Winterfell's gates loom behind us, grey and formidable against the pale morning sky. The hunting party stretches ahead—a dozen men on horseback, hounds baying in the distance.

Cregan rides at the front, his broad back straight as a spear. He hasn't looked back once.

Not that I expected him to.

The maids had whispered when they helped me dress at dawn—"His lord father never took his lady mother to the hunt, my lady"—and I had smiled and said nothing.

But I saw the way Cregan's jaw tightened when I appeared in the courtyard. The way he looked through me, not at me, when he said "Stay close. Don't wander."

As if I were a child to be managed.

As if I were a burden he must carry.

The horse shifts beneath me, and I feel the cold seeping through my gloves.