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Everyone stopped what they were doing.
Greatjon Umber's massive hand, already reaching for his wine cup, froze in mid-air. Maege Mormont lowered the roasted meat from her lips. Even Wyman Manderly, who had been plowing through his meal with his head down, lifted his greasy, fat face.
Dozens of pairs of eyes locked onto Lynn.
The Harvest Council?
Oh. Right.
That was supposed to be the point of all this. Even if everyone in the room knew it was only the official point.
"Winter Is Coming."
Lynn let the words land.
House Stark's words. Their motto. And the people of the North understood better than any southerner alive what winter actually meant.
"The Maesters at the Citadel say we are living through the longest summer in the history of Westeros." He paused. "Many children of noble houses were born into this summer. They have already forgotten what a hard winter feels like."
His gaze moved slowly across the room, reading the familiar weight settling onto every face.
"After a summer this long, the winter that follows will be longer. And crueler."
"The Long Night."
The words came from the corner. Roose Bolton, who had been sitting so still he seemed to have grown out of the shadows, spoke them in that soft, particular voice of his.
Two words. The temperature in the hall seemed to drop several degrees. A chill moved through the room that had nothing to do with the fire.
"That's right," Lynn said. "The Long Night."
He let it sit for a moment.
"A Long Night cold enough to freeze hell itself. One that will make the living envy the dead."
"My people, those you call wildlings, did not cross the Wall to raid. They were running for their lives. They were fleeing a darkness and cold that could swallow the entire world."
An uneasy murmur moved through the hall.
Wildlings?
Since when did those blood-drinking savages fear winter? Weren't they part of it?
"King-Beyond-the-Wall."
Rickard Karstark rose to his feet. Tall, thick-bearded, eyes hard as Northern stone.
"Are you saying this winter is different from those before?"
"Not different," Lynn said. "Worlds apart."
"I unified every tribe beyond the Wall. Not to march south and conquer. To survive. I made them bury their hatred for each other and start stockpiling everything they could. We felled timber. Gathered raw materials. Dug cellars." He paused. "We did everything we could think of to prepare."
His gaze sharpened.
"But we are missing one thing. The most critical thing."
"Food."
"For my own people alone, there are over a hundred thousand hungry wildling mouths to feed. And hundreds of thousands more soldiers and civilians in Astapor. Don't be fooled by the aid I'm receiving from the Tyrells and Lannisters, or the merchant ships coming out of Slaver's Bay. It might look like I have enough. I don't. Not for what's coming. During the Long Night, I cannot guarantee I'll be able to secure enough food to keep them alive."
He let the silence stretch.
"Stone and iron ore can't be eaten. Wood won't fill a stomach. Without food, it doesn't matter if we can withstand the cold. We'll starve anyway."
No one spoke.
It was the simplest problem in the room. And the most unsolvable.
The North was too damn poor. Always had been. Barren land, brutal climate, sparse population. Every harvest barely covered what its people needed to survive the year.
"Lord Stark has already pledged to allocate half of Winterfell's grain reserves as winter provisions for the North."
Ned Stark nodded, confirming it.
"Winterfell has been preparing for years. The stores are substantial. But it is still nowhere near enough." Lynn's gaze moved to the bannermen. "The North needs your help. It needs whatever surplus grain you can pull from your own stores."
The hall went quiet. The uncomfortable kind.
The lords looked at each other. Troubled faces all around.
It wasn't that they were unwilling.
They simply didn't have it.
"Lord Lynn..."
The first to speak was Wyman Manderly. He shifted his enormous body in his chair with some effort and arranged a generous smile on his face. He was the wealthiest lord in the room, and he knew it.
"White Harbor is the most prosperous port in the North. My granaries do have reserves." He straightened slightly. "On behalf of House Manderly, I am willing to contribute half of what we have to support your cause."
Then his smile turned rueful.
"But even that is a drop in the bucket. Feeding this many people through a winter of unknown length... the amount of grain required is simply beyond reckoning."
"Lord Manderly is right," Maege Mormont said, her voice low and steady. "Bear Island's catch barely keeps our own people fed each year. We have no surplus to offer. House Mormont can give you our loyalty and the axes in our hands. Nothing more."
Her words carried the weight of every minor lord in the room. They would bleed for the Starks. They would fight until there was nothing left. But they had no grain to give.
"I understand," Lynn said. His voice cut through the quiet and pulled every eye back to him. "That's exactly the point. Relying on the North alone will never solve this."
He walked to the center of the hall and had a large map of Westeros spread across the floor. He reached down and pointed south.
A rich land, ringed by rivers and plains.
"But there is one place that can."
"There is a place where the soil is so fertile it practically bleeds abundance. Where a single year's harvest is enough to feed half a kingdom." He looked up. "That is the granary of Westeros."
Every gaze in the room followed his finger to the name on the map.
The Riverlands.
"The Riverlands," Lynn said. "Exactly. Secure the support of the Riverlands, and it doesn't matter how long the Long Night lasts. Two of them. Three. We will endure."
Hope moved through the room like a spark catching dry wood.
The Riverlands. House Tully was the Starks' closest kin by marriage. Lady Catelyn herself was born in Riverrun. If Lord Ned asked, how could Riverrun refuse? Even if outright aid wasn't realistic, they could buy grain. They could negotiate. There were options.
Then Lynn kept talking, and the spark went out.
"Right now," he said, "the greatest granary in Westeros has fallen into the hands of madmen and schemers."
He laid it out plainly. Lysa Arryn. Walder Frey. The dirty dealings between them. He didn't embellish a word. He didn't need to. He simply stated the facts, one after another.
Each one hit like a hammer.
"That madwoman! She killed her own father?"
"For a Littlefinger who's already dead and rotting?"
"And Walder Frey! That old turtle who couldn't even make it to the Trident on time! He dares conspire with her to seize Riverrun?"
"What are they after?"
"Are you blind? They're trying to strangle the North!"
The hall exploded.
Voices crashed over each other. Fists hit tables. They understood now, all of them, what this actually was.
Yes, it was Lynn's fight with the southerners. But it was also a conspiracy aimed squarely at the North.
Lysa and the Freys controlling the Riverlands meant controlling the road south. It meant controlling the lifeline the North would need most when the darkness came. They wanted the North to starve. To freeze and starve and die in the Long Night while they celebrated down south.
BANG!
Greatjon Umber's fist came down on the table like a falling tree. The oak surface shuddered. Plates rattled. Cups tipped.
"Goddamn it all!"
His face, already red from drink, had gone savage with fury.
"That pair of dogs! Who in the seven hells do they think they are?!" He was on his feet now, voice filling the hall. "The North, the Riverlands, and the Vale have stood together for generations! No pack of scheming bastards gets to tear that apart!"
"They dare to starve the North?!"
"Ned! Lynn! Give the order!"
He ripped the greatsword from his belt and drove it into the table. The blade sank half a foot into the oak and stood there, quivering.
"My men from Last Hearth have been waiting for this. They're ready to march south right now and take some southern heads!"
"Damn right!"
"Let them feel the North's fury!"
"For the North!"
"For survival!"
Every lord in the room was on his feet. Weapons drawn, eyes blazing. The fighting spirit coming off them was hotter than any fire in any hearth.
Before, they had thought this was a war to avenge House Tully. An ally's debt to repay.
Now they understood. This was their war. For their families. For every man, woman, and child in the North who needed to live through what was coming.
This was survival.
Ned Stark watched his roaring bannermen and felt something fierce and proud rise in his chest. He looked at Lynn, and there was nothing in his eyes but trust.
Lynn had done it in a handful of sentences. He had taken every man's interests, every man's rage, every man's desperate will to live, and woven them into a single purpose. He had made his fight into their fight. And every one of them had chosen it willingly.
"Everyone!"
Lynn raised his horn cup. The hall quieted, the lords watching him with something close to hunger.
"Lysa Arryn and Walder Frey are celebrating their alliance with a grand wedding at Riverrun. They are forcing Lord Edmure Tully to marry a Frey daughter. They intend to grind the honor of House Tully into the dirt beneath their feet."
A cold smile crossed his face.
"The Tullys are our most loyal allies. We will not stand by and watch."
He let the silence hold for a beat.
"That is not a wedding."
"That is the funeral of House Tully. And the funeral of every hope the North has left."
"They are celebrating our death. They are raising cups to our end."
Lynn lifted his own cup. His gaze swept the room. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, and it carried like the wind off the Wall.
"So I have one question for you."
"Do we sit here and wait to starve?"
"Or do we go crash that wedding and burn the whole damn thing to the ground?"
➤ Next: The Little She-Bear Resolves the Situation
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