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The iron shard slices the cork with a faint pop. Just a drop. Two, perhaps. Enough to dull the edge of pain without blunting the mind. That’s what you tell yourself. That’s the plan. The vial tilts in trembling fingers. Bitter liquid clings to your tongue and burns the back of your throat. A warmth - not comfort, but numbness - spreads.
You wrap the salted meat back into its waxed cloth, tuck the shard beneath it back into the hidden alcove. Carefully. Slowly. The rhythm of survival.
It creeps inward, the milk of the poppy - not like water, but like moss, thick and quiet. You lower yourself onto the straw and stone, the pain dulling from fire to ember. Still there, but containable. Your breathing grows deeper. Slower. You fold yourself around the ache and will it into stillness.
--
Snow crunches beneath your boots.
You lift your face to Winterfell’s cold. Real cold. Not damp or rot or mildew, but honest cold, skyborne and clean. The towers rise around you, unburnt. Smoke coils from the chimneys. You smell bread. Pine. Wolves.
You walk the courtyard. The gates stand open. There are no chains. Your shadow is long. From the hall, a voice calls your name. Ned Stark waits atop the steps, his face neither smiling nor stern. He regards you with something quieter - something that aches.
“You kept the promise,” he says.
You want to speak. Tell him what you endured. What you’ve lost. But the words don’t come. He steps toward you, places a hand on your shoulder.
“Then you know what must come next-”
The world fractures.
The wind screams. The snow melts to ash. The sky splits and you fall-
Down into the dark. Down into your cell.
--
Your body jolts upright, breath sharp in your chest. The ache is there- but it's not the same. No longer drowning in it. No longer afraid of it. You're not whole. But you're healing. You feel the difference in your breath, in the way your spine sets when you sit, the way your fingers flex around an unseen hilt.
Your strength is returning- but not as mere muscle or will. It’s resolve. It’s the memory of snow and home and the promise you made to a man who never got to see it kept.
You won't die here. You won’t let that dream be a lie.
From the gloom beside you, the Whispering Man stirs.
“Ahh… not every dream is a mercy. Some chase us backward. Some… forward. But you remember it now. Don’t you?”
You say nothing. But the cold has returned- not from the stone floor, but from inside. A blade of purpose beneath your ribs.
You will not forget.
>Injured condition removed.
>Gain +10 on the next endurance-related test
