Gojo slipped through Winterfell's walls like a shadow in a snowstorm. The guards didn't notice—none of them ever could. The cursed energy cloaked him as it always had, like a second skin, and in this cold, dark place, it almost felt like the shadows welcomed him home.

  Not that Winterfell was ever home.

  He didn’t expect answers here. Not from the Starks. Especially not from Ned Stark.

  A family that knows nothing, Gojo thought. And seems proud of it.

  He moved through the castle like a ghost, silent and unseen. Every archive, every scroll room, every library he could find—he scoured them all. Dusty tomes, forgotten records, songbooks masquerading as histories. And nothing. Not a single word about the sacrifices in the Wall. No mention of the men or women nailed into weirwood roots. Not even an acknowledgment of the blood rituals required to keep the white monsters at bay.

  Just silence. Just lies.

  But tucked in a corner, written like a fairy tale, Gojo found something strange. A tale of the Night’s King. The corpse queen. The Nightfort. Wrapped in myth, obscured in poetry—but the truths were there, buried beneath the rhymes and riddles. That had been a real place. Real people. Real sacrifices.

  He remembered the eye in the Wall. The whisper of a soul crying out, forever frozen.

  Gojo paused when he passed the solar. Ned Stark was there. Alone. Drinking. The fire flickered against his worn face. His lips moved, barely audible.

  “Lyanna... Jon... I should’ve told you... should’ve—”

  His words slurred into sleep, and he slumped in his chair, the goblet spilling over onto his furs.

  Gojo stood in the doorway for a long while, just watching.

  Dead to me, he thought. You buried the truth just like the rest of them. The people who built the Wall won’t tear it down. But I will.

  He turned and left the man to his guilt.

  There was only one place left to search.

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  The crypts.

  The godswood’s roots spread deep under Winterfell, and if the answers existed, they’d be there. He needed to understand how this cursed network operated—how it fed, how it lived, and how to kill it.

  He passed the old kings of winter, their faces carved into stone, swords laid across their laps in silence. Gojo’s footsteps echoed faintly as he descended deeper, farther than most dared. Here the air grew colder. Heavy with something ancient.

  He found her statue in the dark.

  Lyanna Stark.

  Gojo stared at her face, at the cold stone eyes carved with loving hands. Mother? he wondered. Would she have approved? Would she have tried to stop him, clutching onto tradition like Ned? Or would she have seen the truth—that the old ways were soaked in blood and lies?

  He sighed, fingers brushing against the cold stone. I've never known a mother’s love, he thought. Even in the Gojo clan, all I was... was a weapon. A name. A legacy.

  Gojo moved past her, deeper still.

  The cursed energy grew thick like fog. A blocked section stood before him—sealed with stone and silence. Fear radiated from it, not Gojo’s fear, but the kind that seeps into walls and lives there, keeping others away.

  He placed a finger on the stone and whispered: “Red.”

  A pulse of cursed energy shot forward, not enough to destroy, just enough to drill.

  The wall crumbled before him, revealing ancient tombs. First Men. The earliest Starks. The smell of damp earth and old roots filled the air. The weirwood had grown down here too—twisting through stone, wrapping around coffins like skeletal hands.

  But at least these Starks were dead. Gojo could feel it—no souls trapped here.

  That was the secret, wasn’t it?

  There always had to be a Stark in Winterfell. Or at least... a dead one.

  The system of sacrifice. The blood binding. Something needed to feed the roots.

  Yet one coffin was empty.

  Bran the Builder’s.

  Of course, Gojo thought. If anyone knew where the remaining glass candles were, it would be him. And he’s missing.

  He turned his attention to the roots again. Something glinted inside.

  Glass candles—small, lit, embedded in the roots like thorns. They radiated heat, and Gojo noticed the soft hiss of flowing water beneath the floor. The roots weren’t just conduits for souls—they were an engine. The glass candles heated the water, and the cursed roots pumped it through the castle, keeping Winterfell warm.

  Clever. Ingenious even. The ultimate blend of magic and function.

  If you could abandon all morality. If you could look at human sacrifice and call it necessary.

  Gojo sighed, shoulders heavy. His chest ached in a dull, familiar way.

  Anything is possible if you’re willing to cross every line.

  He stepped forward, extending his hand to one of the lit candles.

  And then—

  A whisper of steel. The air shifted behind him.

  Gojo turned.

  Ned Stark stood at the threshold of the tomb, Valyrian steel in his hands.

  Ice.

  His expression wasn’t confused. It wasn’t afraid.

  It was resolute.

  “What are you doing down here, Jon?” Ned asked quietly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Gojo looked at the man—the father who never claimed him, the Lord of Winterfell who believed honor was more important than truth.

  “I could say the same to you,” Gojo said, voice low.