His astonishment was so intense it became comical. He went ahead and looked over his shoulder to see if it was really him she was addressing. But of course, the only thing behind him was the window, and beyond it, that incredible view of the northern lands. So he ended up turning back to look at Lya, and must have seen that her gaze was fastened directly on his face, since he breathed 'by the old gods,' in a voice that sounded rusty from disuse.

"It's no use calling on the higher powers," she informed him, crossing her arms to show him who the boss was. "In case you haven't noticed, they aren't paying attention to you. Otherwise, they wouldn't have left you here to fester for..." Lya took in his outfit, which looked considerably new. "How long has it been?"

He stared at her, his black eyes still wide from shock, and said in that low voice, "What do you mean...?"

Lya couldn't help rolling her eyes. Impatiently, she translated: "How long have you been dead?"

He narrowed his eyes like that little piece of information was too a surprise. "I died," he agreed like it wasn't obvious. And instead of answering her question, he shook his head. "I don't understand," he said, in tones of wonder. "I don't understand how it is that you can see me. All these years, no one has ever—"

"Yes," she cut him off, tired of always hearing the same thing. Ghosts were so selfish. All they did was talk about themselves. "Yes, it is shocking."

He blinked those long, dark lashes. It wasn't often Lya ran into a ghost who also happened to be… well, handsome. And this one in particular... hell, he must have been something back when he was alive because here he was totally dead and Lya was struggling against the will to catch a peek at what was going on beneath his black garments. Trying to keep it professional, she cleared her throat and gave him that feral look she did so well.

"What is your problem? Why are you still here?" He looked at her, his expression blank but interested. Lya elaborated. "Why haven't you gone to the other side?"

He shook his head again. He had a mane of black hair, so thick and so dark that made him seem ever paler in death. "I don't know what you mean."

Lya was getting sort of warm, but it was snowing outside, so she didn't know what to do about it. "What do you mean, you don't know what I mean?" she snapped, pushing some hair away from her eyes. "You are dead. You don't belong here. You're supposed to be somewhere else doing whatever it is that happens to people after they die. You're not supposed to… to stay here."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "What if I like to be here?" he wanted to know.

Lya wasn't sure, but she had a feeling he was making fun of her. And if there was someone who didn't like being made fun of it was Lady Lyanna Mormont of Bear Island. Not at all. When she was little and had just arrived in Highgarden, people used to do it all the time. That is, until Lya learned how effectively a fist connecting with their nose could shut them up. But she wasn't ready to start hitting this guy here — not yet. She was getting there, only... Lya had just traveled a gazillion miles for what had seemed like forever in order to live with a bunch of stupid kids and then had found a ghost in her chambers...?

"Whoever you are, you can stay wherever you like. Go ahead, stay forever. I don't care. But you can't stay here."

"Jon Snow," he said, not moving.

"What?"

"That's who I am."

Lya nodded briefly. It makes sense, she thought, realizing who she was talking to. "I don't care, Jon Snow. You can't stay here."

"What's your name?" he asked seeming like he was enjoying the rough way she spoke.

Lya glued her eyes on his. "I don't have time for this. Tell me what you want, then go away."

"Lady Dacey called you... Lyanna, wasn't it?" he said, black eyes glimmering. "That was my father's sister's name. The she-wolf. The wildest damsel of all the North, they used to call her. They obviously never met you."

Suddenly, Lya felt very self-aware. Was that an insult she had heard, somewhere in what he'd said? She felt her face blush. "And you are the bastard of Winterfell," she said unkindly.

That stung, she could tell. His lips parted but he made no sound. When he did manage to speak again, he used an angry tone that matched hers. "Lord Eddard Stark is my father, yes. However, Lady Stark isn't my mother."

"Thus making you the bastard," Lya insisted. "Look, let's make something very clear, Jon Snow. Lord Eddard Stark was your father. When you were alive. In the past. Now there's a new lady in Winterfell. My mother. And this is my room. So you need to leave."

"I need to leave?" he raised a thick, black eyebrow. "I've been here longer. Why do I have to leave?"

Lya was getting really mad. Mostly because she felt so hot and wanted to open a window, but the windows were behind him, and she didn't want to get that close to the dead boy. "This is my room. I'm not about to share it with some dead bastard."

This time the message got through. Lya instantly wished she hadn't said anything. She watched his angry face contort. At the same time, the old mirror hanging over her new dressing table started to wobble dangerously on the hook that held it to the wall.

That was the thing about ghosts: they were so temperamental! The slightest thing could set them off.

"Hey," she called, holding up both her hands, palms outward. "Stop that!"

But Jon Snow was pissed off. He started complaining about a lot of things Lyanna didn't care about wagging a finger in her face. The nerve!

"Hey!" she said again, irritated. Lya violently slapped his hand away from her face and hissed: "Stop with the mirror already. And next time you raise a finger at me will be the last time you have fingers." She saw, with satisfaction, that the mirror had stopped shaking.

Then she glanced back at his face. Ghosts didn't have blood, of course. But at that moment, all the color drained from Jon Snow's face. Looking down at his own finger as if she had burned a hole through it, he seemed perfectly incapable of saying anything else. It was probably the first time he'd been touched by anyone since dying.

Lya took advantage of his astonishment, and said, in her sternest, most no-nonsense tone: "Listen carefully, Jon Snow. This is my room. You can't stay here. You need to either let me help you get to where you're supposed to go, or you'll have to find some other castle to haunt."

Jon Snow looked up from his finger, his expression still one of utter disbelief. "Who are you?" he asked softly. "What kind of… girl are you?" He hesitated so long before he said the word girl that it was clear he wasn't at all certain it was an appropriate term in her case.

Outrageous.

"I'm the girl who'll kill you a second time if you don't disappear," she said crankily. "It is up to you. I'll give you some time to consider it. But when I return, I don't wish to see you anymore." Lya turned around and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

There was no other way. She didn't usually lose arguments with spirits, but she had a feeling she was losing that one, and badly. She shouldn't have been so short with him, and she shouldn't have been rude. Something had happened in there, something had come over her... Was it because of how he looked?

Maybe I should visit the godswood and ask for the help of the old gods, she thought heading down the stairs. What else could she do if he refused to leave?

Give him some time, Lyanna.

He'll understand. They always do.

Well, most of the time, anyway.

Dinner was very much like it'd been in Highgarden: a lot of food everywhere, coming and going, and everybody laughing and speaking at the same time. The northerner boys were definitely nothing like Loras though — they chewed with their mouths open, and ate every single lemon cake before Lya even had the chance to taste one.

Afterwards, she decided it'd be wiser to avoid her room and give Jon Snow plenty of time to make up his mind about whether he was leaving with or without his teeth. Lya wasn't a big fan of violence — although she was considered an extremely violent girl by many. It was an unfortunate by-product of her profession: sometimes the only way you could make someone listen was with your fists. A technique well mastered in Bear Island, she remembered.

Astoundingly, little Arya offered to show her around the castle. Lya thought the girl had a suspiciously mischievous grin, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. They started the tour in the upper chambers, large and warm, and then made their way down and outside. The stable had beautiful horses well taken care of. They were white, black, brown and gray. Lya was in love with horses and, by the way Arya's eyes glistened, it was likely she felt the same. The kennels weren't half as interesting and only had a few dozen hounds already asleep. But there was this particular wicket that seemed to hold a wild, uncontrollable beast.

Lya stopped in her tracks. "What's in there?"

A shadow crossed Arya's face. "Ghost," she said darkly.

Lya's heart skipped a beat. What did she mean? A... a ghost? Could she see them as well? It was too much for a single day in Winterfell. And how could she have imprisoned a spirit? It was unheard of. I didn't make any sense.

Lya tried not to show her emotions. "What do you mean?"

Arya bit her lip like she didn't want to get into the subject. "Direwolf," she explained. "My brother's. Half... half-brother," she corrected. "Jon. He called him Ghost."

Oh. So Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell, had also been given a direwolf from his father's banners. But the name... Why was it making Lya's soul tremble with fear?

"Why is he in there?" she asked.

"Because of you." Arya turned her back at Lya and kept walking.

Lya had to rush to keep up. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Since Jon—" her little voice died away. Arya took a deep breath and tried again. "Ghost liked to stay in Jon's room. He didn't want to leave. Ever. For anything. But with your coming here... Father thought you shouldn't be forced to live with something that might eat you through the night."

Lya mentally thanked Eddard Stark for that. And truthfully, it was probably Jon Snow's fault the beast wouldn't leave the room. He was probably seeking his owner's companionship. If Jon were to leave, it was likely the wolf wouldn't insist on being there. Lya had absolutely nothing to do with anything. She didn't even want to be here, much less in Jon Snow's bedchamber.

Arya kept walking, showing Lya unimportant things, until she arrived where she had been meaning to go, in the oldest section of Winterfell, near the First Keep, where she stopped before an old and heavy ironwood door.

"Where are we going?" Lya asked warily.

"You'll see." Arya grabbed a torch from the wall.

They went down a narrow and winding spiral stone steps until Arya chose a floor and headed through a dark and chilly corridor. It contained a long line of granite pillars, two by two, between which were — Lya shockingly realized — entombed the dead members of House Stark.

"All family members can have tombs in the crypts, but statues are only made for Kings in the North and Lords of Winterfell," the small girl clarified. Lya could see the likenesses of these high lords carved into the stone, some shaggy, some clean shaven. Some had large stone direwolves curled at their feet. "According to tradition, iron longswords across each lord's lap keep vengeful spirits within the crypt. But Bran can explain this better than I can."

That's when Lya understood what they were doing down there: Arya wanted to scare her. It should be some sort of rite of passage the Starks did to their newcomers or any sort of outsider. Of course, little Arya couldn't have known it would take more than dead people to scare Lyanna Mormont.

"The older Starks are buried in deeper and darker levels," Arya continued. "The lowest level is said to be partly collapsed so we can't go there."

Lya stopped dead in front of the statue of Lady Lyanna Stark who had been kidnapped by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen — which resulted in the eradication of the blood of the dragon and the ascension of the House Baratheon to the iron throne. She was pretty, in truth, otherwise irresponsible for letting that happen to her. A true northerner girl would've cut the dragon prince in a thousand pieces and fed him to the wolves. Lya didn't understand why her namesake had been granted a statue when she hadn't been king or lord of anything. By her side was yet another Brandon Stark and Lord Rickard Stark, her brother and father.

The most recent tombs were further back. The one that belonged to Ned Stark was unsealed, waiting for him, right beside his first wife, Catelyn Tully. And way further in the dark, alone and secluded, was a tomb Lya could barely look at. She knew what that tomb would say without reading it — the dead bastard in her room was enough warning.

She tried to think of whatever she knew about Jon Snow. He'd been born during the war from an affair Eddard Stark had with... whoever. He'd been raised in Winterfell among the other children of his lord father. And he had died when the last, long lost, Targaryens had come seeking vengeance for what had been done to their family.

The 'Winterfell Inferno' had been talked about throughout the Seven Kingdoms and back. The prince and princess with silver hair started collecting souls in the North. Their greatest mistake. They were defeated almost effortlessly. Yet, a lot of people had died that day. Everyone had lost someone. Everyone—

Suddenly, Rickon Stark came out from behind the statue, covered in flour from head to toes, his hands raised, yelling "booo!"

Lya crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "You'll have to do better than that," she said.

Arya shook her head. "Jon was a much better ghost," she chastised the little boy.

There it was again, the words 'Jon' and 'ghost' in the same sentence. For the first time in her life, Lya thought she was actually being haunted by someone. Was that possible?

It was only then that a wave of tiredness hit her after the long journey across the Seven Kingdoms. Saying goodnight to the others, she gather what was left of her courage and returned to the small chamber that was now hers. Supposedly.

She went straight to the window and opened it. There was nobody in there beside her. Lya glanced around, feeling the cold wind of the North seeping in, the only sound being the occasional hoot of an owl or the howl of a wolf.

She was alone. Really alone. A ghost-free zone. Exactly what she'd always wanted.

Lya got into bed and blew out her candle. But just before she fell asleep, she thought she heard something besides the owl.

"My bear so fair... And off they went, from here to there, the bear, the bear, and the maiden fair."

It sounded like someone singing but Lya was sure that was just her imagination.