He doesn't know why he lets her live, only that by the time the Battle at the Trident is over and he claims the Iron Throne Robert Baratheon doesn't have it in him to kill anyone else.
Lyanna is dead and so is his spirit.
When the little Princess Daenerys is brought to him he does not show her mercy by sending her away––he only shows defeat.
He calls upon Eddard Stark to take the girl into his care. He figures Ned is already coming home with one bastard and another wouldn't hurt.
Robert knows Ned won't refuse him; not now, after Lyanna's ashes have choked them both with grief and softened their hearts to the extent of careless clemency.
The girl won't be a threat if she is raised in the North. She will learn to love the godswood as Lyanna did.
And perhaps one day she will know why her family had to die.
'I do not like this, Ned,' Catelyn fumes, wringing her hands raw. She is newly a wife and newly a mother––of three. 'You cannot expect me to raise the child of a whore and the child of a lunatic alongside the children we will have.'
Eddard and Catelyn Stark do not know each other now as they will come to later. Now, they are opposites aflame. Their passions and prides have been ignited and they stand at odds over the two babes––these two refugees of a war they were never meant to know.
'Starks and their honor,' she spits at him. 'Where was your honor when you decided to bed a slut?' Her voice quivers but she won't give him the satisfaction of tears. Instead she steels herself and says, 'You are asking me to do something I cannot do.'
'I am not asking you, Catelyn,' Ned explains roughly, because he hates the way she taunts his honor. 'I am telling you.' He will not leave the babes to the winter. He will not allow them to be punished for the mistakes of their parents.
She presses her lips into a thin line and sweeps out of the room.
It is his first night back in a year and yet that night they sleep in separate chambers.
She warms to Daenerys but never to Jon.
'I want my hair braided like Sansa's,' Dany says at six, when Sansa is prancing about the house like a lady with her hair in neat plaits down her back.
Catelyn smiles and pulls her hands through Daenerys's thick ivory mane, a color she once was told to hate during the time of the rebellion but she now has come to love.
'Lady Catelyn,' she begins, with that small voice that carries the regal pitch of her ancestors, 'Tell me again about my ancestors.'
The woman rolls her eyes and clucks, 'You know those are tales told by Old Nan and not I.' Catelyn does not enjoy reliving the events of the rebellion. Especially not for Daenerys, who is too young yet to be educated of the sorrows in her past.
'Yes, but I should like you to,' came the girl's plea, those purple eyes fastening on Catelyn with such a stare that could melt even the most stoic warrior.
Catelyn agrees begrudgingly and relates a heavily censored variant of the recent Targaryen dynasty's downfall. Daenerys's eyes widen like saucers and she hangs upon Catelyn's every word.
By the time her hair is finished she forgets all about Sansa and thinks only of dragons and the Iron Throne.
Such a little girl for such a big chair, Cat thinks to herself.
She shoos the girl off and quietly wonders what will become of her.
It is announced on Robb's tenth birthday that he will wed Daenerys, the castaway Targaryen Princess who brings with her no dowry other than the sorrows of her past.
It is Catelyn's idea.
She wants Robb to stay and reign in the North when his father dies, and who knows the North better than Daenerys? They have grown up together and Cat believes together they will find love.
She wants happiness for them both because they are both hers, they are both the North's.
It takes little convincing for Ned to agree. He has grown fond of Daenerys and knows Robb has as well.
She wears the veil of winter well; she prays as fervently as any Northerner at the godswood; she loves Winterfell with an ardor none could have anticipated.
It is clear Daenerys Targaryen was born to be a Stark.
Robb knows he loves her when they are thirteen.
She sings when she embroiders, a habit that Sansa finds bothersome but Arya praises (as she does anything that bothers Sansa).
She sings songs of battle and war and he knows she has the strength of a thousand Targaryen dragons within her.
He is proud of her and she is not even his.
She becomes his when they turn sixteen.
Daenerys is a vision in white; her pale skin left untouched by the harsh sun of the south, her hair a vivid pearl, her gown an ivory gossamer.
They marry at Winterfell in the summer months––the sun shines down upon the ceremony as if in approval.
He undresses her slowly that night, a tangled mess of heartbeats and butterflies.
Though they are both terrified, they feel safe together; and so she takes his hand and moves it to her breast as if to say, 'Don't be afraid, I'm here.'
He kisses her and for the first time they feel whole.
He lies with her and for the first time they feel one.
They call their first child Rickard in honor of their grandfather.
Robb thinks Dany is most beautiful when she is with child: the greatness of some higher cause swells in her rounded belly, pride glows in her cheeks.
She is an excellent mother, as Catelyn is pleased to observe. Daenerys dotes on little Rickard extensively, indulges his every wish so that Robb often has to intervene and teach the boy not to expect the world handed to him on a silver platter.
When her womb quickens again, Daenerys feels it is a girl.
Robb insists they name it Elaena in honor of Daenerys's ancestress, for he knew his wife so yearned to honor her family as they had honored his.
Sometimes she thinks he knows her better than she knows herself.
When she visits her home, Sansa and Daenerys often go to the godswood to pray together.
They pray for their husbands and children; for peace in the realms.
Sansa's husband Joffrey now sits on the Iron Throne, and she is his rightful queen. Sansa assures Daenerys that the king is not war-faring and that he treats the throne of her ancestor's well, with respect.
Daenerys does not care for the king but will not share this with her sister, who champions him as if her life depends on it––and perhaps it does.
They plan to betroth Elaena to Sansa's eldest son, Brandon, who is heir to the throne and his father's favorite.
It is Daenerys's ambition that a Targaryen reside in King's Landing once more––and who better than her eldest and most wise daughter, imbued with both the Targaryen fire and Stark honor?
When she convinces her husband to agree the contracts are drawn up and it is final.
Daenerys thinks of her slaughtered kin and feels their satisfaction pulse thick as blood in her veins.
Years later at Elaena and Brandon's wedding, Robb leans over and whispers in his wife's ear, 'This is the life she was made for.'
Robb dies defending his home from threats across the wall.
The news reaches Daenerys days later, and it is said that her cries could be heard across the whole of the North.
It is hours before she is traveling to the wall against the wishes of her children and pledging her loyalty to the war on the wall.
She is a Targaryen and a Stark; now she is Lady Daenerys of Winterfell, a soldier too.
Her presence inspires the Night's Watch to fight with even more vigor, so that they emerge as the victors at the end of one more year.
Later Daenerys holds a small funeral for her husband and retreats to the godswood afterward.
She only allows Sansa to follow, and they pray as they once did so many years before.
Lady Daenerys Stark lives long enough to watch Brandon and Elaena ascend to the Iron Throne.
She dies happily with the knowledge that her grandchildren will one day rule, and the Targaryens will return to the place they belong.
Years later Queen Elaena takes her daughter to the crypts of Winterfell to see the busts of Lord Robb and Lady Daenerys.
'You are like her,' Elaena tells the little princess. 'In looks and spirit.'
'Fire and blood,' the girl says, reading the inscription across the tomb.
'That is what it means to be a Targaryen,' the Queen tells her.
'We have the blood of the dragon.'
'And with it, we rule.'
Somewhere from the great unknown, Daenerys smiles.