Nerd In the North 4-2 (Patreon)

Greg leaned against the table, elbow pressing into the polished wood as his fingers beat a restless, uneven rhythm against the grain. The air was thick with old parchment and candle wax, the kind of scent that clung to the back of your throat, made everything feel dust-heavy. Across from him, the maester sat hunched over the crumbling tome like a man guarding a corpse, fingers twitching at the edges of the brittle pages. His robes didn’t strain against his bulk but it didn’t exactly sag either, loose and worn, but it was the look in his eyes that Greg noticed.

Greg had been noticing it for a while.

Not just the usual wariness, the kind he was used to, the kind that said "this isn’t right, he shouldn’t be here, why is he here?" Like the man was expecting something. Like Greg had already given him half an answer, and he was just waiting for the rest to show itself.

"House Veder," Greg said, the name feeling foreign even as it left his mouth. It didn’t fit right to him, not with the House in front of it. "You found something again, yeah? Not just—" He flicked a glance toward the pile of books, some so brittle they looked like a hard breath would take them out. "Not just another story?"

Tybald’s throat bobbed. His fingers curled against the edge of the page, pressing into the parchment with just enough force to make Greg wonder if he was about to tear it.

"Not a story, my lord," the maester rasped, his voice dry. "A history. One nearly lost to time." His fingers flexed against the brittle parchment, like he was bracing himself. "Few in the North would know the name now. Fewer still would speak of its deeds. The Veders ruled before the Boltons ever raised their banner. Before the Starks bound these lands in steel and blood. Before the North was one."

Greg’s fingers slowed against the wood, rhythm faltering. His gaze flicked toward the shelves behind Tybald, where scrolls and tomes sat in their own grave dust, untouched.

"And they’re my ancestors?" His voice was flat, skeptical. He tilted his head, squinting at Tybald like he was waiting for the man to backpedal. Or pull some other name out of his ass. Even though they'd already had this conversation. "Like, my actual ancestors?"

Because that didn’t track. His bloodline was back on Earth Bet with a derelict shipping company and dead Swedes, not some long-dead northern kings. "Not just…" He shifted, rubbing his thumb against his palm. "Not just some weird coincidence with the name?"

"Eyes like the clearest summer sky," the maester murmured, and yeah, no, that was a little weird. His gaze dragged over Greg’s face, moving too slow, like he was memorizing details. His mouth twitched, some half-formed thought dying before it reached the air. "And hair like pale gold."

Greg’s throat felt tight, and he didn’t like that. Didn’t like how solid the words landed or the way Tybald said it like he was already sure.

A breath pushed through his nose, quick, irritated. He rubbed his palm against his face, fingers pressing into his temple. "Right. Sure. Go on."

Tybald exhaled, shoulders settling like he’d been waiting for something.

"The name Veder is not one that lingers without cause," the maester continued, voice cautious, careful, like he was afraid to say it wrong. "Your presence here, in what was once the seat of House Bolton, is proof enough of that."

Greg stared back with half-lidded eyes.

"But if you wish to understand your place, my lord, you must first understand who they were."

Greg dragged his chair forward. The legs scraped against stone, the blond working his jaw as he settled his forearms on the table. "Alright," he said, a breath behind it. "Hit me."

Tybald shifted, adjusting his grip on the fragile page. "House Veder ruled from a keep known as White Castle," he said, only to pause as Greg let out a hard snort. The Maester blinked at him but Greg waved the man off quickly. "Sorry, sorry, just... just dust in my nose.""A stronghold upon the banks of the White Knife, not far from where White Harbor now stands. They were kings once… White Kings, as they were called. Their castle gleamed at sunrise, white stone upon the riverbend. And their rule…" His mouth pulled tight, voice dipping slightly. "Bound to ideals of fairness, justice, and honor."

A family of King Arthurs? "Golly gee whiz, a bunch of Dudley Do-Rights," he muttered to himself, only to frown a good second later at his own response, not sure why that whole thing bothered him. Shaking his head, he glanced back up at Tybald's confused face and rolled his eyes. "Not exactly a survival trait up here."The maester gave him a look—shrewd, careful, a flicker of something Greg didn’t like in his eyes before he schooled it into neutrality. “Perhaps not. But the Veders were no fools. Their strength lay not only in their ideals but in their craft. They were master smiths, forging blades and tools of unparalleled quality. Some were said to shine like starmetal, though the truth of that is lost to time.”

Greg’s fingers twitched. His sword leaned against the wall a few feet away, catching the low candlelight, and for a second, he could almost feel it in his grip. It wasn’t magic. Probably. But it sure as hell wasn’t normal.

“So, what?” His voice came out casual, too casual. “Enchanted swords? Magic wands?”

Tybald hesitated, lips thinning as he dragged a hand over the brittle pages in front of him. 

“Perhaps,” he allowed, voice rasping. “Or perhaps their magic was subtler. Some claimed it lay in their bond with the land and its creatures. The Veders were known for their connection to animals, not unlike the Starks. Their kings were often seen with great wolves, hawks, or bears at their side, creatures said to be more than mere beasts.”

Greg exhaled through his nose, glancing toward the massive, curled form by the window. Ash’s ears flicked at the sound, though his glowing red eyes remained shut.

“Sounds familiar,” Greg muttered.

Tybald made a noise in his throat, something too quiet to name, and turned another page. His fingers trembled slightly before he steadied them.

“Their downfall came at the hands of the Red Kings of House Bolton,” the maester said, voice dropping. He didn’t look up from the book. “The Veders were strong, but their insistence on honor and fairness left them vulnerable to treachery. The last White King, Gregory the Whitebeard, refused to bend the knee, seeing the Boltons’ cruelty as an affront to everything his house stood for.”

You’re joking. Greg raised an eyebrow. "Gregory the Whitebeard? Seriously? I mean, I get that names don’t really change that much, but come on."

Tybald exhaled through his nose, the closest thing Greg had ever seen to amusement on his face. “History repeats itself in strange ways, my lord.”

Greg wasn’t sure he liked the way he said that.

The maester’s gaze returned to the tome, running a finger slowly down the brittle text as he continued. “Gregory the Whitebeard was a man of great renown, known for his wisdom and strength. He wielded a blade said to shine like the moon, a weapon forged in his own smithies. But even he could not stand against the Boltons’ cunning.”

Tybald hesitated. Greg’s fingers curled against the table.

“Under cover of darkness,” the maester finally said, voice lower now, like speaking it too loud would summon ghosts, “the Red King’s forces infiltrated White Castle and slaughtered the Veders to the last.”

The words landed cold in Greg’s gut, a weight that sank deep and refused to move.

“To the last, huh?” His own voice sounded distant, flat. “Doesn’t seem like they were very thorough.”

Tybald’s eyes flicked to him, sharp, calculating. For a moment, Greg swore the old man almost looked wary.

“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “Or perhaps you are an anomaly. A spark of something thought extinguished.”

Greg sat back in his chair, staring at the open book but not really seeing the words. Not that I can read that scribbly writing anyway. The story felt… big, as if he was trying to hold onto something massive and ancient with hands too small to grasp it. But at the same time, it felt right. Like a puzzle piece clicking into place, even if the full picture was still out of focus.

He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply.

“So, let me get this straight,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m descended from some ancient Northern house that got wiped out because they were too nice for their own good. And now I’m sitting here, in a castle that used to belong to the guys who killed them.” He narrowed his eyes, not specifically at Tybald, but somewhere in the man’s general direction. “Great. Super. Makes perfect sense.”

Tybald inclined his head slightly. “History is rarely tidy, my lord. But it has a way of repeating itself, in one form or another.”

Greg exhaled through his nose, fingers drumming against the wooden table, his mind already running ahead of the conversation. Alright, great, ancient noble house, wiped out by the Boltons, but that still doesn’t explain… everything.

“That all makes sense… I guess,” he said slowly, tilting his head. “But earlier, you said no one really remembers them. So how’d you even find this?”

Tybald straightened, his thick fingers flexing against the brittle parchment. His whole face had the look of a man barely holding himself back from launching into a speech, which immediately made Greg suspicious.

"Ah," the maester exhaled, voice wheezing just a little, before clearing his throat like he was preparing for a lecture. "That, my lord, is where it becomes truly fascinating." His fingers twitched like they wanted to stroke his graying beard, but he stopped himself at the last moment, adjusting his robes instead.

Greg didn’t trust anyone who looked that pleased about old books.

"The records of House Veder were thought to be lost," Tybald continued, his voice taking on a reverent cadence, like he was revealing some ancient secret. "But some remained hidden here, buried deep in the Dreadfort’s archives—overlooked, dismissed. It seems Roose Bolton had… ah… a particular appreciation for history. Selectively, of course. What he found useful, he preserved. What he deemed unimportant, he let rot. But this," Tybald tapped the open tome with the edge of his knuckle, careful, reverent, "this is knowledge even the Citadel would consider a treasure."

Greg narrowed his eyes. Fantastic. More people who are definitely going to want my shit.

"Great," he muttered to himself, crossing his arms and pouting in a way he instinctively knew was not very lordly but also didn't really care right now. "Nothing I love more than new reasons for assholes to bother me all the time."

Tybald huffed, the fat in his cheeks wobbling slightly, but nothing could dampen the shine in his eyes. "You misunderstand, my lord. The reason the Citadel would value this knowledge so highly is because of what it reveals."

Greg flicked his gaze down to the yellowed pages.

Tybald’s fingers hovered over the ink-stained words again. "House Veder was not simply an ancient Northern house," he said. Then he hesitated, his thick brows furrowing, and Greg caught the small, barely-there breath before he continued. 

A theatrical pause. 

Oh, great. The blond rolled his eyes.

"They were—" another pause, more weight in his voice now, "—descended from Valyria."

Greg blinked at him.

"Who's Valyria?"

Tybald stared, clearly waiting for some great reaction or gasp.

Greg just stared back.

"Valyria, my lord," the maester sighed, rubbing at his temple. "The land of dragons. The empire that once ruled nearly all of Essos before it was destroyed in fire and ash."

Greg squinted, the name sounding familiar. At the very least, it tickled a little something in the back of his mind. "You mean that thing people keep saying about my sword? That it’s made of Valyrian steel or whatever? I thought that just meant meteor metal."

Tybald’s entire face twitched. He inhaled, slow, controlled, like he was on the verge of either a long explanation or a stroke.

"No, my lord," he said, voice forcibly even. "Valyrian steel is an alloy crafted by the Freehold of Valyria, forged with dragonfire and woven with magic lost to the world. It is not merely 'meteor metal.'" His nostrils flared. "It is one of the greatest legacies of a civilization that shaped history itself."

Greg tilted his head. "Huh. Neat."

Tybald closed his eyes briefly. His lips moved, though no sound came out, and Greg was pretty sure he was asking the gods for patience.

"My lord Veder," he said, inhaling deeply, before fixing Greg with the look of a man determined to beat knowledge into someone through sheer willpower, "this means that House Veder was not just another line of forgotten kings. They were ancestors of the Freehold—before it was the empire remembered today. They fled their homeland long before Valyria became what it was known for. They rejected the ways of their kin… the ways of slavery, blood magic, and brutal conquest to seek peaceful refuge in Westeros, establishing themselves along the White Knife until they became indistinguishable from true Northmen." His wheeze deepened as he ran out of breath, but he was too caught up in his own words to slow down. "This is extraordinary knowledge."

Greg leaned back in his chair, exhaling sharply.

"So let me get this straight," he said, holding up a hand and counting off on his fingers. "One, I’m apparently ‘descended’"—he broke the count to form air quotes—"from a bunch of ex-Valyrians who ditched their homeland because they thought their people were a bunch of assholes. Two, they set up shop in the North, made fancy weapons, and were apparently too noble for their own good. Three, the Boltons decided that was stupid and stabbed them in the back. And four—"

His fingers stopped mid-air. "Oh, huh." He blinked. …this is actually kinda spooky.

Tybald raised an eyebrow.

Greg frowned slightly, lowering his hand, realization arriving just a little too late. "Four… I just happened to end up in Westeros, in a position where I wiped out the exact same family who wiped out my ancestors."

Tybald nodded, watching him carefully.

Greg snorted. History’s got a sense of humor.

He opened his mouth to say exactly that, but the door slammed open, the sound sharp enough to cut through the stale library air. A smallfolk servant stumbled in, pale-faced, breathless, eyes blown wide with terror.

“Milord!” The man’s voice cracked. “L—Lord Veder!”

Greg shoved himself to his feet, heart pounding before his brain even caught up. “What is it?”

The man’s mouth opened. Then closed. His throat bobbed, but nothing came out. Whatever he wanted to say, whatever had sent him bolting through the halls—it stuck.

And that was enough. 

— o — o — o — o — o — o — o —

The smell hit first; all coppery, sharp, rotting. The kind that scraped the back of your throat, thick and rancid. Greg had thought he was ready for anything when he stepped inside. 

He’d been wrong.

The chamber shouldn’t have felt worse than a battlefield. He’d seen men die, smelled burning bodies, heard the way people screamed when fire reached inside their lungs. 

But this… God, this was just worse. Because at least a fight ended fast, it was all in the moment. This was deliberate. A place where people were tortured.

Greg’s stomach twisted, bile rising fast as his eyes dragged over skins stretched tight across racks, some half-rotted, others fresh enough to show the faint texture of pores and veins. Tools lined the tables, arranged with precision, every one of them honed to serve a single purpose. 

Hooks, clamps, knives, saws—some delicate, some made to hurt. The torches along the walls should have helped, should have burned back the dark, but the shadows stretched, crawling along the stones, clinging to every surface like they belonged there.

Something wet dripped onto the floor. Greg didn’t want to look up.

“You’ve seen enough, m’lord,” Brennor said. The soldier’s voice was tight, his usual steady demeanor gone. His hand twitched toward his sword, like even with the Boltons dead, the room itself was something that needed to be put down. “There’s nothing good here. Nothing worth keeping.”

Greg’s gaze snagged on a particular skin—the edges frayed, the flayed flesh torn away in a hurry. Something about it made his stomach lurch. He turned too fast, his shoulder clipping the table. A knife tumbled, clattering against the stone. The sound made him flinch.

He’d killed people. He’d fought, bled, burned a battlefield into the ground and stabbed a man in his own home to prove a point. But this? People lived like this? Worked for this?

His throat closed. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He exhaled, slow, forced. 

Then he turned.

Behind him, his soldiers stood at a careful distance, and past them, in the open hall, a cluster of guests—lords, ladies, lesser knights—stood frozen, caught between horror and disbelief. Some stared at the walls like they couldn’t reconcile what they were seeing. Others muttered, anger curling at the edges of their words. The resentment was clear in the way some of them looked at him instead of the room.

Greg’s stomach turned again. He wanted to scream, to grab them by the shoulders and shove them inside, force them to see what the Boltons were. Instead, he took a breath and locked his jaw, swallowing it down.

His voice came out quieter than he meant it to, but he didn’t have it in him to yell right now. “This is what you were standing behind? This is what you thought was worth loyalty?”

The words hung. No one answered. Some looked away. Others glared, their silence louder than any excuse they could’ve made.

Greg let out a slow breath. That was that, then.

He turned sharply, footsteps heavy against the stone. Ash padded after him, the bear’s glowing red eyes cutting through the dim like embers. The murmurs of the gathered crowd grew louder behind him—resentment thick, confusion palpable, the weight of it pressing against his back.

He stopped just before the doorway. His throat felt dry. He exhaled through his nose. “Burn it.”

Brennor hesitated. “But my lord, this is proof of—”

“I don’t care.” Greg turned his head just enough to look at him. “Burn it.”

Brennor pressed his lips together, clearly biting down a response. But he nodded, then signaled to the soldiers. They moved quickly, dousing the chamber in oil. The smell thickened in the air, coating Greg’s tongue in something rancid, and then— 

“Ignis!”

The fire caught too fast, devouring the chamber’s horrors in an instant. The heat washed over Greg, searing away the last stench of rot. But the sick feeling in his stomach didn’t ease.

He turned and stepped into the open air.

The smallfolk were waiting. And so were the Bolton loyalists.

“That was their lord’s chamber,” Brennor muttered, his words barely audible over the crackling flames. “They didn’t know. Or they didn’t want to.”

Greg didn’t reply. He didn’t really trust himself to.