Jeyne Umber

The Black Wolf's queen is beautiful and dangerous in equal measure, a woman of snow and steel. She was raised in Last Hearth, beneath the red eyes of the weirwoods, and fights with the ferocity of the wolf who shadows her steps.

## Appearance

Jeyne has a wild head of dark brown hair and shining eyes that are more grey than blue. She’s bright and lovely, her smile seemingly ever-present, but below that cheerful exterior lies Northern steel, as evidenced by the wolf ever at her heels. She’s tall for a woman, nearly six foot, and strong enough to swing the axe strapped across her back with ease. The little finger on her right hand is missing, left a stub from frostbite.

## History

Jeyne Umber was born in the dark of winter in Last Hearth in the year 269AA, the youngest child and only daughter of Lord Alyn Umber and his wife. She came third after two older brothers, Osric and Jon.

Jeyne grew up wild, learning her lessons of ladyship and dignity but always with an eye for the endless woods that surrounded Last Hearth. The Umber castle is the last before the Wall itself, and growing up so far to the north, where the snows never melt and the weirwoods still grow tall, can have strange effects. Her interest in the wilderness was only fueled by the dreams that haunted her sleep, dreams of hunting and killing and howling. She would always wake gasping, her eyes on the window of her chambers that overlooked the woods.

When she was twelve years old, she slipped quietly out of the castle one night while half-asleep and still under the thrall of her dreams, and wandered into the forest. When she came back to her senses, she found herself utterly lost, the trees appearing the same in every direction and the freshly-fallen snows hiding her footprints. She searched for what felt like hours for a trail or path, but found nothing. When she finally collapsed of cold and exhaustion, she felt herself slip up and away from her body, and suddenly she was *flying*.

The raven whose feathers she’d borrowed winged higher and higher, the trees shrinking below it. Searching from above, she could see the shape of the woods, and in the distance, the familiar walls of home. She woke shuddering with a gasp, the bird perched protectively on a branch above her. Once oriented, she started her journey home, making use of the bird whenever she wasn’t certain of her path.

Three days after she’d disappeared, she was found sleeping beneath the heart tree of Last Hearth’s godswood, pale and cold and with frost biting at her fingertips, but alive. The white and red branches were full of ravens. She lost the smallest finger of her right hand to frostbite, and was lucky not to lose her life, but she survived.

Having thus tasted her abilities, Jeyne discovered a newfound freedom, as well as a hunger for more information. She began learning the old lore of the north, the stories she’d grown up with of the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest and the greenseers and wargs taking on a new significance to her.

She knew she was going to go into the woods again, and she was going to be ready. She learned from her father how to swing an axe, skin an animal, and start a fire. Her mother taught her about all the ancient stories of the north, as well as how to read and write and carry herself like a lady. For all the Lady Umber’s attempts, though, that last lesson never quite stuck.

Jeyne always moved more like a wolf.

When she was sixteen, she started going on hunting excursions, first with her father and brothers then later occasionally venturing out alone, with an axe across her back and a stub where a finger should have been that still ached in the cold. She learned to spill a few drops of blood at the base of the heart tree from every kill she made, and constantly practiced her abilities as a skinchanger.

When she was twenty-one and still unmarried, she found a wolf pup in the snow, injured and alone, on one of her adventures in the woods, when the winds were blowing more madly than normal and the snow was almost too thick to see through. She nestled it in her furs and brought it safely home, and nursed it to health. When it nuzzled up against her hand and the stub of her missing finger, she decided to dub him Frostbite.

When she’d grown into a lovely young woman, her father offered her as a bride to the Stark bastard, Rickard- and was turned down. Lord Alyn stewed in fury at the insult, and when King Torrhen died and the Black Wolf returned to the North to claim his birthright, he seized the change to make his daughter a queen another way.

Jeyne was no fool. She’d heard the stories about the exiled Stark, about what he’d done and why he had been sent away. But neither was she a coward. She was a woman of Last Hearth, daughter of giants, and if her husband tried anything like he’d done to that kennelmaster’s daughter, she was going to cut him to pieces and feed him to her wolf.

As it turned out, she didn’t need to worry. It seemed like the Black Wolf had had time to regret his crimes in his exile, for when they wed he was nothing but gentle and good with her, treating her with the greatest love and respect, and she quickly came to love him as well.

She spent most of the civil war in Karhold, safe and away from the fighting, but when the White Wolf’s forces were defeated on the Dread Fields, she rode to the Dreadfort to be with her husband, Frostbite at her heels.