Whispers Before the Storm
In the frozen stillness of the North, where wind howls like the dead and ice never fully melts, the bells of Winterkeep rang only once—for the fallen. Lord Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, was dead. Betrayed not by blade, but by betrayal in the court of southern kings. His body was returned not whole, but marked—burned, fractured, shamed. The message was clear. Yet it was not silence that followed. From the moment his body crossed the gates of Winterkeep, a new sound echoed across the ice: hammer upon iron. ...