitten cliff. He had received no word from Catherine, no signal from the pack, no summons from court. And yet, he felt the realm shifting beneath his feet. Like distant thunder.

Beside him, Joran Ironhart sat cross-legged, cleaning his blade with deliberate rhythm.

“She still haunts your thoughts?” Joran asked, not looking up.

Kaelyn didn’t answer immediately. “It’s not just her,” he murmured. “I dream of a war where no side wins. Of wolves tearing each other apart. Of me standing alone with blood on my hands.”

Joran looked up then. “If you’re meant to be king, Kaelyn… do you fear ruling? Or do you fear what it’ll cost?”

Kaelyn closed his eyes.

“I fear who I’ll become.”

At the Eyrie, Seraphine Stormguard stood in a moonlit chamber surrounded by glass and ice. Tyrion Lannister sat bound, lips curled in trademark defiance.

“Do you believe you’ll be found guilty?” she asked.

Tyrion tilted his head. “I believe justice is just another blade wielded by whoever holds the hilt.”

Seraphine’s pale eyes narrowed. She hated how clever he was. How sharp. How right.

“You may yet prove valuable,” she said finally.

“But if your words burn bridges, I’ll make sure your silence rebuilds them.”

Later that night, in the dungeons beneath the Red Keep, Garrick Draven traced the scars on his arms like chapters of a cursed scripture. He had received a letter anonymous, but marked with a snow sigil.

It simply read: “A war is coming. Fight not for crown, but for the blood that bleeds beside you.”

Garrick, the lone wolf once feared across battlefields, sat in silence. Then he stood and began sharpening his blade.