46-Shattering

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction based on the Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire universes. All recognisable characters, plots, and settings are the exclusive property of Joanne K. Rowling and George R.R. Martin, respectively. I make no claim to ownership.

*

Acknowledgements: This chapter was edited by Void Uzumaki. I also want to thank my beta reader Bub3loka, for helping me bounce ideas around.

*

If you're feeling generous and want to support me, you can find me on P*T*E*N under the same name to read ahead of discord in all my works.

*

The Dream

She was close now, the thrice-damned humans would all pay for slaying her husband and child. Her foolish kin that banished her here was long gone, that vengeance was taken from her. The shackles that bound her were all broken but one. Yet it mattered little, for she had no need to walk the land again when her children served as her hand. Ones not of her loins but her magic. The Wall was weakening, and it could no longer bar her gaze to the south. Nor could it bar her powers; if she had tried to freeze the Bay of Ice a decade ago, she would have failed. As soon as her servants slaughtered the pesky humans, nothing would stop her now.

The victory was so close she could practically taste it. Suddenly a foreign presence rapidly approached from the south, and she growled in annoyance…

*

Near Westwatch, 13th day of the 11th Moon, Year 303 after Aegon's Conquest

TING!

Something struck the sword with immense strength, making the Night King recoil half a dozen yards away.

The loud, ringing sound echoed across the whole shore and made Rogar Wull dizzy with pain. He was just about to be skewered by the White Walker, but then the whistling sounds became unbearably loud, and his foe exploded into fragments. Hundreds of the surrounding wights fell lifelessly.

More and more bronze-tipped arrows began raining on the location between the Night King and the Northern Queen, embedding themselves to the shaft and littering the frozen, stony ground with cracks. A few arrows were aimed at the White Walkers, who shattered into fragments, taking thousands of wights down with them, giving the overwhelmed defenders a brief moment of respite.

Ghost, one eye clawed out, was finally free of wights and turned around and ran as fast as his legs allowed him.

An enormous dragon made from violent flame dived into the frozen Bay of Ice, followed by similar, smaller figurines with the shapes of direwolves. It grew as it hungrily devoured every single corpse and made the thick ice melt like wax.

All the extinguished torches suddenly ignited with bright, purple flames.

Meanwhile, Stormstrider was almost completely overwhelmed when thick, dark blue torrents of fire turned all the wights surrounding the drake into ash. A mighty spiked tail swooped and smashed away all the remaining corpses that were attempting to climb over the fallen drake.

Winter rose again in the air and flew towards the thickest gathering of wights.

A figure clad in dark metal split the snowy veil in the sky and fell down like a dark meteor from the heavens before abruptly halting its descent inches from the ground and landing slowly on the cracked ground right in front of his Winter Queen. Through the small slits of the greathelm could be seen a pair of purple eyes glaring malevolently at his foe. In his armoured hand, a burning ironwood stick was quickly turning to ash.

The snowfall slowly began to halt, and the surrounding temperature began to rise.

For a short moment, the White Walkers had stopped their slaughter, and all looked in one direction, giving the younger Wull a brief moment of respite. He looked in wonder as the torch on the ground was roaring with purple fire and didn't hesitate to pick it up; his gaze slid in the same direction as the Others.

Rogar Wull felt hope fill him for the first time tonight. He took a deep breath, ignoring the burning feeling in his throat, and roared with all his strength.

"STAAAAAAAARK!"

Shireen's heart was beating like a furious drum as she waited for death to come. But the booming cry made Shireen Stark wipe the snow from her eyes in confusion, only to see a familiar black cloak billow in front of her. The howling white direwolf head with ruby-red eyes fluttered in the cold wind, and tears of joy and relief began to flow freely from her eyes.

"THE STARK IS HERE!"

The surviving Northmen who were on the brink of death now entered a frenzy and began to fight furiously with renewed vigour.

The Night King warily eyed this new opponent, who radiated palpable danger. Behind him, the fiery abominations were dancing on top of the Bay of Ice, melting all the thick ice and quickly devouring his army and growing bigger and bigger. He tried to snuff them out with his powers, yet, they only slowed down. He commanded his Walkers to attack the foe in front of him, while he focused all his attention and might on extinguishing the hungry flames that were reducing his army to cinders and cutting off his path of retreat.

Winter, with his dark blue flames, was ploughing through the tens of thousands of wights who had crossed the Bay of Ice successfully.

Nearly twenty White Walkers abandoned everything and converged towards Jon Stark, who, bronze sword drawn, stood as still as a statue in front of his wife. The Northern King looked around as he was surrounded by a ring of the so-called "Cold Gods" and snorted. Suddenly, he blurred, and two of the White Walkers loudly shattered into pieces as if made of glass.

A white blur madly lunged into two more Walkers from behind, pushing them forward straight into the bronze blade of Jon Stark.

Shireen hurriedly wiped her tears off and watched with fascination how her husband was brutally dismantling his foes of legend as if it was child's play. All who attempted to approach her were easily blocked and slain by Jon.

A high-pitched, tingling sound lingered in the air every time ice clashed with bronze. He was faster, stronger, more skilled and simply better than the Walkers, yet there were nearly ten left, and he had to guard her. Her heart nearly stopped when one of the crystalline swords was about to strike his armour.

The black metal effortlessly shrugged off the kiss of the icy blade as Jon continued ruthlessly slaughtering them, like a wolf amongst a flock of sheep.

The Night King frowned as the purple fires turned out far harder to extinguish, as they actively resisted his will. The direwolves were snuffed out quickly enough, but the enormous fiery dragon was viciously fighting back and required his full concentration. It took him a whole minute to completely snuff out the fiery abominations. He still had more than a hundred thousand wights, but the Bay was no longer frozen. In front of him, his last lieutenant was destroyed by the Winter King.

Tens of thousands of wights fell with the death of the last two dozen White Walkers, saving the nearly overwhelmed western wall. There were quite a few wights left, but they were no longer drowned by an endless tide of enemies.

The Northern Queen found herself picked up and placed on top of Ghost's back, who immediately rushed away as Jon Stark stepped forward to cross swords with the Night King.

Winter, having decimated most of the large swathes of wights away from the fighting, wheeled towards the Bay of Ice.

Jon could feel his blood roar with excitement as he swung his blade at the legendary foe. The Night King, however, calmly parried and quickly counter-attacked.

The White Walkers were faster and stronger than an ordinary well-trained man, yet held no candle to Jon Stark. His current opponent, however, was even stronger than him but slightly slower, so they were evenly matched. He could feel the terrifying strength of each blow in his bones and joints, but thankfully they were tough enough to withstand it. All his senses sang with excitement as his body was pushed to the limit in the fight. Jon suspected that fire would be useless against this foe but decided to try anyway.

A blistering ball of purple Fiendfyre was thrown at his opponent with his left hand. It splashed harmlessly against the Night King's dark armour, before fizzling out.

Ice and bronze danced in a terrifying cacophony of thrusts, parries, slashes, and blocks, and each clash produced a high-pitched, thin screeching sound that lingered in the air for a handful of heartbeats more.

But after scarcely a minute, they had made more than a hundred exchanges, yet none of them had gotten the upper hand. The Northern King decided to end it now and deliberately let the crystalline sword slip past his defences and bounce off his armour, but not before rattling his whole body with the strength of the blow. At the same moment, his bronze blade struck the Night King in the unprotected neck.

It bit less than half an inch inside, and the smallest of cracks appeared. Something that a normal man would have had trouble noticing, but a set of purple eyes latched onto that detail. The malicious, sardonic smile on the Night King's face changed into a frown as he struck his crystalline sword into the black armour of his stunned opponent again, yet got no result.

*

Rogar Wull smashed his torch into another wight, setting it aflame, and looked around for more enemies. There were only a handful of walking cadavers left on the shore, and the weary survivors quickly defeated them. The ground was a slushy mess of ice, snow, blood, charred bones, limbs, and corpses. His father's bones lay somewhere on the shore, completely unrecognisable from the rest.

His gaze slid to the Bay of Ice, which could be clearly seen for the first time in a fortnight now that the snow had stopped. The King's dragon was enormous in size and was effortlessly sending thick streaks of dark-blue flames across the surface of the bay, filling the cold air with blistering steam. Wights were set ablaze, and the thick sheet of ice was replaced by dark, turbulent waters instead.

The new Chieftain of Wull then settled his eyes on the source of the unnaturally high and thin sound that made his head buzz with pain. It was deafening to his ears and made him feel dizzy. The Stark and the Night King were moving so fast that he could barely see anything more than a blur.

Rogar quickly began to move further away from the unbearable sound.

As the dead were defeated, the remaining Northerners slowly began to form a loose circle around the legendary duel. None dared to get close. They were nearly seven thousand when they had gathered earlier today under Umber, and now there looked to be scarcely more than a thousand men left.

"The Last Hero," a voice next to him wheezed. Rogar spun around, seeing a large old man in a battered ringmail wearing a half-torn surcoat depicting a green… sea bug. The Wull threw a baffled look at the Skagosi and shrugged. He didn't like the quarrelsome Skags at all, but at least they had managed to come, fight, and prove themselves true.

And maybe, the old Magnar Lord was right. The rocks were either covered in cracks or sliced cleanly in two, and the shore was covered by small craters as the Stark was battling the Cold Lord. The scene in front of him was something straight out of the Age of Heroes that he had dreamed of as a young boy.

*

He could feel it clearly now. An ancient and powerful presence lingered in the air. But it didn't matter right now.

Nothing else mattered but the opponent in front of him. The unnatural sound produced by their clashing blades was unbearable, so Jon completely suppressed his hearing not to be affected. He focused all of his other senses on the Night King. As he was furiously trading blows with his foe, Jon noticed a small crack begin to form on the crystalline sword. He began aiming his blows there, and a minute later, the icy blade broke.

The Night King, however, attempted to retreat, but Jon followed closely and continued striking hard at his opponent, who lifted his left hand to intercept most of the blows. The black armour covering the icy limb began to crack, but, much to Jon's annoyance, ice had quickly begun to take shape in the right hand of his foe. Two seconds later, another crystalline blade formed in his foe's grasp and the duel continued, making Jon snort; of course things wouldn't be so simple.

While he was confident in his armour, the strength of the Night King's blows alone rattled his insides heavily. If he were a normal man, he would be dead five times over already, but his body was far tougher. Even if he was damaged, he could still heal himself. The problem was that Jon did not have endless endurance, even if it looked like he did. In the last dozen minutes, they had made more than a thousand exchanges, each one of them at full strength and speed. While he still had stamina left, he slowly began to feel tired. It didn't help that he hadn't had a good rest in nearly five days. Jon gritted his teeth, tuned out his pain, and began an all-out attack with no concern about defence whatsoever.

*

Denys Mallister watched as the dark-blue behemoth drowned the tide of corpses pouring out of the Gorge with ease. The dragon dived into the rocky ravine, doubtlessly setting even more wights ablaze. The Queen's dragon was impressive, but it could scarcely compare in size or ferocity to the terror that was winning a battle everyone thought lost. He shook his head and looked at the people manning the wall. All that survived were weary and were barely standing on their feet.

The last few days had squeezed them hard, and today's final stand had been a slaughter. The commander of the Shadow Tower thought that they had lost when the wights had overrun the camp and attacked them from behind, but then, the dragon came. He had his qualms when choosing Jon Snow as Lord Commander, but the boy, nay, the man, was every inch the King they needed.

"You're in command now," he turned to Mullin. "Keep watch here."

"Aye, I shall," the old Maester nodded tiredly. However, he had always been a warrior first and a scholar second. "Take some of the lads with you to clean the camp. Half can barely keep standing, and it doesn't look like we're going to get attacked again anytime soon. And I'll need some clean place to attend the wounded later."

Denys grunted in acknowledgement and waved the weary Rory over.

"Get some pyres started. Strip all the dead of valuables and have them all burned," the Commander ordered, and the tired ranger sluggishly started to get things moving.

He could feel bone-deep exhaustion himself, but now was not the time to rest. A few years ago, he would have said that only the dead get to rest, but now, even that was not the case anymore.

The ground around the camp was littered with corpses and charred bones, and the steaming mist was coming from the Bay to the west, covering everything in a soft, thin veil. Denys hawkishly looked over them, but, thankfully, none moved. He squinted his eyes and saw a group slowly approach from the western wall. As they approached, he could finally make out the details in the mist; all of them looked even more battered and tired than his own men.

"Lord Commander Tollett," he greeted the man at the helm sombrely. "I'm glad to see you alive."

"Feeling's mutual, Commander Mallister," Tollett rasped out tiredly before ordering his men to clear the camp. The man looked like he was chewed and spat out; His hair was splattered with grime, sweat, and blood, his mail was torn almost everywhere, and only a few rags remained from the black cloak on his back. "How's the butcher's due at your side?"

"Could be worse. We would have been overrun shortly if the wights attacking us from the south hadn't collapsed. Yours?"

"Bad. I think less than a third of mine still lives, and the rest are heavily wounded," the Lord Commander replied with a grimace and looked to the south, where a repeated, high-pitched, thin sound could be heard in the far distance. "I don't think the fighting's completely over yet. At least the damned snow stopped."

"I don't think my men have much fight left in them. Everyone is on their last leg," Mallister said with a heavy sigh.

"Aye, but what can we do? Better to go and see for ourselves now. It's not like there's anywhere to retreat."

The Commander of the Shadow Tower nodded, and they headed southwards towards the muffled source of the jarring cacophony.

They silently walked through the ground that had become a disgusting mix of slush, charred bones, half-rotten corpses and severed limbs. With every following step, there were more and more remains covering the ground. Thankfully, the cold kept what would be an unbearable stench away.

A handful of minutes later, they reached the end of the western wall and finally got a view of the shore. The mist had unnaturally parted, giving them a clear view.

"Fuck me," Tollett cursed loudly and stilled.

On the shore, two figures were fighting, surrounded by a loose circle of weary survivors from afar.

Denys' eyes strained in the darkness to see as they were moving far faster than normal humans. In fact, the only reason he could see them was the unnatural purple flame on the ground, softly illuminating the duel. He weary looked around, but there seemed to be no wights or Walkers in sight. The unholy clashing sounds were produced every time ice met bronze.

"What the fuck is that?!" one of his rangers exclaimed fearfully. Two White Walkers had attacked the northern wall, and he almost pierced their defences. A good chunk of their dragonglass arrows was spent on them, but not before losing three dozen men to the icy blades.

"That's Jon Stark fighting the Night King," the Lord Commander said slowly.

"I wonder what his armour is made of," Denys grunted as he saw the crystalline sword bounce off the black metal harmlessly. The same crystalline sword that he had seen cut through ringmail like it was silk.

Sadly, it seemed that Jon Stark's blade had trouble piercing his opponent's armour. The Northern King was savagely attacking his mythical foe with no regard for defence. While his blade was not shattering like ordinary steel, it had trouble inflicting much damage. But the Night King's armour was cracked and shattered in places, and when he squinted his eyes, he saw that his torso underneath was also covered in cracks.

"I thought they were gods, but they got slower," a pained voice coughed nearby, and they all spun, weapons drawn. Out of the darkness crawled out a heavily wounded wildling, leg under the knee missing. Instead of bleeding, the stump looked to be charred with fire. Mallister relaxed when he saw that his eyes were brown. "I couldn't see anything but blurs when the Wolf King and the Cold One began fighting. It's been nearly half an hour since."

"Why doesn't he stab him with a dragonglass dagger?" one of his men asked cautiously.

"Probably wouldn't do shite," the crippled wildling wheezed. "You see his bronze blade? Two dozen Walkers perished under it, yet it doesn't do much against the Night King."

"Looks like the Stark will break him piece by fucking piece, then," one of the mountain clansmen crassly grunted as the Northern King managed to break away a chunk of ice from the torso of his opponent.

"Did you see what happened to Her Grace?" Tollett asked cautiously.

"The dragon Queen?" The wildling rubbed his splattered beard thoughtfully. "I think the white direwolf took her away."

Sighs of relief were heard all around him. Shireen Stark truly managed to endear herself to almost everyone here with her kind but firm nature and willingness to fight with her dragon.

Denys tuned out the surrounding chatter and focused on the duel that would probably decide their fate. Most of their forces lay dead on the ground, and if the Northern King lost, they would stand no chance against the Night King, as they simply had no way to destroy him.

Thankfully, it seemed that Jon Stark was gaining the upper hand. His armour looked untouched, despite it being peppered by those heavy strikes. The snow had melted and revealed cracked ground underneath, which only got even further damaged with each exchange. Denys Mallister secretly wondered in amazement at the endurance of the Northern King. While he might not be a god, he was not far off.

Minutes trickled by as Jon Stark slowly but methodically chipped away at his opponent piece by piece.

Then, he finally managed to disarm him. The Night King's sword hand fell to the ground, still holding onto its ice blade. Jon Stark did not let up, though. He continued to furiously slash at his opponent with no mercy.

Visible chunks were missing from the Night King's torso. He also started to slow down gradually and become sluggish as he attempted to ward away the Stark's blade with his left hand. Finally, the Night King froze as it stared in disbelief at the bronze sword impaled to its core.

CRACK!

The sound echoed like a clap of thunder as the Night King shattered into a million icy fragments.

The Northerners roared in victory, and as Mallister sighed with relief, the icy shards glowed, and Jon Stark was frozen in a large block of ice.

*

Jon Stark

He inwardly rejoiced as the Night King shattered into pieces when the dragonglass core was broken. This had been his most challenging battle in this life, and the icy golem managed to exhaust his body almost to the limit. His joints screamed with pain, his innards were sore from cycles of tearing and healing, all his muscles were beginning to cramp, and everything felt heavy.

He felt the ancient and overbearing presence stir mightily in the air.

At that moment, a vaguely familiar, crushing sensation enveloped him.

The world forcibly spun-

-And now he was amidst a sea of darkness. The ground gave off a soft, blue glow, dimly illuminating the surroundings. A pair of malevolent blue eyes in the distance quickly caught his attention. On a throne made of ice sat a tall… woman with pale blue skin and sharp, elongated ears, clad in a dress made of transparent crystal. Her long hair looked made out of starlight. Every inch of her body screamed perfection, and everything about her had an air of ethereal beauty. Sharp face, high cheekbones, full lips, a buxom chest with a lithe body, and full hips. But her magic was powerful, malignant, ancient, and heavy, and her eyes shone with wickedness. And she was powerful, far more powerful than he was in this body.

She was surrounded by multiple ringed-like patterns of blocks of stone and ice, all inscribed with first men runes. But all of them were either cracked or outright broken.

"You meddlesome outsider!" She screeched angrily in a language that sounded like the crackling of ice, but Jon could understand for some reason. "You ruined thousands of years of work! But no matter, once I deal with you, nothing will stop me anymore!"

She sharply whipped her hand, and his body was encased in ice, and with a second gesture, hungry darkness took form and was tossed at him.

Jon instantly conjured the most dangerous variant of cursed flames he knew. The ice was slow to melt, and he pushed his tired body to tear the rest apart and move away. The darkness, however, danced with the cursed flames, and for a few heartbeats, it seemed that the fire would win. But, to his disbelief, the malignant darkness slowly began to consume the cursed flames instead and became more and more potent.

Within the corner of his eye, he saw that her feet were merged into the dais of the throne and, for a moment, thought to attack. But, she smirked and, with a sweep of her hand, conjured thousands of icy needles and shot them towards his face. He had to lift his arm to cover the slits of his helmet lest his eyes got pierced.

At that moment, he felt something latch onto his feet and saw the living darkness slowly denting his supposedly unbreakable armour and moving to envelop his whole leg. He tried to move away from its terrifying grasp, but it quickly latched onto his right foot. In fact, he could feel his flesh being pressed from all sides, and his bones began to crack from the pressure. He attempted to transfigure his skin and muscles into stone, but that did not deter the pressure one bit, and he was forced to immediately reverse it when he felt everything crack painfully. He swung his bronze sword at the devouring darkness, but it bounced off harmlessly.

Jon desperately tried to get away but to no avail. He grabbed his final wand and, concentrating to the fullest, sent a ball of Fiendfyre at the smirking Corpse Queen sitting on the throne. Her smile curved even more, and she raised her hand. With every inch the fire travelled, it became smaller and smaller before it was completely snuffed out, not even halfway there.

She laughed melodically and watched as his leg was slowly being ground into meatpaste, and he was helpless to do anything about it.

Jon cursed inwardly and continued swinging his bronze sword, hacking at the living darkness with no result. He never despaired about the loss of his magical ability as much as he did now. His current body was completely outclassed, he was tired from the previous fight, and his magic was like a candle in front of a giant bonfire in comparison to his new foe. With a single spell, he was defeated, and she effortlessly subdued fiendfyre.

The darkness had reached his upper thigh now, and the pain was becoming unbearable even through his occlumency. He had no idea how to leave this thrice-cursed dream world beyond defeating his foe, which seemed impossible now. If only his magic was not suppressed here, he would not be so helpless against this shitty malignant shadow and could easily wipe the evil smirk off her icy face.

His pain became unbearable, and he found himself screaming. His blood felt like molten fire and boiled with fury, and he wished he could get the fuck away and-

CRACK!

A deafening clap of thunder shook the air, followed by weightlessness and a short feeling of disorientation, and the pain was gone. No, not gone, but his leg was no longer being turned into minced meat, but looked like it had been through a meat grinder a couple of times.

He could feel a jolt of electricity dance beneath his skin.

A wide smile of realisation bloomed on his face, and Jon Stark let out a pained, raspy laugh as he forced his magic to return his ruined leg back into the proper shape as the crushed armour fell off. Standing on it was still agonizing, but more bearably so.

The smirk on the icy bitch's face was replaced by fury, and the malignant shadow quickly slithered towards his new location.

Jon looked at his dragon heartstring wand for a short moment. Twelve-and-a-half inches, ironwood. He had wasted half the heart of Aegon's dragon to produce this one. It was inferior to anything Ollivander could have made, but it did not burn after a few moments of intense use, unlike his previous 'successful' attempts at wand crafting.

"Expecto Patronum," he muttered and jabbed forward.

A stag with the colour of starlight jumped out of his wand, but it was not the familiar Prongs. No, it was the large stag of House Baratheon, with the crown around the base of its neck, and it angrily charged at the hungry darkness. The stag gored it with its horns, but it didn't seem to do anything but slow the monster. A frown appeared on Jon's face as beads of sweat pooled on his brow. The Patronus was nothing more than a powerful agglomeration of positive emotions, and it seemed that it was not enough.

He dispelled his spell and slashed the wand across his chest as he quickly chanted an ancient incantation. Thick, purple lightning tore through the air and struck right into the wriggling darkness, evaporating it after a pained screech. Jon gasped for breath as the cost of this was particularly hard on his current magical reserves. The smell of ozone was heavy in the air. Taoist heavenly lightning was indeed the bane of all darkness and evil. It was quite effective, despite the overly flashy name the creator had given to the enchanted lightning.

The Cold Goddess stood up and sharply swiped with her hand again. Constructs made out of shadow and ice started appearing and swarming towards him. Shards of ice began to pelt him continuously, and new malignant shadows appeared all around him.

At that moment, he felt something pull on him, and a mighty roar shook the air. Winter tore through the darkness above and began to bathe everything in a sea of dark flames.

That gave Jon a few precious moments of respite. He quietly chanted as he swirled his wand, followed by a sharp stab in the glowing ground, and a wave of thicker, fiercer lightning spread from his position, destroying everything in its path. His foe was frantically creating more and more constructs of shadow and ice.

He snorted and struck the icy goddess with a blast of lightning before she could do anything else.

She looked pained for a moment but continued recklessly throwing shadow and ice at him. Jon frowned for a moment and realised his magic was running dangerously low while she was not even a third through her own reserves.

"Avada Kedavra," he mumbled tiredly as the tip of the wand sharply zig-zagged.

The sickly green light struck his foe, but it did nothing but shatter her crystalline dress, revealing her naked body underneath.

Jon grimaced as he had barely enough juice left to cast one powerful spell.

He twisted and appeared right next to the malevolent beauty. Before she could react, he quickly chanted as he slashed his wand and stabbed with the finishing motion into her eye. He closed his eyes in focus as he poured every ounce of his remaining magic into the lightning spell, hoping it would be enough.

His nose twitched at the heavy smell of ozone, and he cautiously opened his eyes after the crackling subsided. Her pale skin was singed but otherwise unharmed. There was a trace of fear in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced with amusement.

"You ran out of magic, fool," she cackled. "I win-"

The Icy Queen looked down in surprise at the bronze blade buried in her naked torso. The crisp cracking sound was so strong that he felt his bones vibrate. Her body began to dissolve into water, and nothing remained after a handful of heartbeats.

Jon also sat there, stunned, as he did not expect that to work.

The world around him spun and shattered-

-and he felt himself fall into the cracked ground. His magic was completely spent, and his body was battered, bruised, tired, and for some goddamn reason, soaked in cold water. But he was alive, victorious, and also feeling strangely unfettered.

"The Stark is alive!" was the last thing he heard as exhaustion finally prevailed, and he could no longer keep his eyes open.