PROLOGUE

"I won't be long, I promise." Lyanna Stark had told her brother Benjen and the guards who accompany them in the Wolfswood.

She parted from the group with the intent to answer the call of nature. That had been her purpose. Lyanna had been looking for a place to do quietly when she stumbled upon a strange man lying on the ground.

She paused, staring in shock at the man, who was wearing an odd-looking and tight-fitting clothing. He had blonde hair and strong masculine features.

"Oh God," Lyanna gasped upon seeing him. She swiftly ran towards the prone figure and knelt beside him. As Maester Walys had taught her, Lyanna searched for a pulse on his neck and found a weak heartbeat. Thereafter, she quickly assessed the extent of the man's injuries and noted the gaping hole on the man's abdomen, which was still bleeding profusely.

She grimaced at the sight of it. Clearly, the man was going to die if Lyanna didn't do something.

Ripping the hem of her skirt, she tried to use the cloth to wound it up around the man's torso, but soon discovered that the man was too heavy for her to even turn him from side to side.

So she called for help.

"Master Casell, come quickly!" She yelled. "There's a man in here that needed tended to!"

Lyanna could hear the sound of running feet and soon enough Benjen, Master Casell and another guard, whose name is Edwyn, arrived at the scene.

The group took the time to survey the situation before Master Cassel asked the most important questions.

"What happened to him?" He asked while he strode foward. "And where did he come from?"

"I don't know." Lyanna answered. "But we need to take him to a Maester now or he will bleed to death. Come here Master Cassel and help me wrap this cloth around him."

Master Cassel did as bid. After wrapping the cloth tightly around the man's wound, Lyanna used her fingers to pry the man's eyelid open, and saw that the man's eye is blue and still shone a light in them.

The man was barely alive and Lyanna understood the direness of the situation.

We must take him to Winterfell now! She thought in concern.

"Edwyn, bring the horses here!" Lyanna commanded. "We mustn't waste time or this man will die. He needs to be taken to the Maester immediately!"

The youth scrambled away and did as commanded.

"Who do you think he is, Lyanna?" Benjen asked and Lyanna turned to see her brother hovering over her shoulder.

"I don't know." She murmured, looking back at the unconscious man. She brushed a lock of golden hair from the man's forehead while she said, "But he clearly needs help, Benjen."