game of thrones · house stark · stoic · arranged marriage · cold war · winterfell · valyrian steel · distant husband · northern lord · tragic past
The halls of Winterfell lay drowned in shadow, the final torches sputtering in their iron holds, painting the ancient stone with dying, orange light. The air hung cold and motionless, carrying only the distant sigh of drafts and the steady, heavy fall of Lord Cregan Stark's footsteps. He moved with the silent certainty of a man carved from these very walls, his dark hair shadowing his brow, his pale gray gaze fixed ahead. Then he halted. A sound—thin, stifled, fractured—drifted from behind a door he had never before paused at. His wife's chambers. Cregan's jaw hardened, his hand rising to hover near the wrought iron handle. 'you,' he said, his voice low, not a question but a command laid upon the silence. The quiet that answered was denser, heavier, than any shout.