Their father had introduced them to Ramsay Snow the day before he left with the Bolton troops for Winterfell. Until then, neither of the twins had known they had another brother. Aileen doubted that even her mother knew, given how she'd long put up with jibes about her own bastard. Ramsay was going to be of use while he was away, their father said, and act as castellan of the Dreadfort, an adult representative of the Boltons.

The ugly man had smiled a wet-lipped smile.

The more Aileen studied him, the more repulsive he was. Ramsay was young, in his mid-twenties at most, and was unmistakably of Bolton blood; his eyes were the same unusually pale shade as her own and her father's - rather than the steel grey of her mother, Edrick and Morganna - and his hair was long and black.

He was truly ugly though, even in fine clothes, with wide, thick lips and a small mouth, making his wet smile even worse. His frame was large and fleshy, his shoulders sloped, and his skin was pink and blotchy. She wondered what her father - not an especially handsome man, but far from ugly, and a lord to boot - had ever seen in his mother.

Ramsay Snow had been nothing but polite in the first few days after their father left, though Aileen had always got a sense that he was cunning, simply biding his time. She didn't like his smile. He spent his days slinking around the castle with his foul-smelling servant, Reek, and a growing gaggle of 'friends' who everyone else called 'the Bastard's Boys' behind their back, often coupled with several choice curses.

It was impossible not to notice her and Edrick's new shadows; a select few of her father's best, most loyal men were always around, guarding the doors where they slept, walking a few steps behind them everywhere else. She also suspected that a kitchen hand was being made to try their food before it was served. The only new addition to the castle was Ramsay, who was apparently enough of a threat to them that her father had made special arrangements. So why is he here in the first place?

One of the first clear glimpses they got of the man's true colours was the first time he sparred with Edrick in the training yard. Her twin had been practicing as usual with the master-at-arms, when their half-brother had come out too, grinning and asking if he could join. Edrick hadn't cared much either way, always glad to fight someone new, facing off against the man as he took up a tourney sword.

Ramsay fought like no one Aileen - or her brother, judging by the look on his face - had ever seen. It was clear he'd never received an official swordsmanship training, but that didn't make him any less savage. He fought with a sword like it was a butcher's cleaver, hacking and slashing viciously this way and that, highly aggressive, unskilled and unpredictable. He'll teach Edrick to dodge, if nothing else.

"Who taught you to fight?" Her twin asked in a moment of respite, before either of them had won or lost.

Ramsay smiled that wet-lipped smile. "Reek," He said. "Our father sent him to help my mother raise me,"

Our father. Never Lord Bolton.

"Why didn't he bring you to the castle?" Edrick frowned. "He let our mother bring her bastard son here,"

Something flickered in Ramsay's eyes then, something worryingly like pure hatred. Aileen, looking on from the side, caught that look where Edrick did not.

"Don't call me a bastard," He all but snarled.

Her twin looked taken aback by the venom in his voice, and the way his knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. But Edrick being Edrick, he soon rose to the challenge.

"That wasn't an insult," He snapped back at their half-brother. "I don't give a shit what you are,"

Ramsay raised his sword then, but Edrick lifted his own in time. To onlookers, it would simply seem like they'd returned to their spar, but there was something even more vicious about it this time, despite the fact they only used blunted swords. Her twin more than held his own, however; despite only being thirteen, he was as good as their cousin Robb with a blade. Then Edrick won, Ramsay's sword spinning out of his hand and landing feet away. Castle training beats pure aggression.

For one moment, Aileen thought that the man would bodily tackle her brother and smash his face in. Edrick clearly thought so too, not lowering his sword. But then Ramsay's smile returned, and he unclenched his fists, though spoke through gritted teeth, his face rather red.

"A good match, little brother," His smile curdled, and he said not a word more, storming back inside without picking up his sword.

At dinner that night, it was like the incident had never happened, though the rather malevolent look he eyed them with when he thought they weren't looking was there as ever.

The next glimpse they got of the real Ramsay was after a chambermaid was caught stealing from Lady Bolton's empty room by one of the guards. Aileen recognised the necklace the girl had taken as one of her mother's least favourite pieces of jewellery, a gaudy piece done in rose quartz and jet; Bolton colours, a wedding gift from the Manderlys. But whether Lady Bolton liked the necklace or not, stealing was stealing, and of course the girl should be punished.

Aileen's mother would have put the girl in the stocks for a day, then sacked her. Her father would have removed the girl's hand and banished her from Bolton lands. But it wasn't either of them overseeing the trial. Ramsay's death sentence had been excessive, and odd, given that he hadn't specified the manner of execution, but she thought little of it, imagining he just wanted to make an example of the first one to break a law so the people wouldn't think of him as soft.

It was early the next morning that she heard a dozen or so men gallop out of the gates, the Bastard's Boys, led by her half-brother and accompanied by the baying of Ramsay's vicious black hounds.

"Are they going hunting?" Edrick asked the captain of the garrison left behind, whose turn it was to guard them.

"Aye, milord," The man had grimaced. "I suppose that's exactly what they're doing,"

The twins exchanged a look at his tone. Aileen narrowed her eyes.

"Why do you sound so grim?"

"Because it ain't animals they're hunting,"

"What?" Her brother was incredulous.

"Remember that girl, the one what got caught stealing?" They nodded, and the man continued. "Your bastard brother sentenced her to death - didn't specify how. They sent her off at dawn, naked as her nameday. Gave her a two hour head start, but now they're off, and it won't be long before they catch her,"

"What the fuck?" Edrick looked disgusted. "That's sick. She shouldn't even be sentenced to death, let alone like that. She only stole an ugly necklace. Mother hated it anyway,"

"Don't go saying that around Ramsay Snow," The guard warned him. "It's hard enough keeping him away from you two as it is. Don't go telling him I called him a bastard, either, or it'll be me running from those hounds this time tomorrow,"

"We won't," Aileen cut of her twin's furious reply. "You say you've had a hard time keeping him away from us. Does that mean what I think it does?"

"That the man would gladly kill you both, your brother and sister too, if it made him heir to the Dreadfort?" He raised an eyebrow, and she nodded. "Aye, he would in a heartbeat. But we won't let him. Your father warned us of him, told us not to give him any chances concerning you both. My men serve the Boltons, not their deranged bastards,"

"That's... comforting," She said, not entirely surprised by that revelation, and oddly calm as well.

Edrick, however, was anything but. "Why would Father leave the castle in the hands of a madman who wants to kill his heirs?" He looked angry. "He had to know how much of a sick bastard Ramsay is,"

"Don't call him a bastard," Aileen's lips twitched in amusement. "He might have an aneurysm. And of course Father knew, or he wouldn't have warned the guards,"

"Then why - "

"Who knows," She said, though privately thought it could be nothing good.

That wasn't the last girl to be hunted in the woods like an animal. To get away from the jubilant mood of the men returning from the now-weekly hunt - often with a freshly flayed skin in hand - and Edrick's increasingly foul mood at the situation, Aileen spent much of her time in the library.

She'd developed an interest in human anatomy, a topic she had struggled with when she was younger but now had the focus to learn properly. She was currently working her way through all the books in the castle on the subject, which was an unusually high number. Each book seemed to have differing options, however, and even the ones written by maesters seemed to contradict each other.

It was interesting working out which books made more sense, but was challenging just working from the sketches and diagrams in the books. Often there were no diagrams at all, simply a plain block of text. What she really needed were opportunities like the maesters of the citadel had, where people could donate their dead relatives to be studied, in exchange for coin. Then a terrible thought came to her.

"The next person you kill," She said to Ramsay, well out of Edrick's hearing, quickly clarifying. "One of the criminals in the dungeons, not one of those poor girls you hunt. Can you keep the body? I want to study it,"

He laughed at that, a lot, but agreed nonetheless, humouring her for his own amusement.

"I can't promise they'll be in one piece," He told her with a wet, gleeful smile.

Her half-brother tended not to eye her with as much hate as he did to Edrick, perhaps knowing that their father would never let a daughter inherit over a bastard son; if Edrick was to die, then he would surely be legitimised. No, he just eyed her the same way he eyed most young women; like a predator. But he couldn't touch her, not with her father's guards filling the castle.

Aileen did feel guilty for benefitting from these men's torturous deaths, but if he was going to kill those people anyway, there wasn't any harm, was there? He would only feed the bodies to his dogs if she didn't. And these men hadn't been innocent, they were a group of outlaws who had taken advantage of the absence of most of the lords to prey on farms and villages. Ramsay had been only too glad to bring them in with a force of men from the Dreadfort.

Ren had told her how seeing a dead body for the first time made your stomach turn, but he had probably been talking about men who'd died from a sword wound, or a mace to the head in battle. Gruesome, but not quite on the level that Aileen was faced with as she descended into the dungeon with Maester Tybald. She couldn't tell how the body Ramsay had left for her had finally died, because he did not have any skin left between his face and navel.

"That one was caught violating a twelve year old girl during a raid," Tybald said quietly as she stopped in the doorway. "Having killed her grandfather in front of her. He deserved what he got,"

She swallowed the bile in her throat, trying not to focus on the smell, for that was the worst of all.

"Your half-brother has done a rather messy job of it, if I may say so," The maester eyed the half-flayed man skeptically.

Aileen let out a strangled laugh at that judgement. "I suppose he was dead either way," She said, and having decided that, she felt a lot less nauseous.

Tybald started on the body first, making incisions with his sharp scalpel and peeling back muscle and what remained of the skin, pinning them down so she could see the organs inside. He had been surprised when she had asked him to assist her in this, but knew she had always been a scholarly girl, and didn't make any comments about such things being inappropriate for a lady to be interested in, which was nice.

"Why is the left side of the heart bigger than the right?" Aileen asked curiously, eyeing the organ in question.

Tybald set down the saw he'd used to break through the ribcage, seeming pleased by her questions.

"People seem to disagree as to why," He grew more eager when talking about matters of science. "Some suggest that the blood flows through invisible pores from the left side to the right, so the left side may act as a reservoir, to avoid the chambers overflowing. Another maester believed that blood entered the heart from the right and was pumped out to the body by the left, hence the need for more muscle on that side,"

"And what do you think?"

"I think the two sides are separate," He said. "That blood enters the atria - the top two chambers - on each side simultaneously, then is pumped out from the lower chambers, the ventricles. The right side pumps blood to the lungs, where they pick up substances like air, whilst the left side pumps blood to the rest of the body. I was told as a young man that my theory was rather far fetched, however, so don't take my word for it,"

The whole thing was fascinating, truly. She was able to put aside the fact that it was a man's dead body they studied, and wasn't able to smell the stench of blood and fear after being down there long enough. Aileen made detailed notes and sketches on what Tybald told her that day, and spent the next week cross-referencing them with all the books she'd found in the library.

Of course, with Ramsay in the castle, it wasn't too much longer before another of the outlaws ended up dead and mutilated in the dungeons, and once again Aileen went down there with Tybald, this time with a scalpel of her own. She wasn't like her half-brother, she told herself. She couldn't stand the idea of cutting up a living man, but enjoyed it now, because she was fascinated by the workings of the human body.

"You smell awful," Edrick pulled a face, catching her on the way back to her chambers for a bath. He already knew what she was doing, though clearly did not share her interest. "When are you going to get bored of cutting up corpses? How different can each one be?"

"Well, Ramsay leaves them in various states," She wrinkled her nose. "It actually makes it better when I cut them open - at least I don't have to see what he did to someone alive,"

"That man deserved to be hunted by those hounds himself," He scowled, clearly disgusted, and angry that he could do nothing about it. "You'd be better off working as a butcher than being a lady,"

"Tybald says if it were up to him, he'd let me into the citadel," She smiled.

"None of the stuffy old men would know what to do with you," Her twin snorted.

That was likely true, and Aileen gave a short laugh.

Ramsay left a few weeks later, to Edrick's delight, taking lots of men and his servant Reek with him. No one knew where they went. It was only after they'd heard tales of Lady Donella being forced to marry him that they realised he'd gone to Hornwood, claiming her lands for House Bolton.

"How did he think he could get away with that?" Her brother asked Maester Tybald, incredulous but rather gleeful. "The lords might be at war now, but they'll be out for blood when they come back. Daryn Hornwood will have his head,"

"It wasn't the most subtle of moves," Aileen agreed.

"Your father asked him to attempt to secure the Hornwood lands in the hope that Daryn Hornwood would fall in battle," The man grimaced. "I imagine this isn't what he had in mind. I'd be surprised if the Starks waited until the war is over to punish him for that. Likely Rodrik Cassel will send people from Winterfell after him in the next few days,"

That was exactly what happened. The castellan of Winterfell himself, Ser Rodrik, led a party of men to Hornwood to rescue Lady Donella and to punish Ramsay for his misdeeds. The reports they got at the Dreadfort were patchy, and though it was hard to piece together the true sequence of events, it was clear that Lady Hornwood was dead - starved to death on the floor of the tower she'd been locked in, having eaten her own fingers in desperation - and that once the Stark men found her body, it was their half-brother's turn to be hunted.

By all accounts, Ramsay died. Then he showed up at the Dreadfort, weeks later, very much alive and well, but for once not in the company of Reek. Everyone's noses were better for it.

"How did you do it?" Aileen asked out of genuine interest.

They were alone at dinner aside from the guards. She had suggested to Edrick to eat apart from them, or he'd surely start a fight at the sight of Ramsay's smug face. It was a mark of how much her brother hated the man that he agreed.

"I swapped clothes with Reek," He smiled his wet-lipped smile at her, clearly gleeful that his plan had worked. "The Starks shot a man wearing Bolton colours and took him for Lord Roose's son. Clever of me, don't you think?"

"Yes," She said honestly, for that at least had worked. A shame you couldn't have been so clever with the Hornwood situation. "I was wondering, though, why you left Lady Donella to starve? Her son is still alive, you have no way of inheriting the castle now, and he'll be out for blood if he returns from war and finds you still alive,"

"Let him," Ramsay scoffed, angry. "I'll have him eating his own fingers too, by the time I'm through with him," That sounds like a well thought out plan... "Why are you so interested?" He asked suddenly. "Do you want more of a story?" He eyed her guard speculatively, amused. "I can tell you how she begged and cried for mercy, as if I'd give her any. I can you how she pleaded and sobbed on our wedding night. She truly was a pitiful sight, though I always enjoy it more when they're loud," He laughed at the blank look on her face. "Nothing? You'd be a quiet one, Aileen, though I bet you'd hold out for ages,"

"Have you thought about that much?" She tilted her head at him, a small smile playing at her lips. "Doing to me what I've seen you do to all those people in the dungeons?"

She shouldn't be so amused by him, but couldn't help it. He was a Bolton in many ways - his cruel streak was straight from their father - but he was so obvious, so crass and uncontrolled. From Edrick, that was fine, clearly just his Stark side winning out, but coupled with the Bolton sadism, it didn't make for a pretty combination.

Ramsay's eyes lit up.

"Every time I see you," That didn't make her particularly special, though, given he likely thought that about everyone. "You're half a wolf. You might try and keep quiet, but I could have you howling before long. Though having your mother would be a real treat," His face reflected his dislike. Apparently he'd met the woman. "That Stark whore could try and keep that stony face of hers all she likes, but I would break her. Before long, she'd be screaming, and then I'd make her mine. I'd have her sleep with the dogs in the kennel, like the bitch she is, make her beg me for every scrap,"

Aileen laughed, then. "You might make my mother scream," She said. "But you'd never make her beg,"

Ramsay didn't like that. "Like you beg me for the corpses I've finished with?" He snarled at her.

"I hardly beg," She said. "You just leave them there, free for the taking. If it's your dogs you're worried about, I'm sure someone feeds them the bodies when I'm done studying them,"

"What's wrong with you?" He sneered. "Why bother cutting them up if they're dead already?"

Being asked what was wrong with her by that man was... unsettling.

"Because it's interesting,"

"Screams and fear and pain are interesting. Not cold, dead bodies,"

"That must make you more of a Bolton than I am," The sarcasm was subtle, enough that he looked satisfied though gave her a lingering look, considering if she was mocking him.

Ramsay left once again soon after he arrived, only being there to collect the men he needed to supposedly join with Rodrik Cassel's forces and take Winterfell from the Ironborn who had captured it. That was suspicious for many reasons, least of all why he was not concerned that Ser Rodrik would kill him on sight, and Aileen was sure there was more going on than that.

From the confused account they got by raven, if Ramsay had intended to save Winterfell, he had been too late. Theon Greyjoy had apparently slaughtered the men of of the castle, Rodrik Cassel and his small force included, and murdered Bran and Rickon, whilst his Ironborn had sacked the castle, enough to make it uninhabitable.

Aileen had grieved when she received word of the death of her young cousins. Edrick had been furious, so much so that he'd actually voiced his support for Ramsay, hoping their bastard brother would capture Theon and his men and make him pay for what he'd done.

"If he's going to use that twisted mind of his for anything, at least that traitorous scumbag deserves it," He spat.

It was a victorious party of Dreadfort men that rode back through the gates, followed by a small, ragged, traumatised group of people, what remained of the women and children of Winterfell. Aileen recognised a few faces, enough to know who was missing.

Lady Catelyn was among them. Their uncle's wife had always been the picture of dignity, austere and polished in the way she conducted herself, but the woman who rode into the courtyard had never looked so broken. She didn't dismount until she was lifted off her horse by a soldier, staring with blank, unseeing eyes at her surroundings, not saying a word. Her beautiful face seemed to have aged ten years since the last time Aileen had seen her, and her auburn hair was now streaked with grey.

"Aunt Catelyn," Edrick had never been particularly fond of Lady Stark, even when he was fostered at Winterfell, but seeing her like this was disturbing to them both. His voice was uncertain, as though she'd shatter if he wasn't too careful. "I'm glad you made it safely here,"

The woman wasn't even looking at him, just staring into nothingness.

"Your rooms are prepared for you," Aileen had seen to that herself; she'd been acting as the Lady of the Dreadfort since her mother left, learning to organise expenses with the steward, a duty that Ramsay showed no interest in whatsoever. "I can have food sent up for you, if you'd rather rest than dine with us,"

Catelyn turned to her then, looking at them properly for the first time. Aileen was struck by the haunted look in her eyes. As a child, she had once crept into her mother's room and seen her in the middle of a bad dream. Upon waking her up, for a second Lady Bolton had worn near that exact look. That certainly didn't bode well for their aunt.

"I'd like - " The woman's voice was hoarse, clearly disused for a while. "I'd like a bath. I haven't... since before,"

Before Winterfell was sacked? Before your children were murdered? Aileen simply nodded, beckoning to a servant as Edrick led Lady Catelyn inside, accompanied by a young girl who must be her handmaid. This same girl spoke to Aileen in the hallway outside her aunt's rooms after Catelyn had said she wished to be alone.

"Lady Bolton," The handmaid bobbed a perfect curtsey, one her mistress had clearly taught her, keeping her voice hushed. "If you don't mind, may I have a word concerning Lady Stark?"

"What is it?" Aileen turned to her. The girl looked torn, but spoke nonetheless.

"Lady Catelyn has been having nightmares," She said uneasily, though Aileen couldn't understand why. "Does your maester have any sleeping draught for her? Bad sleep is the last thing she needs, after Lord Stark and your poor little cousins,"

The girl looked genuinely saddened, clearly having spent some time with the boys. She looked ready to continue but hesitated.

"Just tell me," Aileen said. "I won't tell Lady Catelyn, if you don't want her to know you did,"

"The Ironmen didn't treat her very... gently, milady," The girl lowered her voice, enough that she had to lean in to hear. "There might be something else we need from the maester,"

"What do you mean by that?" Aileen frowned.

"It's not really my place to say," The girl wrung her hands, uncomfortable. "It's not the kind of thing any woman wants people to know, let along a highborn lady,"

"Oh," She understood then, cold gripping her stomach. No wonder she looks so dead inside. "Theon didn't stop them - " She broke off, too angry to continue as the girl shook her head.

"He seemed uneasy about it, and tried to discourage them," She said. "But in the end that didn't matter,"

Horrified, Aileen quickly gathered herself. "I'll get Maester Tybald to bring some - some tea. I trust you'll keep it quiet?" This really wasn't the kind of thing that needed spreading around.

"Of course,"

"What was your name?"

"Carys, milady,"

"Stay away from my brother Ramsay. Don't attract his attention in any way. Make yourself as plain and unnoticeable as you can," It all came out at once. "Tell the other young women. He's a monster,"

"I already know that, milady," Carys smiled sadly. "Who do you think sacked Winterfell? T'wasn't the Greyjoy boy, and we definitely left the castle with more girls than arrived here,"

With that, she curtseyed again and went into Catelyn's chambers.

From there, of course, Aileen went straight to the maester's chambers, heart racing. Maester Tybald was absent, but that was likely for the best. He was loyal to the Boltons, not to the Starks, after all. She quickly scribbled out a letter, and was just attaching it to the leg of a raven to send to Riverrun, when the door opened behind her.

"What are you doing, my lady?" Tybald's quiet voice asked.

"Sending a letter," She said neutrally, carrying the bird over to the window and starting to unlatch it.

"Where to?"

"King's Landing. Even if they don't let my sister reply, they might let her read it,"

"That bird is bound for Riverrun," He said knowingly, not unkind. "I think I know what's in your letter, and I'm afraid I can't let you send it,"

She paused for a moment, then carried on trying to open the window more quickly now, struggling with the stiff latch one-handed, and the squawking bird on her other arm. The maester sighed, and the door opened again, this time with her guard for the day. The man came forward, seizing her in a firm but not painful grip.

"Get your hands off me," She snarled, trying to wriggle out of his hands, but he held strong as Tybald quickly came and took the raven, with her letter attached. "I thought my father ordered you to protect me, not manhandle me yourselves,"

"It would be against your father's orders to let you send that, milady," The guard grunted, barely breaking a sweat trying to restrain her.

She stopped struggling then, turning to look up at him sharply. "My father ordered Ramsay to sack Winterfell?" There was an uneasy silence. "Did Ramsay kill Bran and Rickon too, on Father's orders?"

The man let her go.

"No," Tybald said. "That really was Theon Greyjoy,"

Well that was something at least.

"Is Father betraying the Starks?" She wanted to know for sure, though by now it was obvious. "How can he expect to get away with it? Mother is a Stark,"

"Is it betrayal, if you give Winterfell to a boy who is half-Stark? Especially when your cousin Robb is likely to die at war - he is only fifteen after all, foolish and reckless no matter how many battles he's won. Surely it is safer to trust the North to a strong heir with a strong regent, rather than a young girl who is currently in the hands of the Lannisters. The moment Robb Stark falls, Lord Tywin would marry Sansa to his son in a heartbeat if it gave him the keys to the North,"

Aileen was silent at that. It made sense in the event of Robb's death - she'd much rather her brother be Lord of Winterfell instead of a Lannister - but Tybald seemed to be talking about that happening as more of an inevitability than a risk. Not to mention, Ramsay had sacked Winterfell, had openly attacked and slaughtered Stark men, on Roose Bolton's orders. Those weren't the actions of a man passively waiting for his wife's nephew to die so he could save her lands from their enemies, which was how Tybald had phrased it.

But there was no way they'd let her send a letter to warn Robb or her mother, not now they'd caught her, not with a guard following her every move. Aileen suddenly felt trapped in her own home. But the best she could do now was to bide her time and wait, make them think she was harmless, that she supported this madness.

"What about my mother?" She asked. "She's a full Stark. She'd be in line for Winterfell before Edrick,"

"Exactly," Tybald said, too soothingly, seeming to brush over the fact he'd said it would go to Edrick not a minute before. "Lady Rosennis would be Lady of Winterfell, and your father its Lord. The North would still be in the hands of your family,"

Yes, but there was a big difference between Bolton and Stark, names which he'd carefully left out.

She could think of little else after that conversation. Even days later, as the castle was reeling from the news from King's Landing, Aileen was unable to focus on the book she was trying to read, staring out of Lady Catelyn's window. She'd been spending a bit of time with her aunt since her arrival, out of the hope that Sansa would do the same for Lady Rosennis if the positions were reversed.

Catelyn was busy with her embroidery in the chair by the fireplace, but she wasn't focused either, her movements mechanical and her eyes blank.

"Would you like me to have your lunch brought up here, my lady?" The handmaid, Carys, asked. When Catelyn nodded vaguely, barely looking at her, she turned to Aileen. "Lady Aileen?"

"Yes, please," She said. "There should be some of that boar left from last night,"

Carys curtseyed and left. Aileen's eyes remained on her aunt. For a woman as bound by dignity and propriety as Lady Catelyn was, it was no wonder such an awful thing happening to her had affected her so greatly, not to mention the deaths of her two youngest children. There was hardly anything Aileen could say or do that would make it any better.

She tried to read the same paragraph she'd read four times already, before giving up and returning to staring out of the window. It was worse here, sat with her aunt, knowing that half a kingdom away her own father was plotting against Catelyn's son.

This room had a good view of the training yard. Edrick was there outside, fighting against both of the Frey boys from Winterfell at the same time, given they were both only nine. From the looks of things, they had challenged him expecting to win if they fought together. Which was... optimistic.

Neither of the Bolton twins could stand either of the Freys even in the few short days they'd known them, though the smaller one - confusingly called Big Walder - was more bearable than his... cousin? Brother? Uncle? In that family, who knew. Rather worryingly, both boys seemed to be befriending some of the Bastard's Boys, and she'd caught Ramsay himself watching them closely. That only spelled trouble.

Despite her dark thoughts, Aileen smiled as her brother knocked the larger of the two - Little Walder - into the dirt, before knocking the sword out of Big Walder's hand, clearly laughing at his angry opponents. Well done, brother, you can show up two little boys four years younger than yourself.

That smile slowly faded. The idea of Edrick as lord of anything was strange, let alone the entire North. She hoped the war in the south would be over soon. Given the outcome of the Battle of the Blackwater, it was hard to say whether that was likely or not. But when it was over, they could have Mother back. Ren and Morganna would be safe, Robb would be Lord of Winterfell and the shadow of Ramsay would be gone forever.

But Aileen had never been foolish, and she knew that was a rather foolish dream to have. Bran and Rickon were dead, whilst Lady Catelyn looked dead inside. Robb and Ren were boys no longer, doubtless scarred and hardened from war. Sansa, Arya and Morganna had had to put up with being hostages of the Lannisters for months on end.

No, things would never be so idyllic again.

*

Edited November 2024

If anyone is wondering why Ramsay is acting out of character in not killing the twins, just think about it. If Roose has a surviving son, he is not going to let his crazed bastard murder him. Most men at the Dreadfort are loyal to Roose, not Ramsay, so they are not going to let him kill Bolton children. Ramsay might be cunning and good at thinking on his feet, but he's no genius. Of course he's tried to kill the twins multiple times but was stopped by their guards.

As to why Roose still wants Ramsay at the Dreadfort knowing what he's like, he clearly values having a strong adult presence representing the Boltons, shown in his conversation with Theon about Ramsay being likely to kill Fat Walda and her baby, and Roose not caring that much because 'a baby would never survive being lord in winter' or something like that. He also wants Ramsay to carry out the dirty work he himself can't get away with.

Apologies for Catelyn's trauma. Given how the Ironborn treated the other women of Winterfell in the books, and their treatment of women in general, I didn't think it would be realistic if she remained unharmed. She genuinely believes Bran and Rickon were killed after escaping, another reason why she's so broken.

Anyway, thanks for reading, commenting/reviewing! I hope you liked the chapter, I wasn't going to include a look at the North for a while but this just seemed to fit. Next chapter, Blackwater aftermath.