Stannon felt a rare flicker of surprise at Colen's sudden outburst. He opened his mouth to question him, but before he could, Hilda moved with the speed of a viper.
Her hand struck Colen's face hard, snapping his head to the side. The sharp crack of the slap echoed through the small chamber, and a thin line of blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. Colen winced but did not cry out. His anger did not lessen. If anything, it burned fiercer, his eyes filled with seething rage as he turned back to glare at Stannon.
Stannon exhaled sharply, steadying himself. He was not a man easily shaken, but this was becoming more complicated than he had expected. He studied Colen's face, searching for deception, for some sign that this was a ploy. But there was none. Only raw hatred.
"I did not kill your parents," Stannon said, his voice calm and measured. "The bandits who took you—they were the ones who ended their lives." He spoke plainly, in case Colen had been fed falsehoods.
Colen chuckled bitterly, shaking his head. He spat a glob of blood onto the cold stone floor before answering.
"My parents? The ones who bore me?" He let out a harsh, humorless laugh. "If the bandits hadn't come for me, I would have killed them myself."
Stannon narrowed his eyes. This was not the reaction he had expected.
Colen took a slow breath, steadying himself. "That wretched father of mine beat me and my mother both. And my mother, broken and bitter, took her misery out on me. I was nothing to them but something to strike when they had no one else." His voice was filled with cold fury. "The only reason I endured it was because of my sister."
At the mention of his sister, Colen's voice softened, the anger momentarily giving way to something else—something filled with sorrow.
"She had no one else but me," he said. "She was just a child. If I had left, she would have been alone. That was the only thing that stopped me from slitting my father's throat while he slept."
Stannon said nothing, absorbing the weight of Colen's words. He had thought he knew the man's past, but this was far from what he had been led to believe.
Colen clenched his fists, his body trembling with emotion. "The day the bandits came was the best day of my life. They took me and my sister in. Gave us a home. They weren't just thieves or killers to me—they were family."
His breath grew unsteady. "The first time I met you… that was the first day they let me ride with them. They never let me before, wanting to keep me from seeing the worst of it. But I insisted—I wanted to fight for them, to repay them for saving my sister and me." His voice turned heavy with grief. "And that was the day I lost everything."
Stannon kept his face unreadable, but inside, his mind worked swiftly. None of this matched what he had learned of Colen's past. Someone had erased all traces of his sister from the records. Someone had twisted the truth.
Colen took a shuddering breath before speaking again, his fury boiling over. "But I followed you. I waited. Waited for the right moment to take my revenge."
Stannon watched him closely. Despite the hatred in his voice, there was something else beneath it.
A deep, festering sorrow.
"Your sister," Stannon said as he used his persuasion ability. "What happened to her?"
Colen stiffened. A shadow passed over his face, and for the first time, he hesitated. His rage wavered, replaced by something darker.
After a long silence, he spoke, his voice quieter now but no less intense.
"A few days after I came to Winterfell, I found a note on my bed," he said. "It told me the bandit stronghold had been attacked. That my sister had been taken."
Stannon's expression darkened. This was not something he had foreseen.
"The note told me to stay by your side," Colen continued bitterly. "To gain your trust. To watch over you. And it warned me—" He swallowed hard. "If anything happened to you, my sister would die."
Stannon's jaw clenched. The pieces were falling into place. Someone had planned this long before he had ever met Colen. Someone had taken his sister and used her to control him. Someone had been moving the pieces of this game from the shadows.
Colen let out a hollow, bitter laugh. "I couldn't kill my family's murderer. I couldn't even try. Instead, I had to live like your dog for years." His voice dripped with loathing—toward Stannon, toward himself. "I had to protect the very man I swore to kill."
The weight of his words settled over the chamber like a storm cloud. Stannon remained silent, his thoughts running through every possibility. If this was true, then someone had gone to great lengths to keep Colen close to him.
But who?
And why?
He turned to Hilda, who was watching with a hard expression. She was putting the pieces together as quickly as he was.
After a long silence, Stannon finally spoke.
"This means someone else has been pulling the strings from the beginning, even before I left for Winterfell while I was seven."
Colen did not reply. He only breathed heavily, his anger barely contained.
"You said the bandit stronghold was attacked," Stannon pressed. "By whom?"
Colen hesitated, then shook his head. "The note did not say. Only that my sister was taken."
Stannon exhaled slowly. He needed to reconsider everything. Someone had fed him lies, had hidden the truth of Colen's past. Someone had taken his sister and shaped him into a pawn. And whoever it was… they had been incredibly thorough with it.
Stannon took a slow step forward, his voice steady but firm. "So at first, they wanted you to protect me," he said. "Then something changed. What was it?"
Colen's fists clenched at his sides, his whole body tense. "I received another message," he admitted, his voice tight with anger. "It came when we reached King's Landing."
Stannon narrowed his eyes. "What did it say?"
Colen let out a sharp breath, as if the memory itself pained him. "The orders changed. If you escaped Driftmark, I was to kill you the first chance I got." His jaw tightened. "They said if I did it, they would let my sister go."
A heavy silence settled between them. Stannon studied Colen closely, searching for any sign of hesitation or deception. But all he saw was pain, grief, and anger.
"And you believed them?" Stannon asked.
Colen gave a bitter chuckle. "What else could I do?" His voice was hollow. "If killing you meant saving her, then it would have been worth it."
Stannon tilted his head slightly. "And what about yourself? Even if they kept their word, you would be dead."
Colen smirked, but there was no humor in it. "What does my life matter if I saved her and killed you in the process?" His tone was cold, as if he had long made peace with that fate.
Stannon studied him, noting the slight tremble in his hands. He spoke with conviction, but beneath it, Stannon sensed something else. Doubt.
"You're not as certain as you pretend to be," Stannon said smoothly.
Colen's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
"You think they would really let her go?" Stannon continued, his voice calm but pressing. "Whoever gave you those orders—whoever has been pulling your strings—do you truly believe they would keep their promise? Or is that just another lie?"
Colen's breathing became uneven, his rage flickering like a candle struggling against the wind. "Shut up," he muttered.
"You were never meant to succeed," Stannon said, stepping closer. "You were only ever a pawn. A tool to be used and discarded."
As Stannon stepped closer, Colen's body tensed. His anger boiled over, and in a sudden move, he lunged forward, trying to smash his head against Stannon's. But Stannon was quicker. He shifted to the side, avoiding the attack with ease.
Colen stumbled slightly, his balance off for just a moment—but that was all Stannon needed. His fist lashed out like a hammer, striking Colen hard on the chin. The impact sent Colen's head snapping back. His body swayed for a brief second before crumpling to the cold stone floor, unconscious.
Stannon shook out his fist, barely sparing the fallen man a glance. Without hesitation, he turned and strode out of the cell. Hilda followed him silently, her expression unreadable.
As they walked through the dimly lit halls of the keep, she finally spoke. "Do you think he was telling the truth?"
Stannon didn't pause. "I'm fairly sure—about eighty percent," he said. His voice was calm, but his mind was racing.
Hilda nodded and asked nothing more. She knew better than to interrupt when he was deep in thought.
And right now, his thoughts were a storm.
Someone had planned all this, taking Colen's sister and forcing him into servitude through fear. Someone had wanted Colen close to Stannon—first to protect him, then to kill him.
The first suspect that came to mind was the Lannisters, but Stannon quickly dismissed the idea. If Tywin Lannister had truly wanted him dead, he would have done it long ago, without all this deception. And the Lannisters had already sent a Faceless Man after him—one of the deadliest killers in the world. If they had also been controlling Colen, they would have had him kill Stannon as a child rather than keep him alive.
That left two possibilities.
The Targaryens. Though their house had fallen, loyalists still lurked in the shadows, clinging to the dream of restoring their lost dynasty. If they saw Stannon as a threat, they could have taken Colen's sister as leverage, forcing Colen to stay close until the time was right—whether to protect Stannon or kill him.
The other, far more troubling, possibility was Petyr Baelish.
Littlefinger was a man who thrived on lies and schemes, spinning his webs long before anyone even realized they were caught. He was known for using people as tools, turning them into pieces on his board without their knowledge. If Baelish was behind this, that meant he had been watching Stannon for years.
But why?
Why keep him alive for so long, only to order his death now?
Stannon's frown deepened. If Colen had been telling the truth, then his sister's life was still at risk. Whoever had taken her was still pulling the strings, waiting for the right moment to act.
He needed to move carefully.
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