"The godswife thought her a child, but children grew, and children learn."

The bells of the Great Sept of Baelor tolled to mark the passing of Jon Arryn, late Hand of the King. Standing at the end of the dock, gazing out across Blackwater Bay, Aella sent up a prayer for him. He'd always been kind to her, though they'd spent little time together.

"We ought to return, m'lady," Alodie said. "Before the rain comes."

Aella ignored her handmaiden. The sea wind tore at her dress as she watched black clouds roll over the black water. Black like the ravens from the Wall, which had finally ceased to weep after nine years of summer tears. Long summers made for even longer winters, so she'd heard, but she couldn't fathom more than nine years of winter.

The first drops of rain struck the princess' cheeks. She lifted her face to the sky. Whenever she could, Aella snuck to the harbor, to watch the ships come and go. She imagined being swept to sea, carried by a storm all the way to the other side of the world. To a strange place with even stranger gods. Pyramids of gold and sapphire. Tribes of savage horse lords on a never ending sea of grass. The lands of always summer, where none feared winter.

Aella turned her back on the bay. Her mother was expecting her. Though the young girl wasn't yet ready to return to the Red Keep, she knew better than to keep the queen waiting.

"What shall you wear, m'lady?" Alodie asked.

"Choose for me," Aella said. Her drenched gown puddled around her feet. Naked and shivering, she leaned over the hearth and squeezed rainwater from her long, black hair.

"Will this one do?" Alodie asked. The princess nodded without looking at the dress. She lifted her arms for the maid to lower the gown over her head. Delicate silk clung to her damp skin. Aella held her breath as the maid pulled the laces as tight as they'd go.

"Why do you think she's summoned me?" Aella asked, while Alodie combed the tangles from her hair.

"As if the Queen shares her personal thoughts with the likes of me," Alodie scoffed.

"Whatever it is, it won't be good. It never is." Aella wrung her hands in her lap. She couldn't see a thing through the rain-lashed window.

Private audiences with the queen only ever meant one thing. I've done something wrong. She knows I've been going to the harbor, or that I've been putting bowel loosening potions in Joff's food, or that I...There were too many possible crimes and too many birds reporting back to the Queen.

Alodie stepped back and said, "All done, m'lady. Regardless what Her Grace has to say, she won't have any cause to complain about your appearance."

"She'll find something," Aella said. She always does.

The queen waited for her in the garden. Aella found her by the lily pond, sitting under a golden canopy. Her mother inspected her shrewdly for a moment, and then gestured to the empty chair beside her. Aella sat. Her back straight and her ankles crossed. The queen poured two cups of wine and handed one to her daughter. Sipping from her cup, she did not speak for some time.

Aella waited. She swirled her wine, but didn't drink. She's thinking of how to punish me. Throw me into the dungeons or force me to join the Silent Sisters. After all, the queen wasted no opportunity to remind Aella that she was the most hopeless princess that had ever lived. The young princess lacked her mother's legendary beauty. Instead she was pig nosed and freckled. She slouched, snorted when she laughed, and preferred the bloody war histories over strumming a harp or keeping a neat row of stitches. It wasn't that she didn't try to be a proper princess, but often she forgot.

The queen cleared her throat. "You're to marry." She eyed Aella over the rim of her goblet.

The young princess' hand jerked involuntarily. Wine splashed her lap. The queen pursed her pale, pink lips, disapproving as always, while the red stain spread across the bluebird silk. Aella remembered when she'd first bled. You're a woman now, her mother had said, but she hadn't felt like one then and, three years later, she still didn't.

"To whom?" she asked.

"Robb Stark of Winterfell."

Winterfell was all the way across the seven kingdoms. It was far away in the cold and desolate north. And winter is coming. Aella clenched her fists in the folds of her wine soaked skirt.

"When?" she asked through tightly pressed lips.

"We depart at week's end."

Aella's head shot up. She gaped at the queen. I'd rather join the Silent Sisters. Robb Stark of Winterfell was a stranger without a face. The north wasn't somewhere she'd ever dreamt of going. It was as far from the lands of always summer as they could possibly send her.

"Lord Eddard is your father's most loyal subject," the queen said. Her lips curled, though, when she said the name. "And House Stark is one of the oldest in the Seven Kingdoms. It's your King's command that you wed their heir."

"I won't," Aella said. "Bugger the King's command. I won't be sold like a slave."

"You're a woman," her mother said. Sighing, she set down her cup. "All women are slaves, my dear. You will wed the Stark boy, bear his children, do your duty and likely abhor every moment of it. That is life."

I'll kick and scream and...But Aella knew that they'd drag her to Winterfell if they had to. It mattered not what she did or said. Her life had never been her own.

The queen brushed the princess' cheek with ringed fingers. Aella flinched at the touch. She refused to look at her mother, and soon the queen dropped her hand, stood, gathered up her skirts, and moved to leave. Before ducking out from under the canopy, she paused, and without turning around, said, "Tell your maid to have that dress burned. It never suited you any way."

Then she was gone. Aella remained. I'm a statue. And stone did not cry, but she was made of flesh and blood. It was no use to pretend otherwise. She knelt by the edge of the pond and sobbed into her hands. She wished she'd been born a peasant's daughter, or a knight's bastard, or anything other than a princess of the realm.

Winter was coming. The Wall had ceased weeping, but hundreds of leagues away, Aella had only just begun.

Robb lifted his eyes to the Stark banner streaming atop Winterfell's tallest tower. A gray direwolf, teeth barred, on a field of white. He wished Grey Wind was near, instead of hunting with his siblings. When the direwolf was not with him, he felt his sword hand was missing.

Last night he'd had the dream again. He'd walked out onto the frozen surface of the godswood pond. The ice cracked beneath his weight. The water was colder than anything he'd ever felt. Colder than snow, colder than steel. He'd drowned under the watchful eyes of the heart tree. The dream had plagued him since the arrival of the king's letter.

An arrow whizzed past his ear. Startled, he spun on his heels and caught sight of his bastard brother, standing with raised bow in hand.

"I'm not a target," Robb said.

Grinning, Jon lowered the bow. "You might as well be."

"I was thinking."

"About what?" Jon set the bow at his feet.

"Nothing," Robb said, folding his arms across his chest. His cheeks were flushed from the cold.

"Liar," Jon accused. "You were thinking about the princess again."

"It's cold." Robb turned his back on his brother. "I'm done practicing for today." He strode quickly across the training yard, his black cloak snapping behind him.

"Winter is coming," Jon shouted after him. "It's only going to get colder, brother."

Robb did not return to the castle. He found himself in the godswood instead, where he could be alone and where he couldn't hear the servants whispering in the halls about the princess. The King honors us, his father had told him. Robb wished the King had forgotten them.

"I don't want this," he complained to the old gods. Jon couldn't understand. He was a bastard. No one expected him to marry a princess. What will she think of me? In King's Landing she'd have been flocked by famed knights. And I'm no great knight. I'm no prince.

He wasn't a fool, like Sansa. He'd never cared much for Septa Mordane's stories about beautiful princesses and their knights of roses. Nor had he hoped to marry for love. It simply wasn't the way of the world. But a princess? Never in his wildest imaginings had he thought he'd marry one of those.

"I thought I might find you here."

Robb turned at the sound of his father's voice.

"Jon's worried about you," Eddard said.

"There's no need," he said, looking back to the heart tree.

"There's no shame in being afraid, my boy."

"I'm not afraid," Robb snapped.

Ned chuckled. "I certainly was. At your age, I'd rather have fought a hundred more of Robert's wars than wed your mother. It has worked well for us, though."

"Not everyone is so blessed. What if she hates me?"

"She won't." Ned rested his hand on his son's shoulder. "And even if she never grows to love you, she'll come to respect you, as long as you treat her kindly, listen to her, respect her in turn."

"I don't know how to be a husband," Robb admitted.

"No man does. Do you remember the first time you held real steel?"

"I dropped it."

"Sliced your foot open," Ned said. "Your mother never wanted you to pick up a sword again, but you wouldn't have it. As soon as Maester Luwin sewed you up, you were back out in the yard. I've never known you to forfeit a challenge."

True, Robb had not, but this was much different from anything he'd done before. Still, he returned his father's smile.

"Come," Ned said. "The others will be angry if their supper goes cold waiting for us."

"In a moment," Robb said. He waited until he could no longer hear his father's cloak rustling over the leaves. Then he knelt before the heart tree. "Please," he whispered. "Please don't let me disappoint them."

There came no reply. Not so much as a breeze. The red, weeping eyes of the heart tree bore into him. Watching him drown.