He’s wearing rough-spun, dull greens and browns, the better to blend with the shades of the forest, to remain unseen from the eyes of men and worse. His lady’s clad in a golden gown, diamond patterned with black, the color of her house. Her hair, carefully arrayed, falls over the ruined side of her face. But Rickon does not mind that. His hands and his lips have caressed her there, where the skin grows rough and cracked, and although Shireen has long since cast away shame, there is a part of her, deep down, that fears his repulsion.

But there is no time to dwell on vanities in the world in which they live. Last evening, an entire holdfast gone, the bodies scattered, shattered almost, blood in the snow like a ruby ruin. Blue-eyed demons come in the night, taking what’s left, what’s intact, and adding to their never-ending armies.

Rickon’s hand clasps hers, the other clutching a dragonglass dagger. It is one of the last.

He kisses her, and outside, in the darkness, a wolf howls, but it’s not a melancholy sound. It’s a cry of triumph.