THE TURNCLOAK

Snow begins at dusk and becomes a blizzard by night. In Winterfell’s Great Hall, Roose Bolton claims the old gods oppose Stannis. Theon Greyjoy, shunned and cowed, notes the Freys’ unease and Ramsay’s cruelty toward his bride Jeyne, presented as Arya Stark. Theon serves as her bath attendant, witnessing bruises and fearing Ramsay’s inevitable return to tormenting him.

Abel and his washerwomen entertain the hall, and Rowan privately prods Theon for the tale of his seizure of Winterfell. Paranoid that Ramsay is testing him, Theon flees into the snow-choked wards, wanders the ruined castle, and kneels in the godswood, pleading for deliverance before retreating from the weirwood’s silent gaze.

Returning, Theon hears scouts report Stannis’s advance slowed by snow and heavy horses. Lady Barbrey Dustin summons Theon, demanding the way into the Stark crypts. In worsening storm, Theon leads her and two guards to the buried entrance beneath the burned First Keep, and down the steep spiral into the vaults where ancient Kings in the North sit with stone direwolves.

Among the statues, Theon points out the kings and lords. They discover missing iron swords from several tombs, an ill omen Theon finds unsettling. At the grouped tombs of Rickard, Brandon, and Lyanna Stark, Lady Dustin recalls Brandon’s violent appetites and her thwarted hopes, revealing long-held resentments toward Stark “southron” ambitions and Ned Stark’s role in her husband’s death during Robert’s Rebellion.

Dustin then discloses a stark vow: Eddard Stark’s bones, sent north before the Red Wedding but trapped by the ironborn at Moat Cailin, will never reach Winterfell so long as she can stop them. She orders Theon to keep silent and departs, leaving him amid the storm and the weight of the dead, as Ramsay’s fragile claim and Jeyne’s weeping imperil Bolton loyalties.