Invisible String - Cregan Stark

Eleven~ Scars

Cregan

The Wolfswood stretched wide around us, ancient and solemn.

Snow-laden trees loomed tall, their trunks like sentinels watching over. The air was cold but not cruel—just sharp enough to sting the lungs and numb the fingertips if gloves were removed too long.

I welcomed it.

The cold usually cleared the mind. Steadied the heart. It reminded a man of who he was and what he could endure.

The winds felt ancient today, bringing my thoughts to my ancestor -Alaric- who had once ridden through this very forest beside Queen Alysanne Targaryen, another silver thread in a tapestry many still remembered.

I had been taught the tale by firelight as a boy—how the queen had softened the old wolf with her grace, her steel, her sharp tongue and soft heart. How she'd come with a dragon and left with the respect of House Stark.

And now, another daughter of dragons rode before me.

Not silver-haired, this one. No, she was dusk and shadow and quicksilver wit. All clever looks and cutting grace, with a gaze that saw through iron and stone and straight into marrow.

I saw the way she looked at the trees—not just looked, but read them, as though she could see the story hidden in bark and branch. Her eyes flicked from crow to moss to frost, cataloging, calculating.

She observed everything, like the forest was a puzzle and she was meant to solve it before dusk. Always thinking. I admired that about her. She was never idle in mind, not even in stillness.

She rode beside me now, close enough that our horses' flanks brushed in rhythm. I watched the small hoop of silver, the one she always wore high on her left ear, with a tiny charm hanging from it. The charm spun with the breeze, a flash of faint light in the grey day, like a secret that refused to die.

Her black cloak snapped softly, her hood drawn tight. Every so often, when the light shifted between branches, I caught the gleam of her lilac eyes.

Those same eyes that haunted me from nights ago. The thought of her peeking out of her tent with her wild hair unbound, snow caught in her curls like stardust. She hadn't spoken—just mouthed thank you, her lips curled in that crooked, elusive smile she seemed to save only for special occasions.

I hadn't known what to say. Still don't.

But the sight of her face, lit by the lantern, had stayed with me. It lingered now—tugging at my thoughts even as we rode deeper into the forest. She'd clutched one of the books I'd left in her saddle bag, cradling it like a jewel. That's when I knew I'd chosen well. Better than a blade or a bauble. She'd rather have knowledge than gold.

She was unreadable to most. Not to me.

She'd grown into something fierce and still, like a storm held tightly beneath glass. There was always movement behind her quiet—always a thought turning, always a truth she wasn't saying.

And I kept watching her.

Too long this time. She caught me. Again.

Yet this time she met my gaze deliberately, slowing her horse just enough to twist in the saddle, brow furrowed, lips curved in that faint, knowing smile that could mean amusement—or warning.

She squinted at me, assessing, deciding whether to scold me for staring or tease me for being caught. Perhaps both.

"You have a staring problem," she said, voice low and even. "Or a very strange way of navigating the woods."