— Aelya, three weeks later —

The reign settled.

It settled faster than Aelya had let herself hope. The court, which had been braced for tyranny, found itself ruled by two young women who did the work; the lords, who had been expecting purges, found themselves invited to small useful conversations in which their problems were heard and, where possible, solved; the smallfolk, who had been expecting either riots or executions, found themselves with a queen who walked once a week in plain clothes through Flea Bottom with two Unsullied at twenty paces and a basket of bread on her arm. (Dany had insisted on this. Aelya had argued against it, briefly, on security grounds, and had then watched her sister do it on the third week and had quietly told Ser Barristan to stop arguing.) The Tyrells, working with Tyrion, had the granaries opening on a schedule by the second week. The ports were open. The bakers had lowered their prices. The Watch was being paid on time.

By the end of the first moon, Aelya had begun to notice a thing she had not anticipated: people in the corridors of the Red Keep had started smiling at her. Not the formal court smile of a courtier acknowledging a queen. The unguarded private smile of a woman passing another woman in a hallway who had decided, on no particular evidence, that the second woman was an ally. Maids smiled at her. A junior clerk in Tyrion's office smiled at her, blushed, and ran into a doorway. A small page-boy who had been delivering letters to her solar for a moon worked up the courage one morning to ask her, with extreme gravity, whether her green dragon really did sleep nineteen hours a day, and Aelya had told him gravely yes, and the boy had nodded, satisfied, and had gone on with his rounds.

She had not been smiled at in corridors before. It was — small, foolish, embarrassing — nice.

She told Dany about it in bed one night, and Dany had laughed into her shoulder and said welcome to my entire life, my love, this is what it is like to be liked by people in hallways, you have been so cold for so long that I had quite forgotten you had not had this experience, and Aelya had been mock-offended for about four seconds before she had fallen asleep with her sister's silver hair across her arm.

The first letter from Roose Bolton came in the third week.

It was a very polite letter. It was a very polite letter. It congratulated Her Grace on her ascension, conveyed Lord Bolton's loyal service to the new dynasty, requested confirmation of his current position as Warden of the North, and noted — in a small careful paragraph at the bottom — that Lord Bolton had received word of certain unfounded rumours regarding the events at the Twins, and would Her Grace wish him to open inquiries into these rumours from his current position at Winterfell.

Aelya read it twice.

Then she set it down on her writing-desk and put her hands flat on either side of it and did not move for a full minute.

Dany, who had been working at the desk across the room, looked up.

"My love?"

"Roose Bolton has written to congratulate me on my coronation."

"Has he."

"He has. He is also offering to investigate the Red Wedding. From Winterfell."

"From — from Winterfell."

"From Winterfell. Where he is currently in residence. Investigating, on our behalf, the people he was working with."

"Oh," Dany said, very quietly. "Oh, that is — that is bold."

"It is bold."

"What are you going to do."

Aelya did not answer for a long moment. She was already, in her head, several moves down the road. She had, in fact, been several moves down this road for moons; she had been waiting for Bolton to write to her, because Bolton would either write or not, and if he wrote, the letter would tell her things about the man, and the letter had told her three things: he believed she did not yet know what he had done; he believed she could be flattered; and he had not yet decided whether to flee. The third was the important one. The first two she would let him keep.

She picked up her quill.

"I am going to write him a very warm reply," she said. "Confirming his position. Thanking him for his loyalty. Telling him I look forward to receiving him personally at Winterfell when I ride north in the spring. Inviting him, in the meantime, to gather together at Winterfell every northern lord who is willing to ride in for a small council of welcome, so that I may meet them all at once when I come up. I am going to suggest, very respectfully, that the council be held in the great hall of Winterfell, with the lords assembled, and that he preside over the preparations as host."

Dany was watching her.

"My love."

"Yes."

"You are going to gather every northern lord into Winterfell, with Roose Bolton presiding, and then you are going to fly up there with the Unsullied and the dragons."

"Yes."

"You are going to do to Roose Bolton, in his own great hall, what he did at the Twins. With the power reversed."

"No," Aelya said. "I am going to do something similar to him, in his own great hall, but with three differences. First: I am going to do it openly. He will know what is happening when it begins. Second: I am going to do it under the rule of law I have just established, with charges read aloud by Howland Reed in his capacity as Master of Laws, in front of every northern lord present. Third: I am not going to slaughter the assembled lords. I am going to slaughter Roose Bolton, his bastard son if he is present, and any of his lieutenants who took part in the Red Wedding personally. The other northern lords will be witnesses, not victims. They will see their warden of the North tried and executed in front of them under royal law. They will see what we do to men who break guest-right, and they will see that we do it only to the men who broke it, and not to the men who did not. The North will remember this for a thousand years. Properly this time. Not as a betrayal. As a correction. The realm is going to learn how the new queens handle these things, my love, and the lesson is going to be a very specific lesson, and I want every fence-sitting lord south of the Neck to read about this within a moon and to understand exactly what their kingdom has just become."

Dany was quiet for a long moment.

Then she said, slowly: "Aelya."

"Yes, my love."

"You have been planning this since the day the raven about the Red Wedding came in at Eastwatch."

"I have been planning it since I read about Roose Bolton in a book at seventeen. The Red Wedding raven only confirmed it."

"And you are — you are going to do this in the spring."

"I am going to do this in the spring."

"You are going to fly Morghon to Winterfell."

"I am going to fly Morghon to Winterfell."

Dany rose from her desk. She came across the room. She sat down on the corner of Aelya's writing-table, swinging one foot.

"Husb — wife. My love."

"Yes."

"Take me with you."

Aelya looked up.

"Dany —"

"Take me with you. I do not — I do not wish you to do this alone. I know the plan says I stay here and rule. I know the council expects me to. I know it is sensible. I am asking anyway. I want to be there when you do this, my love. I want to be there when you take Winterfell back for Sansa and her brothers. I want to look Roose Bolton in the eye with you, and I want — I want the North to see both queens, not only the cold one with the dragon, but the warm one with the welcome. They have been bled badly, my love. They will need both."

Aelya looked at her sister for a long moment.

"You are right," she said.

Dany blinked.

"I am? You are not going to argue?"

"No, my love. I have been thinking about it for a moon and I had not yet found a way to tell you that I wanted you with me, because I thought you would feel I was robbing you of your reign in the south. You are right and I have been wrong about it. We will go together. The council will hold the city — Tyrion, Missandei, Howland on the day-to-day legal questions. Ser Barristan will come north with us. We will leave Ser Daemon Sand here as captain of the Kingsguard in our absence, with Cersei kept under formal protection in case some idiot of a courtier tries to use her in a plot while we are gone."

"And Sansa."

"Sansa comes north with us. It is her hall. She must be there when we take it back. Jon as well — but quietly, not as a Targaryen yet, only as Ned Stark's foster-son. The North will see Ned Stark's son and his fostering aunt and the new queens take Winterfell back together. The reveal of Jon's true name will happen after, in the godswood, in front of the Northern lords, with Howland present to confirm it. They will be ready for it by then. They will not be ready for it on the journey up."

Dany leaned over and kissed her, briefly, on the temple.

"Plan it, my love. I will go and tell Sansa."

"Tell her gently."

"Tell Sansa gently? Aelya, my love. She is going to weep with relief when she hears, and then she is going to ask me whether she may bring her direwolf-pin in plain view on the entire ride up, and I am going to say of course you may, darling, you may bring whatever you like, it is your hall."

"Yes," Aelya said. "Yes. Tell her exactly that."

Dany went off to tell her. Aelya picked up her quill and began drafting the warm letter to Roose Bolton, and her hand, as she wrote, was steady.

— Eight weeks later, in the godswood at Winterfell —

It went, in the event, almost exactly as Aelya had planned it.

The journey up had taken six weeks. They had ridden — Aelya, Dany, Sansa, Jon, Ghost, Ser Barristan, Howland Reed, two thousand Unsullied, three thousand combined Riverlands and Stormlands levies under good captains, three dragons (Morghon, Drogon, Rhaegal; the others had stayed at Dragonstone by Aelya's order, because she had judged three would be sufficient and because she had wanted Sōvegon and Ēdrugon and Viserion in reserve in case anything went wrong in the south) — up the Kingsroad in a long disciplined column, accepting the small ragged welcomes of northern villages along the way. Sansa had ridden with her hood back from the moment they crossed the Neck. The smallfolk had recognised her. The smallfolk had wept. By the time the column reached the Last River, the column had, without any orders being given, picked up perhaps four hundred northern men on horseback and on foot — survivors of the Red Wedding houses, sons and brothers of dead lords, a few stubborn old retainers of the Starks who had been hiding in the hills since the sack of Winterfell — and the column had grown into something that looked, Aelya thought as she rode at her sister's side, less like an invading army and more like a homecoming with witnesses.

They had arrived at Winterfell on a clear cold morning in the third week of spring.

The hall had been set as Aelya had instructed. Roose Bolton, in his careful pale courtesy, had received the queens at the gate; had escorted them in personally; had presided over a small formal welcome-meal in the great hall with thirty-seven northern lords assembled, exactly as Aelya had asked. He had not been able to gather every lord she had named — three had refused to come, citing illness or distance, and Aelya had filed those names with quiet approval, because the three who had refused were the three she had judged most likely to be honest — but he had gathered enough. He had, for an hour, presided over a meal of honey-glazed quail and good northern wine and small careful courtesies, and Aelya had eaten three bites and smiled at him three times and complimented his cook twice, and Dany at her side had been radiant in the way Dany was radiant when she was about to do something she did not want to do but had decided she would do well, and the lords around the hall had relaxed.

Then Aelya rose.

She rose at the moment she had pre-arranged with Howland Reed, which was the moment after the third course, when the wine had been poured and the conversation had eased, and she did not raise her voice; she did not need to. The hall went quiet for her on its own.

"Lord Bolton," she said.

"Your Grace."

"Stand up."

Roose Bolton stood up. His face did not change. His pale eyes — Aelya had read about the eyes; they were exactly as cold as the books had said — went very still.

"Lord Howland Reed of Greywater Watch, Master of Laws of the realm," Aelya said, "will read to this assembly the charges against you. You will hear them. You will not interrupt. After the charges are read, you will be permitted, under the law of this realm, to answer them. Do you understand?"

A long pause.

"Yes, Your Grace," Roose Bolton said.

Howland rose. He had a small unrolled scroll in his hand. He had been preparing the charges for two moons. They were, Aelya knew because she had read them, meticulous.

He read them. He read them in his small clear voice, with his crannogman's accent, in the language of the new royal law. He read of the Red Wedding, in detail, with the names of the murdered guests, with the dates, with the agreements broken, with the witnesses (three captured Frey men-at-arms now in royal custody had, under questioning, confirmed every relevant fact). He read of the sack of Winterfell, in detail, with names and dates. He read of the conduct of Bolton's bastard son Ramsay — who was not present in the hall, because he had been quietly arrested by Aelya's outriders the previous night in the kennels at the Dreadfort, a fact Roose Bolton was learning at this exact moment for the first time, and Aelya watched his face as he learned it, and his face did not change but a small white area appeared at the corner of his mouth — and the catalogue of Ramsay's particular crimes against the smallfolk of the Hornwood and against the heir to House Hornwood and against several captives at the Dreadfort itself, took, Howland's voice reading them out, fully eight minutes, and the hall — every northern lord present — went, by minute three, into a kind of taut horrified silence that Aelya had been prepared for and had been, in her own way, counting on.

When Howland was finished, he rolled up the scroll. He sat down.

Aelya turned back to Roose Bolton.

"Lord Bolton. You may answer the charges."

Roose Bolton stood very still for perhaps four seconds.

Then he said, in his quiet level voice: "Your Grace. The charges are largely correct. I will not insult this hall by denying them. I served the realm as I judged best at the time. I will accept the queen's judgment."

A small ripple went through the lords.

Aelya did not, herself, move.

"Lord Bolton. You will be executed by beheading, by the hand of the queen's executioner, in the courtyard of this castle, at noon tomorrow. Your son Ramsay Snow will be tried separately in three days for the crimes detailed in the second part of these charges. Your house is attainted. The Dreadfort and its lands are forfeit to the Crown and will be settled, by royal grant, upon a house to be named within the moon. Do you wish to make a final statement before this assembly, or to your house, or to your son? You will be permitted to do so."

Roose Bolton looked at her.

For a heartbeat — only a heartbeat — Aelya saw a thing in his pale eyes that she had not seen before in any conversation with any man: a kind of cold, neutral, almost professional respect. As though he had, in this moment, identified her as the kind of practitioner he had thought he was the only example of in the realm, and had concluded that she was better at it than he was, and was filing the observation without rancour.

He inclined his head.

"No, Your Grace," he said. "I have nothing to say."

"Take him out."

The Unsullied took him out.

The hall stayed silent. The lords sat. They were, Aelya noted, waiting — they had not yet been told whether they were also to be charged, whether the queen's hand was about to come down on them too. She let the silence sit for one more long beat, which was the calculated beat she had planned, and then she did the thing she had been planning for a moon, which was the opposite of what they expected.

She sat down.

She lifted her wine.

"My lords of the North," she said. "The matter is concluded. The man responsible has answered for it. No house in this hall is under suspicion. You are guests of the Crown, of House Stark"—and here she lifted her cup specifically toward Sansa, who was standing at her right hand in a Stark-grey gown with the direwolf-pin on her shoulder—"and of the new realm. Eat. Drink. We have a great deal to discuss, but not tonight. Tonight is for recovery."

A long pause. Then old Wyman Manderly, in the second row, raised his cup with a slightly unsteady hand and said, in a great rumbling voice that filled the hall: "The North remembers!" — the old Northern oath, used now in a way it had not been used in three centuries — and the hall, after a startled half-second, erupted into the kind of cheer that does not happen in great halls except when something has been put right.

Sansa Stark, beside Aelya, did not weep this time. Sansa Stark was past weeping. Sansa Stark was fifteen years old and she was sitting at the high table of her own hall for the first time in three years, and her face — Aelya saw it from the corner of her eye — was hard and bright and home.

That night, in the godswood, with Howland Reed presiding as Master of Laws and witness, Aelya and Dany formally introduced Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, fostered as Jon Snow to the lords of the North.

The lords of the North, who had been told, in the same hall an hour earlier, that the queens were the kind of queens who would execute a man who broke guest-right and would also invite the rest of his peers to dinner, received the news of Lyanna's son with the kind of slow stunned reverence that Aelya had been hoping for and had not been certain she would get. They knelt. Even old Wyman Manderly knelt, with effort, and was helped up afterward by his squire. The pledge of the North to the new dynasty — through Daenerys as queen, through Aelya as her consort, and through Jon as the realm's bridge between south and north, between Stark and Targaryen, between summer and winter — was sworn that night under the heart-tree of Winterfell, with the red sap weeping its slow reliable weep, and Ghost, Aelya noticed, sat the whole time at the foot of the heart-tree in the same place his mother's wolf had been buried, and did not move.

Sansa, beside Aelya in the small circle of firelight, took her hand.

"Your Grace," Sansa whispered.

"Sansa."

"Thank you. For everything. From — from the longboat. To the cloak-pin. To this hour."

"You are welcome, Lady Stark."

"Lady Stark," Sansa repeated, very quietly, as though she had not heard the title applied to her in that voice in a very long time.

"You are Lady of Winterfell now," Aelya said softly. "Until your brother Bran returns, if he returns; and after that, with him. Sansa — we have not yet found Bran or Rickon. The ravens are out. The riders are out. We will find them. And if we do not, the seat is yours, and you are the right one to hold it. The North is yours. We are giving it back."

Sansa held her hand for a long time and did not let go.

At the foot of the heart-tree, Ghost lifted his great head, and looked east — east, not north — and his red eyes narrowed, briefly, at something only he could see, and Aelya, watching him, felt a small cold thread go up her spine that did not belong to the spring evening.

The dead were stirring. Even now. Even in the south. Even with the Wall holding.

Winter was coming.

But for tonight — for tonight — the North remembered.

She let herself have the night.

She would pick up the rest in the morning.