Chapter Text
Berena wakes in the early hours of the morning; pale blue-grey light is seeping in through the windows of the room she and Lyanna have been sharing at Riverrun. But the castle is quiet, and the birds have yet to begin to even sing. She rubs at her eyes and squints over at her sister’s bed; it is empty.
“Lya?” Lyanna has never been an early riser; even when they were small, Berena was always the cheery one in the morning, while her elder sister sulked and brooded until she’d broken her fast. But Lyanna is not in bed right now; she is rifling through her trunk, pulling on her warmest cloak.
“Go back to sleep, Beri.” Lyanna is affixing the silver clasp, and arranging the hood over her hair. Like Brandon, Lya has Father’s dark brown curls, while Ned and Berena share Mother’s hair, a lighter, softer shade of brown, which hangs limp and straight around their long faces.
Berena is tired, worn out from their recent travel south and the preparations for Brandon’s marriage to Catelyn Tully, who is eagerly awaiting his arrival. By this time next year, Lyanna will be wed as well, to Robert Baratheon. Ned and Berena are yet unbetrothed, as Father is more concerned with marrying off his eldest son and daughter first, but Berena knows it will be soon. She is newly thirteen and flowered a few months past, earlier than Lyanna, even.
“Where are you going?” she asks drowsily, lying back against her pillow. Riverrun is draftier than the interior of Winterfell in the winter, because its walls are not heated the way her home’s walls are. The fire in the grate has died down to smoldering embers; she means to get up and tend to it, but the cold is biting at her face, and she pulls the bedcovers up under her chin like a child.
“Out for a ride,” Lyanna is looking away from her, turned towards the door, but then she pauses and turns back. “Go to sleep, Berena. I’ll be back soon.” She smiles faintly, but her eyes are shadowed. Berena is too tired to discern any deeper meaning in her words, and nods faintly, although Lyanna is not permitted to go out riding unchaperoned.
Of course, Lya is not permitted to do many things, and still she persists in doing them. Berena is less alarmed and more bemused, as her eyes flutter closed again. Of course Lyanna is taking advantage of the milder southron winters to go out for an early morning ride. Berena loves to ride as well, but she has never outraced Lya and her favorite black courser, Artos.
So Lyanna goes and Berena sleeps, and when she awakens an hour later, the birds are singing and a maid is stoking up the fire.
“Has my sister gone down to eat?” Berena asks politely; she is always polite with servants, for she spent more of her childhood than was proper down in the kitchens of Winterfell with Lyanna, listening wide-eyed to the gossip of the cooks and bakers.
The serving girl turns to her, face flushed from her morning’s work. “She was already gone when I came in, milady.”
“But she…” Berena scrambles out from under the bedcovers, shoving her bare feet into her slippers, and pads over to Lyanna’s empty bed. She opens her sister’s trunk; the cloak is still missing, and her riding boots.
She pauses, and then roots around further, and freezes. The sword is missing as well. Lyanna has had it for over a year, since the tourney, when she won it off the Frey squire. She declared it the only sword worth keeping, of the three she confiscated as the laughing knight.
Lya has kept that sword well hidden from all but Berena. Brandon and Ned may have their suspicions, but Father can never know that it was his daughter who caused not one but two scandals at the tourney at Harrenhal. She would never carry it on her person for a simple ride through Tully lands.
If Lyanna took the sword, then she set out to do something else entirely.
“Milady?” the maid asks warily, from behind her, as Berena slowly straightens up. “Is something wrong, begging your pardon?”
Berena moves quickly to the window, hoping to see a black mount and its slim rider in the courtyard below. But Lyanna is not there. She turns back round to face the maid, fighting a losing battle to keep her expression composed. Something is wrong. Lya knows better than to stay out this long. She would not dare sneak off to practice her swordplay mere days before their brother’s wedding. Something is very, very wrong.
“I-,”
There’s a sudden commotion from down below, and Berena whirls around to the window, throwing it all the way open. Frigid morning air rushes in to greet her as she leans out to hear what the men below are yelling.
“Someone fetch Lord Stark!” a boy is scrambling down from his horse, red-faced and panting. “His daughter- they’ve taken her!” More cries follow, horses neigh and whinny in alarm as boots stamp across the frost-coated ground. “Lord Stark! Awaken the Starks! The prince’s taken the lady Lyanna!”
Lyanna never does come back, and Berena never does forgive her for that one, final lie.
Berena is sent home to Winterfell immediately, with thirty men and neither her father nor her brothers. She has settled into her role of lady of Winterfell for less than a month when a raven arrives with news of Father and Brandon’s deaths. Berena inspects their winter stores and sits on a rock in the godswood, catching snowflakes on her tongue and imagining she hears her siblings laughing in the howl of the wind.
Ned comes North to call the banners, but only goes so far as White Harbor. Berena cannot go to see him before he leaves; there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, for the last time they were all away Father and Brandon died. She is left with old men and young boys and frightened women. The fighting is in the South, and they must be thankful for that. Berena is not.
She turns fourteen alone. There is no name day feast this year, no special treat of mulled wine or lemon cakes. Ned marries Catelyn Tully, and she is glad; she always liked the girl Brandon called Cat, with her soft blue eyes and her coppery hair. Rhaegar, who viciously stole away Lya, kicking and screaming, or who gallantly set her atop his noble white horse, while they rode off into the winter morn, depending on who you ask and what tale you believe, dies at the Trident.
There is no news of Lyanna. Part of Berena almost fears her return; the Lya who comes back to her will not be the Lya who left her, regardless of whether she left willingly or not. The girl who told Berena to go back to sleep, who had a stolen sword at her waist, would not be the woman who returns. They whisper that if Ned does bring her back, she will be ruined, in more ways than one.
So in a way, she is already a little dead in Berena’s heart.
King’s Landing falls. The North sneers at the tales of the treacherous lions and the golden Kingslayer, who slit the Mad King’s Throat as he sat atop his Iron Throne. Berena has always been a gentler soul than her elder siblings, perhaps because she has always been the coddled youngest. She does not have it in her to hate the man who killed Aerys Targaryen, no matter how dishonorable it might have been.
Ned rides furth south, and Berena remains in the North. She should be betrothed by now, but there is no one to arrange such a thing, and few lords are impudent enough to approach her, knowing all the while that their lord seeks out her missing sister. She is not surprised when Ned returns with only bones. Lyanna would never admit defeat, no matter the circumstances- she would have returned home triumphantly or not at all, and there is no triumph in what happened to her.
Along with the bones is a pale babe with a shock of dark curls and solemn grey eyes. Ned tells Berena the child is his son, Jon Snow. He is her lord now, not just her brother, dear Ned, who she could always turn to when Brandon or Lya injured her feelings, so she doesn't laugh in his face. Nor does she believe him. Jon Snow is no son of Eddard Stark, but he must be, Berena may be a silly girl with a lopsided smile and a freckled nose, but she understands that much. He must be.
Catelyn is a welcome relief, and with her is little Robb, who Berena adores on sight. She is not as fiercely protective of him as she is of Jon, but he is still her nephew, for all his Tully looks, and Catelyn her goodsister, her only sister. Catelyn is a discreet girl and never mentions Lyanna’s name. Berena prefers it that way, prefers to pretend the last two years were just a nasty dream, like one of her childhood nightmares. She’d much rather smile and laugh and bounce Ned’s son and not-son in her lap.
Ned does not tell her until after she turns fifteen, three months after what remains of her family comes home. He does not tell her until after dinner one evening, when she sits in her room, combing through her hair. He knocks politely at her door, which is half open. Berena tucks her legs up underneath her; she has long, horsey legs, she thinks, and was taller than Lya even when Lya was eleven and she ten. She has a longer, less attractive face as well, with a snub nose and ears that stick out ever so slightly. Old Nan always said it was the wildling blood in her. Wildlings are familiar with stolen sisters as well.
Ned is looking at her sadly, and Berena hunches her shoulders. “What is it?”
“There’s something I must tell you.” He approaches her bed, and cautiously sits down at the end of it. He is a battle-tested man now, but Berena still sees the quiet boy in him when he sits like that, slouched slightly, head down.
“Then tell it quick,” she says lightly, “before I fall asleep on you, brother.”
That does not provoke much of a smile from him, and she grows tenser, huddling up against his side, hoping he might wrap a long arm around her and pull her close, but he has a wife and a son now. And she is not a child anymore.
“When I returned to King’s Landing from Dorne, Robert was… distraught when he learned of Lyanna,” Ned says quietly. “He had… well, I do not know what he had hoped.”
“He could not have wed her,” Berena says, forcing sensibility into her voice. “Even if she had lived. It would- she couldn’t have been queen.”
“Yes,” says Ned after a moment. “But- he did ask after you, Berena.”
Her blood runs cold. “Me?” she chokes out incredulously, giving the comb a vicious tug through her hair. “I- I don’t understand.” But she does. Brandon died, so Ned married Catelyn instead. Lyanna died, so… But Robert is not just a lord anymore, not just a Baratheon of Storm’s End. Now he is king, and it is not so simple as to substitute one sister for another.
Besides, he gains nothing through marriage to a Stark- their loyalty to the new regime is assured, Ned fought beside him. Still, there is a certain romance to it, she thinks, although she has never been swayed by Robert’s charming smiles and fair looks. He was never worthy of Lya.
“He is to marry Cersei Lannister,” Ned says, breaking through her frantic thoughts. “Jon and the rest of his council were quick to convince him of that. Lord Tywin,” and now Ned comes as close to a sneer as he ever will, “would be satisfied with nothing less, after the part he played in securing the throne.”
“Good,” says Berena savagely. She has never met Cersei Lannister, but a Lannister is better suited to court and the capitol than a Stark. They were not meant to go South. Father was… he was mistaken to think otherwise. Lyanna would never have been happy as Robert’s wife, even if he kept to her bed only.
Only then it occurs to her. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because Robert dismissed Ser Jaime from the Kingsguard.” Ned should be pleased; he would never hold with the killer of one king defending another, but he does not look it or sound it.
“Is he being sent to the Wall?” Berena asks, startled. Lord Tywin would never allow it, and she cannot imagine Robert agreeing to such a thing. He likely congratulated the Kingslayer for killing Aerys before he could.
“No,” Ned’s jaw has become locked and hardened, and he barely grits the words out. “He has been restored as Lord Tywin’s heir.”
Berena still fails to see why any of this concerns her, although she is glad Ned is confiding in her. She wants them to be close again, as they were when they were children. They are all that remains of the children of Rickard and Lyarra Stark. The pack survives, as Father always said.
“Berena,” Ned turns to face her properly now, and puts his hands on her shoulders. She sets down the comb in her lap. “Robert promised your hand to Jaime Lannister.”
Berena stares at him for a moment, searching his face, and then breaks free of his grip. He does not try to stop her. “I- I can’t marry a Lannister,” she sputters, and it would be funny were she not skittering across the floor like a wild creature backed into a corner, her damp hair clinging to her neck. “Ned- how could you agree to such a thing, this is mad-,”
“Robert is the king now,” Ned stays where he is, “and you are unbetrothed, Berena.”
“I am unbetrothed because- because everyone died!” she cries, throwing her hands up. “I am unbetrothed because there was no one here to betroth me, and no one to betroth me to! We were at war!”
“And now the war is over, and Lord Tywin wants his heir wed.” Ned is not reproachful or affronted by her outrage. He would never use his new status as lord- her lord- to force her into submission. But he is not groveling for her forgiveness, either.
“I was not in favor of the match, Berena. I spoke out against it, but I could only protest so much. Peace is fragile. Robert’s reign is far from secure. Many families would be well pleased to marry into the Lannister line, and while I do not think a Stark would be Tywin’s first choice, he was not opposed to the idea.”
“What of Ser Jaime?” She cannot imagine him willingly agreeing to wed the sister of a man who despises him so. And he is a man- he may not be forced so easily as a woman, if he does not wish to wed.
“Ser Jaime will do as his father tells him, dutiful son that he is.” Ned is nearly sarcastic, and she would smile were she not so close to screaming. It is not even that she loathes the idea of being the Kingslayer’s wife, although she far from welcomes it, but the idea of leaving home- of being lady of Casterly Rock-
“I insisted that the wedding wait until you came of age.”
A year. That is all she has left here, with her family, in her home. A year. And then she will be off to the Westerlands, perhaps to never set foot in the North again.
“Eddard.” Berena is close to tears now. “I… I can’t… I don’t want to,” she says piteously, because she doesn't know what else to say. A good sister would thank her brother for such a fine match, would be thrilled at the idea of life at Casterly Rock. “I don’t want to marry him, Ned, I don’t want to leave, I… why couldn’t I marry a Northman, stay here-,”
He takes her hands in his own, and pulls her close, massaging her heaving back. “I know. Would that you could. I don’t want you to go either. But we all must… we all must do our duties. You are a Stark of Winterfell. No Lannister could ever change that.”
She knows that. She is a highborn lady, and while that rank comes with many privileges, it also comes with many duties. It is her duty to wed for the greater good of the seven kingdoms. If this will help preserve the peace, prevent further bad blood between the Lannisters and the Starks, then it is not a question of wanting.