Chapter 15: Summer
The night had been too quiet.
Dark clouds covered the moon and stars, and even the cold wind seemed to have stopped moving. Winterfell and Wintertown lay beneath a strange stillness, the kind that made men glance over their shoulders without knowing why. Arthur and Ena were returning from the edge of town when red light suddenly rose from the west side of the castle.
Smoke followed.
Thick and dark, full of sparks.
"Fire!" someone screamed. "The granary is on fire!"
The bells of Winterfell began to ring, sharp and urgent. Commoners rushed from their houses with buckets, basins, and anything that could carry water. Guards shouted orders. Horses screamed from the stables. The firelight colored the stone walls and the low clouds above them, turning half the night red. The sound of cracking wood mixed with splashing water and frightened voices.
Ena stopped beside Arthur, her eyes narrowing. "That is wrong."
Arthur did not answer immediately. His gaze moved over the chaos, the guards running toward the flames, the servants carrying water, the commoners crowding the roads. Then he saw a shadow.
A man moved through the confusion, staying close to walls, avoiding the fire and the people rushing toward it. He did not move like a panicked servant. He moved like someone using panic as cover. Quick, careful, familiar with the grounds. He headed toward the inner keep.
"There," Arthur said.
Ena saw him a heartbeat later.
They moved without further words, slipping into a side lane and following from a distance. The shadow crossed courtyards, vaulted a low wall, moved under the cover of smoke, and reached a side door near the inner gardens. He passed through and vanished into darkness.
Arthur and Ena crouched behind holly bushes outside the moon gate. The smoke from the granary drifted across the castle yard, stinging the eyes and covering too much. It was not just a fire. It was a door being opened somewhere else.
"It is an assassin," Ena whispered. "The fire is a decoy. It pulled the guards away from the inner keep."
Arthur nodded, and the tavern rumor returned to him with cold clarity. Bran Stark. Fallen from a tower. Unconscious. A child who had seen something he should not have seen. Now an assassin in the inner keep while the guards chased fire.
Bran was the target.
"We go in," Arthur said.
"I am going with you."
"No. Two people are easier to spot. You find guards and tell them someone entered the inner keep. Do not give them the exact place unless you are sure they can reach it without warning him. I will go ahead."
Ena's face tightened. "You promised not to act alone."
"I promised not to leave you behind without telling you. I am telling you. Go."
"That is not the same thing."
"It is close enough for tonight."
She looked ready to argue, but the sound of the bells kept ringing, and both of them knew time was already bleeding away. Ena cursed under her breath, then turned and disappeared into the smoke-lined alley.
Arthur drew his northern hand axe and slipped through the side door.
The inner garden was quiet compared to the rest of the castle. Too quiet. The noise of the fire reached it from a distance, muffled by stone and walls. Arthur moved along the base of the keep, keeping low, eyes fixed on every lit window above. Somewhere inside, a floorboard creaked. Then came a dull thud, like a body or heavy furniture hitting the ground.
His eyes snapped upward.
Second floor.
Bran's room. Or close enough that it did not matter.
Arthur rushed toward the stairs, but before he reached them, a woman screamed. Steel rang against something hard. Then a direwolf roared from the other side of the garden.
Arthur stopped.
Summer.
Bran's direwolf.
In the original memory, the wolf had saved him. But here, after Bran's fall, Summer had been kept isolated in a pen. A fine human decision. Take the one creature most likely to defend the boy and lock it away because it frightened the servants. People really did work hard to make murder convenient.
Arthur changed direction at once.
The pen stood near the far side of the garden, barred and locked. Inside, something large moved in the dark. The iron lock was thick but not made for an axe. Arthur raised the weapon and struck hard. Once. Twice. On the third blow, the lock split, and he pulled the gate open.
Two green eyes opened in the darkness.
Summer stepped forward with a low growl. The direwolf was larger than Arthur expected, silver-grey fur catching what little light reached the pen, fangs bared, body tense. It looked less like an animal and more like judgment with teeth.
Arthur raised both hands and took one careful step back.
"Easy," he said softly. "Bran. Bran is in danger. Upstairs. Your boy is in danger."
Summer's growl deepened.
Arthur swallowed. "Bran," he repeated, slower. "Bran. Danger. Go to Bran."
For a few seconds, the direwolf stared at him. Its nostrils moved, taking in his scent, the smoke, the blood perhaps already in the air. Then something changed. Summer's ears lifted. A low snarl came from deep in its chest, and it shot past Arthur like a silver shadow.
Arthur followed.
By the time he reached Bran's room, it was already chaos.
A young maid lay dead in a spreading pool of blood. Lady Catelyn Stark stood near the bed, pale as bone, gripping a blood-stained dagger. Her dress was torn, her breath ragged, her back nearly against the wall. Two masked men in black lay dead on the floor, one with his throat cut, another with a dagger buried in his chest. A third assassin pressed forward with a short sword, driving Catelyn back toward the bed where Bran lay unconscious.
Then Summer hit him.
The direwolf lunged through the doorway with a roar that filled the room. Its jaws closed around the assassin's sword wrist. Bone cracked. The blade fell. The man screamed, but not for long. Summer drove him to the ground and tore into his throat with brutal certainty. The struggle weakened in seconds, then stopped.
Silence fell, broken only by Catelyn's breathing.
Summer released the corpse and leaped onto Bran's bed, placing its body between the boy and everyone else in the room. Blood stained its muzzle. Its green eyes moved from Catelyn to Arthur and back again, growling low, ready to kill the next thing that came too close.
Arthur stopped at once and raised his hands.
Lady Catelyn looked at the wolf, then at Arthur standing in the doorway with an axe, then at the direction from which Summer had come. Her eyes sharpened through the fear.
"You released him," she said, voice trembling.
"Yes, my lady," Arthur replied, lowering the axe slowly. "I saw someone enter the inner keep during the fire. When I heard the struggle, I knew Bran was the target. Summer could reach him faster than I could."
Catelyn closed her eyes for a moment and drew a shaking breath. When she opened them again, the terror was still there, but her back had straightened. Noblewomen, Arthur thought, were frightening creatures when fear failed to break them.
"If not for you, my son and I would be dead."
"Summer did the killing."
"You opened the door."
Arthur bowed his head slightly. There were worse things to be blamed for.
Catelyn gripped the bloody dagger tighter, then forced herself to speak with the authority of a lady of Winterfell. "Fetch Maester Luwin. Send guards to seal the inner keep and search for accomplices. No one leaves until I say so."
"Yes, my lady."
Arthur turned to leave and nearly collided with Ena and several armed guards rushing down the corridor.
"How is it?" Ena asked, grabbing his arm.
"The assassin is dead. Bran and Lady Catelyn are alive. Take the guards and hold the stairs. No one enters without her order. I am getting Maester Luwin."
Ena searched his face, saw that he was whole, and released him. "Go."
Half an hour later, the inner keep had become a sealed nest of steel and whispers. Maester Luwin entered Bran's room. Guards searched halls, doors, servant passages, and windows. Lady Catelyn did not leave her son's side. Summer remained on the bed, blood still on his muzzle, watching everyone as if considering how many throats might still need opening.
A heavy purse of gold dragons was delivered to Arthur before dawn.
It was more money than any previous commission had given him. More than enough to matter. Lady Catelyn's gratitude had weight, and in Westeros, gratitude with gold was the only kind men could safely count. Arthur weighed the purse in his hand and put it away without smiling.
This was not a common assassination. It was not a tavern knife, not a merchant's grudge, not a bandit's revenge. This was noble blood, noble secrets, and noble murder. He had touched the edge of something far larger than himself, and edges still cut.
If he remained in Winterfell, sooner or later the struggle between Stark and Lannister would drag him in completely. He might profit. He might die. More likely both, in the wrong order.
He could no longer stay.