The snow fell gently over the ramparts of Castle Black, and from the shadows of the watchtower, Wylis Manderly stood cloaked in heavy wool and thick furs, gazing at the slow dance of white across the Wall. His breath hung in the air, swirling like ghostly tendrils. The expedition had returned successful, their prisoners chained and groaning in cold iron—three undead and one turned Craster, now little more than a snarling husk. It should've been a moment of triumph, the proof he needed. And yet, in that stillness, Wylis felt uneasy.
The butterfly's wings had beaten too hard.
He stared out over the vastness of the North, his thoughts drifting to Winterfell, to a memory carried not in scrolls but carved into the fabric of his soul.
There had been no Bran Stark falling from the tower. No whispered truths in darkened corridors, no sudden gasps, no breaking of bones. That was the first true divergence. That moment—one he had dreaded and prepared for—never came to pass. Instead...
Flashback – A Different Spring in Winterfell
Bran and Arya had followed him like shadows.
"Tell us about the pirate again!" Arya demanded, eyes shining beneath her half-braided hair, the wooden practice sword she carried swinging wildly at her side.
Bran trailed behind, half-running, cheeks red from the chase. "No, tell us how you fought in Valyria! Did you see a dragon's bones?"
Wylis smirked as he leaned against the training post. His Valyrian steel sword, Wavecutter, was slung casually across his back, gleaming darkly even beneath the cloudy skies. He tapped it lightly with his gloved fingers.
"That's not a story you tell in the safety of a keep," he said with a wink. "That's a tale for a stormy sea, with rum in hand and blood still drying on your blade."
Arya grinned. "Then tell it anyway!"
And he had. He told them tales from Essos, of ghost ships off the Smoking Sea—and one tale he never finished. The one about the screaming cliffs of Valyria, and the day Odin fell silent.
They were too young to know it, but in that season, Wylis had given them something more precious than stories—he'd given them time. Time stolen from fate.
Bran had never climbed the broken tower. Arya never wielded Needle. And so the wheel had cracked.
Back in the present, Wylis pressed his gloved hand to his face, dragging it down slowly as the cold nipped at his skin. There would be no war sparked by the Lannisters' incest. Catelyn Stark had not taken Tyrion prisoner. Eddard Stark had not been wounded by Jaime on the steps of the Tower of the Hand. There was no Mountain raiding the Riverlands, no War of five Kings.
Instead...
Tyrion Lannister is in White Harbor.
The very thought twisted Wylis's stomach. The imp had arrived weeks ago under Lannister banners, escorted by thirty red-cloaks and bearing the lion's seal. "Trade," they'd said. "A venture of mutual profit," they'd promised.
Wylis wasn't fool enough to think Lord Tywin had sent his son north for coin alone. No, the lion moved only when it scented prey—or threat. Likely, Tywin was sniffing at the strength Manderly had grown, feeling the tremors in the realm and seeking answers.
What worried Wylis most wasn't Tyrion's cunning—it was the absence of things. Of trials not taken. Of bonds never formed.
Jon Snow.
He had not yet taken the Black. Had not befriended Samwell Tarly. Had not stood on the Fist of the First Men, nor retrieved the caches of dragonglass buried beneath the snow. So much still lay unwritten.
And without those roots, how could the tree grow?
Then there was Nymeria. Lady. Ghost. The direwolves were alive, yes, but he hadn't seen them since the godswood in Winterfell when they'd first found them—mere pups, still whimpering at the snow. He had no idea if their destinies had stayed the same, or if, like so many threads, they had frayed beyond his control.
"What if Ned never learns the truth?"
He whispered it aloud, watching his breath twist into the falling snow. Cersei's secret—her cuckolding of the king, the incest, the true reason behind Jon Arryn's death—was now buried in silence. Without Bran's fall, there had been no discovery. Without discovery, no conflict. Robert Baratheon still breathed—bloated, drunken, and blind to the vipers in his bed.
What if he never finds out?
The thought gnawed at Wylis like a rat in a grain store. If Robert died still ignorant, the Lannisters would strike with surprise. The South would burn. The North would bleed. His warning of the Long Night would fall on ears deafened by war, by betrayal, by power struggles.
"Odin," he said quietly, his voice breaking the silence.
He missed him. Missed the calm reasoning, the tactical brilliance, the subtle ways his old companion had helped weave order from chaos. Odin had always seen the web, not just the threads. Where Wylis had the fire, Odin was the wind—shaping, directing, steadying.
But ever since Valyria... silence.
That trip, that cursed island of shadows, had taken more than blood. It had taken Odin's voice from his mind, leaving only echoes. And though Wylis had escaped with treasures and scars and steel, he had lost the thing most dear.
He turned, looking back toward the gate where the undead were being watched like chained hounds. Jon stood nearby, whispering to Ghost. The direwolf's red eyes gleamed in the dark.
Jon will be tested soon, he thought. But not in the ways I remember.
And what of the East? Would Daenerys still rise in fire and blood? Would the dragons still be born? Would the Targaryen girl still cross the Narrow Sea, or would the butterfly's wings keep her trapped in the East?
Wylis didn't know anymore. The future was no longer clear. He had come with knowledge and plans and hopes. But now... now he was building a new world, brick by uncertain brick.
What to do now? What to do...
He looked up at the stars, the ancient lights above the Wall. Their cold beauty brought him no peace.
One choice at a time, one change at a time—until the tide of fate crashed down upon them all.
He whispered again, this time like a prayer.
"What to do now?"