Chapter 12 – "Wolf Lord Rising"
The snow had begun to thaw in slow silver veins through the fields and forests when the news arrived: Cregan Stark was to be granted a keep of his own.
The words hit each of the boys differently.
Robb was the first to speak, as they sat in the Godswood under the thick boughs of the heart tree.
"A keep," he said, turning the word over like a sword in his hand. "That means land. Men. Responsibility."
Jon frowned. "It also means freedom."
Cregan said nothing at first. He leaned back against the gnarled bark of the heart tree, Kael sprawled at his feet. A raven croaked above them as wind teased their cloaks.
Then Cregan smirked. "It means something else."
Jon raised a brow. "What?"
"It means Father believes in me. Even if Mother doesn't."
Robb gave a half-laugh. "She just fears you'll burn down half the Wolfswood."
"I might," Cregan replied with a shrug, "but only the half that needs burning."
---
Cregan had changed since their return from Last Hearth, and everyone knew it. He was louder now, more wild—but there was method in his boldness, a natural charisma that drew men and beasts alike. He spent more time in the kennels, more time with the falconers, and even learned to calm a skittish stallion with a whisper and a steady hand.
The moment he saw Frosthall, he knew it would never be just a holdfast. It would be his heart.
The keep was still in ruin then—broken walls, overgrown courtyards, moss-eaten beams—but where others saw decay, Cregan saw potential. He ran a hand over the stone and felt the old magic buried beneath it, bones of forgotten wolves waiting to be unearthed.
"She still has teeth," he told Jon as they walked the perimeter. "You just have to sharpen them."
Jon smiled faintly. "We don't even have a working forge yet."
"We will. I'll build one myself if I have to."
And he nearly did. With help from Jon, Kael, and a few loyal craftsmen, they began restoring the place. Roofs were patched, walls reinforced, and the old well unearthed. Jon managed the ledgers, made trade arrangements with nearby villages, and negotiated with Winterfell's stewards for materials.
Cregan didn't care for numbers—but he cared for loyalty. He rode out to meet every villager who settled nearby, hunted for their feasts, and personally saw to the safety of the roads.
Soon, Frosthall was more than a keep. It was a symbol.
But Cregan wanted more.
---
By the next winter, he had drawn up rough maps of ancient Northern ruins—abandoned castles swallowed by forest or buried in snow. He hung charcoal sketches on his walls, read old records by firelight, and questioned Maester Luwin about castles no one visited anymore.
"Why do you care about dead stone?" Robb once asked him.
"Because the bones of the North are still strong," Cregan replied. "We just forgot where they were buried."
He fantasized about restoring them all—fortresses and watchtowers, lodges and walls. He imagined a network of old keeps made new again, with Frosthall at their heart.
"We are wolves," he often said to Jon. "Wolves need territory."
He had already carved a crude wooden model of Frosthall, and beside it, mock carvings of imagined expansions—walls, outer keeps, even a great hall shaped like a wolf's skull. Jon humored him. Robb admired him. Catelyn despaired of him.
Kael merely watched.
---
Cregan's obsession with wolves deepened, not just Kael and the pups raised at Frosthall, but the old lore. He studied the sigils of each Northern house, reciting their words, tracing their banners with a hungry reverence.
"The direwolf is more than a symbol," he told Jon once. "It's a promise."
Jon raised a brow. "A promise of what?"
Cregan turned, eyes intense in the firelight. "That we survive. That we don't kneel. That even in winter, the pack endures."
Sometimes he would sit in the woods, Kael at his side, listening to the wind in the trees as if the forest whispered secrets only he could hear. Falcons nested in the towers of Frosthall now, and wolves howled at night from beyond the walls.
The guards he'd raised—men sworn more to him than even House Stark—spoke of their lord with respect and awe. Some said he could speak with animals. Others claimed he tracked by scent alone. All knew that he trained harder than any of them and led by example.
And yet, for all his wildness, something else had begun to stir in him: purpose.
Cregan had tasted command—and liked it.
He began to hold council in Frosthall once a week. Not just with guards and household men, but with villagers, blacksmiths, and farmers. He asked about their needs. Listened. Promised to fix what he could.
He didn't always succeed.
But he never stopped trying.
---
At Winterfell, Ned Stark spoke with Robb over the map table.
"Your brother's making a name for himself."
"He's building something real."
"He's also making enemies."
Robb looked up. "In the North?"
"Not all wolves hunt together, Robb."
Robb was silent.
Ned continued, "Frosthall was meant to tame him. Instead, it gave him firewood."
"He's not out of control."
"Not yet. But he walks a thin line."
Robb thought of Cregan with Kael, sword in hand, laughing as he leapt from boulder to boulder in the woods. Of Jon grinning silently beside him, loyal as any brother could be.
"He's not a danger," Robb said quietly. "He's a Stark."
---
One evening, Jon joined Cregan at the top of Frosthall's rebuilt wall. The wind was sharp. The stars clear.
"Do you think we'll ever matter?" Jon asked.
Cregan didn't answer at once. He was watching a hawk circle the treeline.
"We already do," he said.
"Even if no one south of Moat Cailin knows our names?"
Cregan turned to him. "They'll know."
He looked out across his land—the frost-kissed fields, the flickering torches of his guards, the black silhouette of Kael at the base of the wall.
"One keep is a beginning," he said. "We're going to make the North stronger. One stone, one sword, one howl at a time."
Jon said nothing.
But the wind howled with them.
And above, the moon watched.
The wolves were rising.
And Cregan Stark had found his path.