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Chapter Text

Later, he would thank his luck in abstaining from drinking too heavily at his crowning feast. The grief was still raw, as were his many wounds, and so he only raised his goblet now and then, pretending to drink his fill. If not for that, if he indulged as he had truly wanted, he’d have been deaf and blind to the world when they came.

He swung, taking another traitor’s head. His clothes, the bare minimum he wore, were soaked with blood, same as his hair. The foul stench of blood, shit, piss and ale permeated the air, taking the last sense of home from Winterfell’s halls. He felt sick, sick and tired and in pain, and no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t find an ounce of anger at yet another betrayal.

Another swing. Another almost slip in the wet, disgusting mud covering the floors, and a kiss of steel on his skin that he ignored for the time being.

He had to fight his way to the wing given to the party of Free Folk staying inside these walls.

They drank fully that night. They laughed and danced and sang, and made merry the way only the Free Folk could. And the northerners were all too grateful for their aid and kept their horns and goblets and cups full. He was glad then. Happy, even, seeing them finally felt accepted and unafraid.

He made his way out of the family wing. From there the sounds of a fight, or rather a brawl, were heard with deafening clarity, and if he could, he’d have slumped in relief. As it were, he fought even harder. He paid no mind to their faces and their screams; if they came at him with weapons drawn, they died. Behind him Ser Davos stood, grim and grayed in the face, and made sure no dagger found its home in Jon’s back.

“Traitors! Fucking southern traitors!” he heard, shouted angrily in Tormund’s voice. “Oathbreakers, gods take you all!”

Many others were joined him in the stream of curses and oaths, damning the kneelers and their oh-so-faithful rulers. Jon would have taken offence, were he not busy cutting the path clear to where his friends fought for their lives. Two knights of the Vale were the last men standing between him and Tormund, and he’d laugh derisively at the thought of them ditching their steeds for this honorless death at his hand.

Having noticed him, sword ready and blood everywhere, Tormund let out a wordless cry of rage. His eyes were white, thoughtless, wild.

“You!” he growled. “Came to kill us personally?”

Both his hands on Longclaw, Jon heaved her up, grunting as pain shot through his body, and let her fall. The soldier, northern armor and northern sword, and northern cowardice it seemed, who was coming to attack Tormund from behind his left, was cleaved in two, and more blood and viscera splattered around.

“Pay fucking attention, would you,” Jon said, and didn’t recognize his own voice.

Tormund stared at him, struck speechless for a long moment, and nodded. From then on, it was more of the screams and death.

He thought that at some point there was Sansa’s face, pale and hard as ice. She was glaring at him from across the courtyard, the knights a wall of silver and bronze a few steps down from her, like perfect Queensguard.

He certainly hadn’t imagined Lyanna Mormont trying to block them from escaping with a few of her famed kinfolk.

“That sword is mine, Your Grace,” she snarled.

“Come and take her, then” he answered.

To give her what’s due, she tried. She was a fierce little thing, but still, it took him but a few calculated moves to corner her and disarm. Quick as lightning he gripped her throat with his left hand and hoisted the girl in the air, then slammed her into the wall, careful to keep her alive.

“Your uncle gave this sword to me,” he breathed, ignoring her kicking legs and sharp nails. “I loved him more than you’ve ever loved your lady mother, and for him I’ll spare you. This time,” he added and dropped her, coughing up blood and definitely not coming for the second round.

They were almost out, their number, while greatly diminished, still impressive; escaping through the gates and from the walls while Jon, Tormund and a few other capable warriors held back, covering for them. He felt almost sure they’ve managed to see this night through, when it happened.

Agony, the likes of which he felt just once in his life, erupted in his chest. It'd brought him to his knees, Longclaw scraping across the stones and ground. From a great distance came words full of sudden fright and concern, but he couldn’t make them out, taken with the feeling of steel slipping in between his ribs despite there being no blade near him. Another hit landed on his side, and then his shoulder, and he screamed, trashed to get back from his attackers -

His eyes opened wide to take in the sight: a lot of men clad in those hard gleaming shells of theirs, bearing long and sharp talons and claws. Everything around was calming whiteness of snows and darkness of forest inside the place of warm stone called home. He felt the tree of gods behind, felt their attention on him like never before. His lifeblood was leaking from his wounds, hot and sticky; his anger felt even hotter. His other half was being carried away, body hurt; but his brother’s mind became a calming, cold presence, akin to the touch of gods. Together, they looked up at the men with their gleaming swords and cruel smirks, and decided.

They lunged, teeth bared, then snapping shut and tearing the flesh. Before a scream sounded, they were at another, their hind legs kicking forcefully and momentum carrying them past these men and into the next one. They snapped at him and swat with their paw, and so on they went. Stench of dying men filled crisp air, and gods hollered and laughed when the tree was finally fed.

Again and again they killed and maimed, steel biting them in return, until there was a clearing, and they took to freedom. The calm part of them retreated, letting the wilder and wiser one choose where to go, and to one of a few hidden holes they sprinted. Before long they left the place that was home no more and ran to become whole again.

They saw a group of people who smelt of home beyond the wall of ice and magic. The people met them with the looks of relief and let them through, to where their other body lay, surrounded by strangers-turned-pack. They trotted, their limp heavier with every step, forward and touched their head to its chest, and with a sharp inhale they became two again.

Heaving, groaning in agony, Jon rolled to his side and blindly reached for Ghost. He felt his fur, dirty, bloody, yet still so soft, and heard him letting out a whine. For how long he didn’t know, there was nothing, only this half-embrace, Ghost’s weak attempts to lick Jon’s tears from his face and the heartbeat under Jon’s palm growing slower.

With the last beat something surged in his head, white and scorching, and disappeared, leaving behind silence.

Come morning, they’ve made some leagues into the wolfswood. The Free Folk camped outside of the keep escaped largely unharmed, which couldn’t be said for those staying inside. There were a few hundreds of them now. Some of them carried the wounded and the dead - they tried to leave no one behind. They had a handful of horses; one was tugging the sled upon which Ghost rested.

The Free Folk were burning their dead, and Jon was determined to give Ghost the same funeral.

He felt their glances on him, varying from frightened and hateful to concerned and pitying. He couldn’t blame them; he did lead them to their ruin. What he didn’t understand was why they haven’t left him to die with Ghost. He said nothing of that, merely shouldered his part as they trudged through the mud and rising snowfall, no destination in mind, no spark alive in his heart.

Not too far from him Tormund was talking with his closest kin. They’ve already sent runners to the Free Folk settled in the Gift to warn them of danger coming from treacherous southerners. Hopefully the news would also reach the Watch, for Jon had no doubt they were under the threat as well. He expected the worst; he simply had no strength to consider what his world has become - other than endless death and suffering.

The only part he could stand was the feeling Ghost left him with, of that watchful presence coming from the heart tree. The Old Gods were real as far as Ghost was concerned; and Jon pulled the memory of their touch around him like a cloak and buried everything else as he kept on.

That day turned into night, then came another day, and one more. Many succumbed to their wounds. Strangely, he lived yet.

“You ought to have something, little crow,” Tormund insisted when they stopped once more to get some rest. Davos tried to hand him a strip of dried meat, and Jon shook his head.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Maybe you are not, son,” Davos told gruffly. “Doesn’t mean you can stop eating.”

“No,” he said, and moved away from them. “Give it to someone who truly needs it.”

He wasn’t hungry, or thirsty, or in need of anything, truth be told. He went without food for longer before, in his days north of the Wall and even sometimes at Castle Black. It was nothing to be so worried about. He was but a failure of a man, and the Free Folk fought for the right to live. A skipped meal once in a while was worth it if it meant one more of them lingered in this world.

He lost count of days and nights. It was white just like the north, snow falling in silence and burying the last greens. It was still and cold, in a gentler way than he was used to; yet a man who’d never set a foot past the Wall wouldn’t say so. At last, when the weather calmed down until only rare snowflakes were dancing in the air, they’ve stood camp to light the pyres, for they couldn’t postpone this gruesome affair anymore.

He helped collect the wood, although he was slower at the task than some. Same was with stacking logs into the pyres and laying the dead upon them, but he endured. Something scraped at the numbness he felt when he carried Ghost with the help of three men, but he wouldn’t have been able to tell if that was the pain of body or mind if he tried.

The flames took long to devour the bodies. They burned bright and hot, and the smoke was thick. It was no wonder riders found them then, he rather felt surprised it took that long.

They were northerners. Men of the Manderlys, to be precise. It was a small party, all riding war-horses and wearing proper armor and castle-forged swords. They looked a bit tired, perhaps, but not as tired as Jon’s people.

“Your Grace,” one of them, a huge man, said seemingly full of joy as he rode closer. The spears aimed at him made him stop in his tracks. “We’ve been tasked with bringing the word from our lord to you, my king. House Manderly had no part in the slaughter. Lord Manderly is on his way; he will arrive in less than an hour.”

The Free Folk grumbled and spat their disapproval at that.

“He might find himself in for some trouble,” Jon said. “What he certainly won’t find here, is a king.”

They stared at him, both northerners and Tormund’s kin. He ignored the stares and simply watched the fire burn itself out.

Wyman Manderly had indeed arrived soon. He brought with him a veritable force, but all of his men wisely kept their hands empty save for holding reins. The Free Folk met his party with malicious shouts and foul curses, and not one of them cared to put their weapons away. Manderly’s people murmured; the old lord ignored them all, stepped heavily down and walked alone to where Jon stood. There, he knelt and lowered his head.

“I don’t know what you expect from me,” Jon said, when it became clear the lord wasn’t going to break the silence first. “You have wasted time in coming here, be it as a friend or a foe.”

“I was afraid it would be the case,” Manderly answered, “and yet, Your Grace, it is not. I ignored your call for aid before; but I’ve proclaimed you King in the North and swore fealty to you. When I got the word of the treason, I didn’t come to your side immediately, and for that I am sorry, but there were too few of my men in the castle, and I chose to get them safely out. I’ve heard of your actions in every battle you took a part in and I knew you will not be killed then; I, though, would not be alive. I am old, Your Grace,” he laughed bitterly. “Old and fat. I am not a fighter; but I do reign over the wealthiest, and the only, city in the North, and I am happy to say she is yours. White Harbor is yours, Your Grace,” he repeated. “As I am. We are not very northern, with our southern habits and our Seven, but we do know what honor is. We will not bow to Sansa Bolton and Littlefinger. Only to you.”

Jon glanced around. It was quiet. The Free Folk stared; their eyes were unkind, features gaunt. Were he alone, he would have refused. Did he have the right to?

“You ask me to trust you. Trust is something I no longer have, Manderly. Surely you understand.”

“I do, Your Grace.” The lord looked back at his people, and obviously something had been said before, as without another word two figures moved forward. They were cloaked; when dismounted and shed their cloaks, they revealed themselves to be women, one of the same age with Jon and the other a few years younger and wearing her long hair tinted sea green. “Do you recognize them?”

“Wynafryd and Wylla,” he said. “Your granddaughters, if I remember true.”

“You do, my king,” Wynafryd, the eldest, said. She walked to them, leading reluctant looking Wylla by the elbow. “We are here, so that you know Grandfather will do as commanded.”

He couldn’t help but laughed. His laughter rang hollow, lifeless, and many looked at him askance. Wylla glared both at him and the lord.

“Giving your grandchildren for hostages. I suppose I should be honored. Reassured even.”

For the first time Manderly looked lost. His men were growing restless.

“Do you not know how often men and women this side of the Wall kill their kin these days?” Jon asked sharply. “Do you think I care?” He caught the lord’s distraught gaze. “Tell me what you really want, lest begone.”

Manderly gulped soundly.

“I only want what’s best for my family. I swear.”

“Just like everyone else.”

“I - I want to - I only wish for them to be safe. And happy,” Manderly stammered.

“And so you give them to me of all people.”

“You won’t hurt them, that I do know!”

Irritation rose in him like a wave, ready to crash upon the shore. It tasted viscous, vile. Jon stared hard at Manderly; his hand closed around the hilt of Longclaw, and he felt a bit of dark satisfaction at seeing fear in the lord’s oily eyes.

“I’ll tell you what it is you wish, Manderly. You wish for me to fight for you when someone inevitably comes knocking. Be that Sansa or Cersei, you and I both know it will happen. And then you’ll expect this sword and these people to stand between your little happy family and their armies. We’ll die, but it is the price you’re willing to pay, isn’t it?” The pounding in his head had grown almost unbearable in these last hours, and he brought his left hand to his temple. His fingers trembled, and he frowned. “I won’t allow for them to be used like this again.”

I won’t be used again, he would have said before. But now, the truth was that he didn’t care. He’s been used since leaving Winterfell all those years ago. He lost so much - until there was just this people he had to protect, and nothing more.

There were fates worse, he supposed.

Manderly was trying to answer, but he had no desire to listen to his empty oaths. There were still those to attend to and things to do. He turned away, searching in his mind for the list he spent the morning thinking over, and straightening from the slouch he wasn’t entirely sure when he adopted; and then

that pounding became roar in his ears, harsh and thunderous, eclipsing all other sounds

numbness grew, sudden and unstoppable, starting in his feet and swallowing him whole, until only the scratching, tearing at his skin and muscle sensation remained

darkness fell, and he with it.

It felt a lot like death, hollow and cold and dark, nothing but his sluggish thoughts and snippets of words coming and going. Just as he did then, Jon could feel neither passing of time, nor any wish to change this nothingness. It was peaceful here. No pain, no hurt of betrayal; no lies could reach him here.

If I do, if I fall… Don’t bring me back, he said once, and couldn’t agree more with himself.

Still, he knew he wasn’t truly dead. He was close to gods, or perhaps they were closer than ever, watching him since Ghost’s blood, mixed with blood of the traitors, soaked the roots and bark of the heart tree. And he was alive.

He remembered waking up in a tent, heavy covers not allowing for movement and a lantern fire making him squint. Later, being handed over to someone in a rowboat; the sight of raging clouds and the edge of a blizzard so thick it could be the Wall itself capturing him for the brief moment he was awake.

Coming to with a strangled cry, hands holding him down firmly and fingers prodding at his wounds; fire blazing across his entire being. Fever, trying to steal the air from his lungs as heat coursed through his veins, horrible and inescapable. Waking up with tears drying before they could fall and calling for Ghost, for Ygritte, for his unknown mother - the way he hadn’t since he was a child and didn’t know better - yet his voice failing him anyway; the world becoming darker and colder every next time, until he knew nothing and felt nothing and was no more.

When illness finally released him, he thought at first that it was just a nicer dream. His bed was better than any other he’d slept in before, made of thick, soft blankets and many furs, and pillows stacked high under his heavy head and shoulders. He could feel tight bandages around his chest and arms, where traitors left their marks. The skin under those bandages itched fiercely and flesh where the blades sliced deeper was hot and hard with inflammation, demanding he lay still and allowed time to work its wonders.

It was a struggle to turn his head to take the chamber in. It was quite small if spacious thanks to mostly bare walls; carved in black stone with arched windows he could barely see the sky through, steely blue and cold, and the ceiling higher than he thought reasonable, dark and full of forms his tired eyes couldn’t make sense of. He was in a castle, there was no doubt, but which one? He thought it was too quiet for White Harbor; but then, where else Manderly could have taken him to?

And why? Why couldn’t he leave him alone? Why couldn’t they understand that it was all he wanted now, to be left alone? With a shallow sigh, he closed his eyes and willed the hurt away.

It was then that the door was opened and someone entered the room - there were a few sets of steps, he realized.

“No change?” a voice asked, kind and strangely accented voice of a woman that he didn’t know but thought familiar in a way. Yes, it was her accent… where had he heard it before?

“I’m afraid so, Your Grace,” that was Davos. Why did he address her as such? He searched his memory, but there was only Cersei who bore the title, and this wasn’t her. It couldn’t be Myrcella or a Martell, and in Westeros there were no other person of royal blood. Well, he supposed Sansa would fashion herself a queen now, but Sansa could rot in hell for all he cared.

“It's been so long,” she said softly. Light steps carried her closer. “The Maester told me his body is mostly healed, and all that remains is for the spirit to return. If only he could say how to help with that.”

He didn’t quite catch her words past one, ‘maester’ it was. What was it about a maester that was important?

He remembered Maester Aemon, his thin voice and wise words, everything about him bitter like a remedy. Kindness and cruelty of an old man who wished to better the world and instead had been left to watch it burn as he could do nothing but bear witness, and wasn’t it amusing in a sense? That first time they truly spoke came to his mind, how he felt helpless and raged at that blind fool. For what could he hope to understand?

As I have…

He wanted to laugh; instead, breath stuck in his throat, and as much as he tried not to, he gasped for air in a coughing fit making him want to curl into himself or at least turn to his side to relieve the tension in his chest. There were raised voices and hurried steps, hands pulling him up and holding there as he desperately fought the dark.

When it ended, he was left shaking in exhaustion, sweat beading on his skin and lungs screaming. He was lowered back, the covers tugged back over his shoulders; and someone kept stroking his hair, the feeling of careful fingers combing through the strands entirely foreign. Was it meant to wake him? To comfort? He tensed, unsure of the answer, despite wanting nothing more than to lean into touch.

They stilled.

“I think…” that woman started, then fell silent. He heard shuffling, heard Davos hum and felt the grip on his shoulder through all those blankets.

“Jon? Can you open your eyes, laddie?”

He hated the very thought; dread curled in his gut at the idea of facing the living world. He was so tired… Awake for less than an hour, he longed already for that dreamless sleep to reclaim him.

“Perhaps I was mistaken,” she said quietly, and something echoed in him at hearing sadness in her voice.

“No,” he said, or tried to say; all that left him was a rasping groan. His throat felt scraped with sand, and he could swear he’d never tasted anything sweeter than the water that was soon brought to his lips. Every swallow was painful, and the simple task of drinking exhausted him anew; yet at the end of it he felt better, almost lucid enough.

Those gentle fingers were now touching his face, feather-light upon his brow, tracing one of the scars clawed into his skin. He blinked slowly, not knowing how he was supposed to react, and heard a small laugh, barely more than an exhale.

She gazed upon him with something akin to wonder in her gemstone-like eyes; her full lips, slightly parted, curved in a warm smile.

He could tell at once who she was, for there was but one in the world bearing those features and that title. Realization only served to confuse him further. Last he knew, she was still in Essos, ruling over the newly liberated Bay of Dragons. No way there was they could be in Meereen; it meant she’d come to Westeros. But where, exactly, to?

“You are on Dragonstone,” she said as if having heard his thoughts. “Your men let me bring you here to heal in peace. Lord Manderly made it very clear your safety and wellbeing is paramount in his eyes.”

“He’s not…” Jon’s voice broke; he coughed again, blinking the haze away, and ended in whisper, “not mine.”

“Perhaps,” she allowed with another easy smile, “yet it would seem you are his, Your Grace.”

“No,” he murmured. “I’m not meant for the South.”

Sadness returned to her look; it was in the brief tremor of her dark lashes and a barely there pressing of her lips, in the darkening of her eyes and a slow, long-drawn-out breath. He hated himself a bit more then, but she deserved to know the truth.

He carried only death wherever he’d gone. He felt it in his entire being, that blistering cold of blood turning into ice in his veins, that waiting darkness at the edge of his mind where a part of him fell dead in the woods outside Winterfell’s walls. He felt it like heavy presence of the gods, like blizzard coming in from the north.

“You are wrong,” she said in the same kind, warm, yet unyielding voice. “You will see.”

He lacked the will to explain what seemed to be a glaring truth. Much as he wanted, tiredness overtook him, and he could only watch her, helpless, as she rose from her seat and leaned to place a tender, lingering kiss on his forehead. She smelled like flowers and burning steel, like summer and fire in a hearth and the sea, and as he breathed it all in, his chest hurt a little less.

The last thing he remembered, after she stepped back and escaped his vision, was Davos bidding her farewell and turning to look at Jon with that annoying uptick of his smile that said he knew something and was going to have a good laugh when others caught up.

Somewhat reassured by his friend’s mirth, he didn’t resist sleep any longer. He dreamed of an island standing against raging storms and the thundering sound of gigantic wings filling heated, bittersweet air.

Chapter Text

She didn’t go farther than the first turn of the hallway. There, she leaned against the wall, closed her eyes and allowed herself one heavy, straining breath, the only sign of her tension.

The room she had just left didn’t smell of sickness anymore. It should have warned her to raise her guard; she didn’t, not right then, not until too late, too late, what have I done, what are you doing to me, by which time she could only muster so much of her dignity that her leaving abruptly looked anything but the escape it was, and she wondered –

She wondered, did he know, did he see –

Those were but foolish thoughts, a guessing game Daenerys Targaryen had to know better than engage in.

“My Queen?”

She turned, giving Tyrion a weak, if genuine, smile. He seemed to relax immediately, and smiled back in kind; but the question in his mismatched eyes remained. The question she felt too happy not to entertain herself with.

“He is awake,” she said simply.

“Good,” Tyrion answered. She looked at him sharply, and he stared back with a challenging brow.

She was forced to admit, she had no one to blame for that but herself. Her judgement became impaired in this one case, and she hadn’t been careful enough to hide her weakness. Tyrion had pounced on that without hesitation, hackles raised and a thirst for hunt, for a chase evident – he, a lion once more. Dany hated that it made her admire the man all the more; but then, she was lucky to have him on her side, lucky he made it into training for her, into preparation. He didn’t lie when he said coming home was going to be terrifying.

Still, he never warned her it was not only herself Daenerys Targaryen shall be afraid for. Never did he say she could find more than just her enemies here.

When they discussed Daario and all the ways she could walk once she stepped a foot on this shore; when he denounced love and mocked arranged marriage; when he stared at her much like Jorah did all those years ago, startled by something in her looks that wasn’t hers and yet was now no one else’s too, for who would dare to compare –

…he didn’t say that what she was going to fall to was hope.

Yet hope it had been. It always was, Dany thought amusedly. Hope helped her to survive Drogo, hope led to her children being either killed or born, hope broke those collars and brought down cities and forced nations to kneel before her.

It was what snatched her from the flames and left standing on top of the Great Pyramid. It was what made her look across the sea, to where her birthright lay. It was what brought her to White Harbor, because, just like Quaithe had been whispering in her dreams, just like it was once before, to go north, Daenerys needed to come south, and once she did, once she was walking the halls of her ancestors, was tearing down Stannis’ false banners, was lighting up the fires that had been left untended for too long; then the priestess stepped out of the shadows surrounding her throne. Melisandre was her name, and both Tyrion and Varys tried to send her away, but Dany knew better than to refuse a foe so openly. She welcomed the priestess and let her speak, and she would have laughed together with her court, would have hurled insults and smiled imperiously at the foolish witch –

She could not. The priestess knew that too.

To pacify her advisors, Daenerys sent ravens first. One to Winterfell, to its ruler whom she left unnamed, to notify him or her that the Queen has returned and demands renewal of fealty from her subjects. Another – to Lord Manderly, to ask for parley with his king.

The first raven returned bearing the word of Sansa Stark, Queen in the North and of the Vale and Riverlands, Lady of the Crossing, refusing Daenerys and warning “the Mad King’s daughter and her sycophants” to stay in the South, lest she regret ever invading the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. It pained Tyrion visibly and made Varys frown in concern. Daenerys committed the letter to her memory, let the maester Olenna Tyrell had brought with her take a copy and burned the original in the candle fire till ashes on her fingers were all that remained. The sweet smell of perfume the letter carried had turned to sickly sour and smoky, and she laughed, because it wasn’t even a poison. Just a badly mixed oil.

But the answer Lord Manderly sent? Most courteously, bordering on defensively avuncular, the lord welcomed her to her home country and expressed both his faith that her journey shall come to its logical conclusion soon and that she would be amenable to visit then; and yet, that he, most sadly, could not in good conscience promise her any successful parley or even the parley itself, for it should be his king’s decision. In the meantime, he promised to play the most generous host if ever she decided to grace his lands with her presence – but no further inland, as the North was very inhospitable place for any too southern for its liking.

Reading that letter left her divided. She had felt both a little revulsed by the amount of flattering, honeyed words; and longing for a life in which her correspondence could always be this way, beautifully written and part meaningless, part playful. She understood for the first time why Tyrion loved his stories so much, why Varys was so lost. There was something more than treachery and death in their game.

However, her feelings aside, the important thing was that Lord Manderly divulged no secret of his king – neither of the betrayal that had driven the king to leave Winterfell, nor of his current whereabouts. Jon Snow was still alive, Melisandre said to her in confidence, but the Lord of Light won’t keep him unharmed. He knew no mercy, no pity, no kindness; and Jon Snow will be sorry if left alone to tarry any longer.

Your god is cruel, then, Dany said. Melisandre only laughed, and for a moment Dany glimpsed the woman she truly was: ashy and cold, with her heart long burnt away. Yet she still walked, and prayed, and killed in the service of her master.

This is war, Daenerys Targaryen. The only war that matters. He cannot afford leniency; and the day shall come, when neither will you. Have faith then. Be the fire He breathed into the world. And always fear, for the night is dark and full of terrors.

It was an old adage, one she never quite understood why people didn’t laugh at; not until then.

And ever since then, it was as if Melisandre walked behind her, unseen and unheard, smiling her terrible smile that had always come first in her eyes and only after that pulled at her lips. She brought feverish dreams Dany wouldn’t remember in the mornings, nothing but this: a wall of ice, a white-barked tree engulfed in red-blood flames, and eyes blue like death; and sometimes, the wolf would howl, long and mournful and chilling.

And so, it was important that Lord Manderly wrote nothing as to why there could be no guaranteed parley between her and Jon Snow. The king hadn’t refused, nor had he accepted. If he was the one behind the invitation to White Harbor, she had no way to know.

“Send the raven back,” she ordered, watching as the maester copied that letter too. “And send my ship. Tell him to expect me in three days’ time.”

“But Your Grace!..” Tyrion, Varys and Arianne cried in unison.

“It will be done, dear,” Olenna interposed drily. “But a few days for the raven to fly and three days more to prepare, it is time trice enough for your dragon to reach White Harbor; where will you go first?”

She smiled at the old woman, and Lady Tyrell smirked in silent understanding. It irked Tyrion, just as Dany had come to expect.

“I will leave the day after tomorrow for Winterfell,” she said for his sake. “Don’t worry, I will not do anything rush. Only have a look from the sky.”

“Rush it, mayhaps, won’t be,” he snarled, terrorized by the implications and ideas that had undoubtedly ignited his too devious mind like lightning ignites a prairie in a time of draught. “What it already is, is unadvisable!” She gave him a look, and Tyrion deflated and muttered sulkily, “You just need to get everyone spitting and spluttering, do you?”

“I need my enemies to think they know what to expect from me,” she said, and palmed the direwolf that stood crowning the north of the Painted Table. “Like it or not, Tyrion, your former wife is our enemy, and if we underestimate her, more dangerous than your sister.” She laughed quietly. “Truly, what it is with our families, pray tell me?”

“They are monstrous,” he said with a snort. “But aren’t we all?”

“In their eyes, undoubtedly so,” Dany mused, and let her own eyes glint. “Let’s hope you are right and Jon Snow turns out to be a monster of our kind.”

(Those were the famous last words of hers, Varys told her much later.)

But when she circled above the city, white and spacious and teeming with life, not three but only two days since leaving Dragonstone, enough for the magic of raven to allow the creature to reach Lord Manderly, but not close enough for the lord to prepare, she felt little of her surety. This wasn’t a city to take and sack and rebuild to her liking. This wasn’t a city to seek shelter in. This wasn’t a city to roam its streets, only Dany and Viserys, bellies aching and the soles of their feet raw… - no, it was not, and never shall be.

She had felt uncertain.

But it didn’t take them long to notice her, not when she brought both Drogon and Rhaegal with her, and after the freezing cold of Sansa’s North, the warmth rising from this city impelled them to play in the air, to dance in its currents, beautiful and unforgettable and loud as they sang; full of innocent joy of simply being. She took it for a good sign, and felt resolved when they slowly glided closer to the ground, eventually landing before the city’s gates, where a party rode hard to.

The man leading them was big, in that he was tall and round, heavy with muscle and fat; but nothing like rotund Illyrio Mopatis, whom she couldn’t remember without tremble of disgust. No, this man was fat like his city was lively, and Dany was reminded not of Illyrio but of her childish dreams, of her kingdom made full of fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. It remained to be seen if there were prettiness and laughter in the Manderlys’ halls, but she thought it just possible.

Their horses refused to come close to her dragons, and so they were left studying each other from a distance, made easier for she still sat atop Drogon’s back and they were up in the saddles. When the silence stretched too long, Lord Manderly coughed and slowly dismounted, refusing the gingerly offered help of his men. The dragons lazily watched him draw near, as near as it was possible to stand and still see her, she supposed.

“Queen Daenerys,” he said slowly and raspingly despite his earlier cough.

“Lord Manderly,” she answered not unkindly. This man was not her enemy, was not one to indebt her; but he certainly was one to be wary of. “I trust you have received my answer.”

“I did, my lady,” he said, his long mustache briefly shaking when he suppressed a smile. “Your dragon must have been faster than you estimated, though.”

Drogon let out a quiet thrill and a hiss, both proud at having been praised and offended on her behalf; while Rhaegal snorted, not one to be left out of conversation. She laughed and chided them in quick Valyrian, then turned back to wide-eyed crowd.

“I had a detour planned, but Winterfell had happened a sight not worth much attention,” she said, levity in her voice contradicting the sharpness of her smile. Manderly darkened, listening to her, and shook his head.

“Please, my lady, tell me the castle still stands,” he said grimly. “Queen Sansa may have deserved your wrath, but there are many smallfolk who had done nothing but come seeking shelter from winter winds. I would know, for just as many reside within the walls of my city.”

Her smile fell.

“I left them be, Lord Manderly,” she said. “I believe King Jon shall be the only one at this time to decide his sister’s fate.”

“Ah,” Manderly answered. He put his hands together behind his back and swayed on his feet, looking thoughtful. “You seem to be aware of some events at least.”

“I am. The only thing I don’t know is where I find Jon Snow; and I swear, Lord Manderly, I mean him no harm. I was told he is an honorable man, a true son of his father, who would never break the parley or betray his word in other way. We have no reason to…”

A strange grimace Lord Manderly gave her made her pause.

“Well said, Queen Daenerys,” he muttered. “Very well, indeed. May not be entirely true, for I’ve heard His Grace, while honorable, is not a fool those boys, Ned and Robb, both were.” He sighed. “No, you see, my lady, I would be the happiest man in the North, were you two to become allies. Your war in the South; our wars here; these damned wars seem to never end, ever since the Harrenhal.” He sighed again, ignoring how blank her face must have become. “Why, I would have begged on my knees till he gave up and agreed to see you, I can be very annoying, I assure you, my lady. But there is no one to hear me begging.”

She breathed sharply.

“He is not dead. I was told – he cannot be.” The wolf’s tortured howl echoed in her mind.

“Not yet,” Manderly said, something like pity flickering in his eyes. “But this is not the conversation to have here, my lady. I invite you to my city, if you would but accept the offer of guest rite.”

There was a challenge now, one she understood too well. Tyrion Lannister was her Hand of the Queen; and he had been thorough in his explanation of how it will be seen. She had experienced the truth of his words when denied the alliance with Ellaria Sand and her daughters. She didn’t know there were other Martells still living, and she would have rather lost Dorne than made a deal with the women who usurped its throne and their kin, her kin. It seemed obvious to her. She herself had been usurped; and her brother; and Elia Martell together with Dany’s nephew and niece were killed in the name of the Usurper. She felt aghast that anyone would think she’d find the alliance agreeable.

She thought she’d lose the kingdom, that it would have been left to conquer all over again; instead, she had gained it for true, the day Arianne Nymeros Martell arrived to Dragonstone to swear fealty as the new Princess of Dorne.

It seemed nothing but her renouncement of the Sand Snakes was required to make Dorne happy. She tried not to dwell on the bitterness it caused her to taste.

She descended to stand before the lord and his men, ate a chunk of still warm bread, tasty with a hint of spice and something sea-born, drank sour wine from a skin, said all the right words of accepting the rite. A horse had been given to her, a beautiful gelding with a star in his forehead, and Dany mounted him with ease that made the men raise their brows.

The city was beautiful that close too. They rode hurriedly, the lord evidently wanting to have the hard conversation as fast out of the way as possible; and she had been of the same mind. Above them, Drogon and Rhaegal had been flying again. Seeing them, Dany couldn’t help but smile.

“They are magnificent, Your Grace,” Manderly said, noticing where she looked to.

“You should see them when they are all together,” she answered. “I have raised them, and I still sometimes doubt my eyes.”

He laughed in understanding; his entire form seemed to shake with that jovial laugh.

His family had met them, but the introduction was ushered through. They’ll have time for idle talks later, the lord said impatiently. The youngest girl glowered at that, but everyone else laughed and quipped and left the two of them alone. Once in his solar, the spacious and bright and possibly the strangest chamber Dany had seen so far (and she’d seen much), the lord fell heavily in his throne-like massive chair and waived at Dany to have a seat as well. Sweat glistening on his reddened face and breath labored, he still smirked at her concern.

“The Manderlys hail from the Reach, my dear lady,” he said, chuckling. “Being of my build is something to be proud of, however inconvenient at times. A thousand year gone since we were exiled, but we remember. Aye,” he sighed, his frown making its reappearance, his accent shifting, “we have good memory too. But let us speak of more urgent matters, shall we?”

She nodded eagerly, all but leaning forward in her own impatience. Old the lord might have been, and fat, and jolly in nature despite the weight of calamities he had lived through; but his vision was sharp, and he snorted behind his mustache.

“You remind me of him, my lady. When that boy was young, he would sulk in the corners every time I visited, but once something captured his attention, he would stop at nothing... But now he lies in the rooms I’ve given to him despite him refusing to trust me again; alive yet, but not waking up, no matter what we do. His wildling friends say it’s all because of that strange northern magic, because his wolf is dead and something in his foolish head tells him he shall go as well.” He shook his head in what would have been disgust in any other man of the Faith. Manderly, Dany felt, had simply been fed-up with magic and with boys being difficult.

She scoffed, and Manderly startled at the sound.

“I can’t decide, my lord, if you are in awe and full of respect for your king, or if you want him to heal only so that you can kill him yourself.”

Manderly stared – and stared – and then he burst up laughing.

“Oh, Your Grace!” he managed, eventually. “Sometimes, I myself doubt… The Starks would do that to you.” Slowly calming down, he rubbed his face and smiled sadly. “Yes, Eddard Stark could be infuriatingly stubborn sometimes. Too much honor, too little understanding of the world. Robb was not like that. He was smart, and willful, and he could inspire men like no other I have seen – well. I suppose it’s not true; Robert Baratheon and your brother Rhaegar both managed to bring half the armies to their side… Jon Snow could lead the entire Realm if he so desired. It is hard not to be in awe of such a man.”

“Then how came we are here, my lord?” she asked. Manderly shrugged.

“How it always happens? Greed, and cowardice, and a broken heart. I can tell you much about that night, but it would hardly help. What did happen, not counting any myths of the wildlings, is he was injured, had taken no care of that and is now dying. His advisor and friends allowed me to bring him here, some came too to guard him. As if any guard is good when the Stranger comes.”

Dany hesitated. Wyman Manderly was very good at being nice, being open and heartfelt and genuinely sorrowful; but he was also a lord of the North, if the southmost of them in a certain sense. She’d known this kind of men, had been dealing with them before. Almost married one of them, and those honeyed locusts were not something she felt ready to forget.

“Yet you have been guarding him most faithfully, Lord Manderly,” she said coldly. His eyes blinked at her in innocent surprise, and she suppressed a jolt of vicious satisfaction at having guessed right. “A king without his kingdom, or even his crown.”

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace,” he said carefully, “but if Viserys Targaryen once held the title of the Beggar King, what was yours, do remind the old man?”

She tilted her head, considering.

“Stormborn,” she answered. “And after that, Khaleesi. It means Queen.” He said nothing, so she continued. “You call Jon Snow your king, say he is dying and invite me, the rightful queen, to your city. What am I to make of it, my lord?”

Slowly, Wyman Manderly smiled.

After they struck their bargain, he walked her to the rooms given to Jon Snow. Men who looked nothing like the ones she’d seen in the streets, wearing skins and long unkept hair, bluish-black tattoos and bones and bronze for adornments, guarded the entrance. They looked at her curiously yet scowled darkly, but at Manderly’s order let her pass. A man, who she would learn was Ser Davos Seaworth, had been napping in a chair at his king’s bedside, and the king himself lay there in his bed, motionless and pale like the moon.

He was young, was the first thought that had come to her. She had known that, and yet, and yet… She was so used to deal with the men who were at best a decade older than her, and sometimes twice or trice her age, and she had heard so much about Jon Snow from Tyrion and Melisandre and now lord Manderly, it seemed wrong a man so young would be the one they meant. Yes, Dany herself was even younger, and she had seen and had done much more, but she never questioned her story, never looked back, to wonder or to regret or to stare in disbelief at all the milestones of her journey. There were deeds to have done, roads to walk, people to free and befriend, people to leave behind. Throughout it all, her mantra remained the same. If I look back, I am lost. And she had not.

He did look ill. His face was set in a permanent frown of pain; his chapped lips were parted and he kept gasping for air ever so slightly. Fever stole his colors and left him struggling.

Before Dany knew it, she had been reaching to push a lock of black hair away from his sweaty forehead. Her fingers grazed his too-hot skin.

He didn’t react at first; but then his lashes were trembling, and suddenly, too soon, or maybe not soon enough, she was looking into his eyes, dark and familiar like something she’d seen just once, or perhaps dreamed up, or –

He turned slightly, just so that the ghostly light touch of her fingertips became firmer, more real, and closed his eyes, falling unconscious once more. She told to herself that it meant nothing, it was simply her skin being colder than his, and the relief or maybe shock of that was what jolted him; but she had also known, unquestioningly, indisputably, that it was a lie.

Because she knew him.

Because she felt that gaze too many times in her own dreams, waking up to a cold breath of wind that was not the wind of Essos.

Because the wolf who had kept howling, had kept calling, was his wolf, yet it was Daenerys who had been the one listening.

Slowly, she had pulled her hand away, refusing to hear the near-inaudible cry that escaped him then, turned and left his room on silent feet. Back straight and eyes dry, she didn’t look at Manderly when he asked if she was alright.

She hadn’t been, but he didn’t need to know.

Tyrion, when she returned aboard her ship, one very ill northern fool of a king and his tiny kingsquard richer, didn’t even ask. He looked her over once and knew immediately that something had indeed been very much wrong. But she didn’t tell and he didn’t stay silent.

Back in the present, Dany pushed herself off the wall and straightened, facing Tyrion fully.

“He is awake,” she repeated. “Soon, he is going to start asking questions.”

“Ah, so I’ll have company, then,” Tyrion said sarcastically. “How nice. I’ve become tired of trying to irritate Varys in harmless ways, so it’s just about time.”

“I don’t know why I am keeping you,” Dany said after a pause.

“Because who else would dare irritate you, Daenerys Targaryen,” he retorted without missing a beat, and finally she was able to smile again. Tyrion’s inquisitive eyes missed nothing, and he huffed and hissed through his teeth. “Oh, you are going to be difficult again. Please, at least don’t be obvious. He is a fine young man, I suppose, and you would make a striking pair, but you know you will break the hearts of every man and woman across the entire Realm if you marry already.”

“We are not going to marry,” she said, scoffing. “I don’t even know him.”

“Puh! As if it ever prevented a marriage, my darling. Sometimes, it’s even for the best.”

“You would know.”

He laughed derisively.

“I guess I’ve asked for this one. Fine, then. You win today; let’s discuss something boring. The war. The North. The walking dead and their ice spiders and ice dragons and ice – uh, do you think there are still mammoths?”

“Tormund says there are.”

“How horrible!” he said enthusiastically. “I’ve always wanted one, you know?”

Dany broke out in giggles, and Tyrion smirked, full of himself and adorably proud. She decided she’d tell him she thought him adorable if he ever annoyed her that much, just to see the terror on his face.

“You once asked me if Daario was the first one to love me,” she said abruptly. Tyrion’s smirk melted, giving way to attentive thoughtfulness. “He was not… but I may have lied about Drogo. I did love him, but it was a strange kind of love. Grown to survive the life I wasn’t sure I could bear if all I had was…” she shook herself and frowned. It was in the past. Drogo was no more, Rhaego was but a memory. Dany didn’t die with them, and this, this was a reminder. “But there was always a someone else. I thought it was a dream… And it seemed harmless to fall in love with someone you have only ever dreamt about. Only ever imagined.”

Tyrion looked straight ahead, not even a single glance at her was betraying his thoughts.

“What if he says he had dreamt about you?” he asked softly.

“I think he will. He saw me. When I came to see him that first time, he’d awoken briefly, just for a moment, and he saw me. He recognized me.”

“But he can still choose to remain silent,” Tyrion stressed.

“He can,” she agreed. “But it doesn’t matter, Tyrion. We have only ever met in dreams. I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me, and there are wars to fight in, wars that can and likely will see us dead. What is the sense?”

“Well,” Tyrion said, “if you ever figure out what the love itself is for, tell me, will you?”

He bowed to her with those words on his lips, turned and sauntered away, already starting to sing a song, of which he knew seemingly endless multitude – Daenerys suspected he’d been composing them on the fly, just when a mood struck him so. She listened in.

“I loved a maid as white as winter,” he was humming, “with moonglow in her hair…”

Feeling her face grow hot, she turned on her heel and all but ran away. Unbidden happiness bubbled up in her chest.

He was awake, she thought. There was her war going, and there was his accursed sister, and then there was the Night King and the war the Red God was dragging them both into. And in the middle of it all, Daenerys Targaryen hoped Jon Snow would tell her that he had seen her in his dreams.

Hope was all she had, after all, and it wasn’t such a terrible thing.

Chapter Text

Dragonstone was a strange place.

Wherever Jon had been to before, the closest he felt at home was on the trek with Tormund’s band, with Ygritte teaching him the ways of the True North. Second came Castle Black, in the time they all had been together.

Pyp, laughing and quipping; Grenn, quietly grinning from sidelines, always ready to catch Jon in a smelly headlock and teach him a lesson; Sam, wide-eyed and fascinated with this or that; Edd, dolorous and whining and steadfast. Lord Commander, watching over them from his tower, like Lord Stark would watch over the pack of his children. Maester Aemon, mercilessly honest and wise beyond their caring.

But each one of them was now dead or, worse, alone in the world; and Castle Black had become nothing but another effigy in the dark caverns of his mind.

Compared to those places, those people, Dragonstone was warm in a way Jon had been distraught to discover felt familiar. A child’s memory revisited; a hug he’d longed for since the day he understood his place in this world. When he’d dreamt of Winterfell, only the cold and the ghosts of old kings would reveal themselves in the night. On Dragonstone, if he’d seen anything, then he couldn’t remember his dreams when the sun arose; it was peaceful.

Strength was returning to him slowly. On the third day he was able to stand and walk a round or two, before the tiredness became overwhelming. On the fifth, instead of lying down he asked for a chair to be placed near a window and sat there, watching the sea and the winged shadows dancing in steely skies.

“A walk outside would be nice, don’t you think?” Ser Davos asked him once.

He was the only one, except a maester and a servant, who visited. The maester came while Jon was asleep, too far gone to notice anything; and the servant was silent. She watched Jon from under her lashes and was patient whenever her help had been required. Once, when he had stopped expecting it, the weakness came so sudden his legs gave out beneath him and Jon slid down to sit on the floor before he would fall; she vanished, a few minutes later Davos barged in to worry and fuss and be his usual self, and that was all.

The silence, the calmness of his almost solitude was rather nice. It was never quiet in this place. In the nights the castle coiled, wide awake and watchful, against the waves churning below; and throughout the days, when it would with a sigh sink into uneasy sleep, there will be the echo of foreign voices, horses neighing and wings thundering in a unison with the black-and-red sails far in the sea. The winds never calmed, it looked like, and the air in his chamber never grew stale.

He found it all greatly resembled the trudging through the wintry forest and over the snowed hills of the wolfswood, the same isolation while many had been around; the same fight to find anything worth his attention while all he'd wanted was to fall into the gods’ greedy embrace and forget.

He hesitated. Davos was one of the few to not yet give up on Jon Snow, and Lord Stark raised him better than to leave that loyalty unanswered; but a walk felt like a lot right then.

“Why are we here?” he asked. Davos looked at him sharply, then shrugged and smiled.

“It was a part of the deal between the queen and Lord Manderly,” he said. “As your advisor and not your Hand I’m not privy to all the details, Your Grace. You’ll need to ask one of them.”

These few days taught him it was pointless to argue his title. Davos named him King, and swore fealty, and refused to budge. Sometimes Jon wanted to call Stannis a fool for sending this man away. At others, he knew exactly why Stannis did it. There was no chance Davos would have let him follow through on Melisandre’s plans.

It was reassuring that now this loyalty was his. Humbling, unnerving, yet reassuring.

“Who else has come?”

“Tormund,” Davos said, almost rolling his eyes, “Fir, Old Malla, Akka and Akka the Moonhunter; and, well…”

“Who else?” he asked; his voice ever quieter. Davos sighed.

“Alys Karstark and Ned Umber with a few of their men,” he said. “They fled to White Harbor when Sansa called for their death.”

Jon’s blood ran cold; then scalding.

“They are children, Davos.”

“That they are, Your Grace,” came back. “And neither Lord Manderly, nor Queen Daenerys refused them help. I believe even Lord Lannister…” and Davos snapped his mouth shut, a shadow of regret visible in his face.

Slowly, Jon pushed himself up and walked a few calming paces around the chamber. It occurred to him once more just how small it was, with his bed and a chest and these chairs being the only fixtures. Was it because he was a guest with nothing but false claims to his name; or exactly to give him nothing his attention would wander to? At the moment, he wanted nothing more but a distraction, and there was none. He walked to the row of windows and stood there, just watching the wrathful sea beneath the raging sky.

A dragon called out for the coming storm; his was a loud, lingering scream Jon had no comparison for. No one answered.

“She wants the Houses of everyone she considers traitorous or dangerous to be wiped out,” he said hollowly. “Like Tywin had every Reyne killed, or Princess Elia with her children; or how he and Joffrey and Cersei have been hunting the Starks… so, which Lannister are you talking about? It seems to me, they are good teachers of her.”

Davos cleared his throat before answering. He didn’t look much alarmed, and Jon thought he could trust his judgement. Still, his head ached with the tension he tried to keep hidden.

“That would be the one you once mentioned in good spirit, mind you,” the old man mused. “Tyrion Lannister is the Hand of the Queen.”

Bemused, Jon glanced at him.

“That, I need to see with my own eyes before I believe,” he said. Davos shrugged.

“Jon, once you leave these quarters, you will have no shortage of people who want to talk to you. And I promise, Lord Tyrion will be the second in line, just after the queen herself.” He noticed the grimace on Jon's face and raised his bushy eyebrows. "Truly, you think yourself simply forgotten?"

He wished he were - but figured it was pointless to admit. Davos laughed at his sullen glare, before rising to his feet with an exaggerated sigh.

"I'll have a bath drawn for you and some more suitable clothes brought in, Your Grace," he said with his little rueful smile. "It is still a few hours till the supper in the Great Hall."

"Davos," he warned; in vain.

"She is smarter than to welcome you with a feast," Davos answered. "You have nothing to worry about."

His tone implied there was also nothing Jon could do but order to stop with this nonsense outright; and both of them knew that Jon would never bother to. And when Jon didn't move or say anything else, Davos nodded in satisfaction and left to carry on his self-appointed task.

And so, when the night crept in with the chill and a hail of a rainfall, Jon found himself before massive double doors, made, as near everything he'd seen so far, in an image of dragons, with scaly outlines of their bodies slithering from the corners and spiky muzzles flicking their tongues of fire to serve as handles. Doubt had once more taken over, fueled by the wry looks people in the hallways kept giving him and his own lack of weapons. He may have run out of breath during this walk, and the simmering, searing sensation in his not yet fully healed wounds had lit up anew after the hot water of his bath – but as long as he was alive, he could fight, and not having his sword, not even knowing where she was, left him feeling defanged; caged. A part of him he used to keep buried deep down and ignored, it rebelled at the thought of trusting the mercy of another.

It was a moon almost, he reminded to himself, that he'd spent abed; asleep and defenseless in the care of someone he had no love for. First a Manderly; now a Targaryen. How came these southerners were truer than his own kin?.. Hesitantly, he closed his hand around a warm, roughly hewn handle and with an encouraging nod from Davos pushed the door open.

What was the throne room of this castle reminded him, more than anything, a vast cave someone in the times past had cut closer to perfection, had broken parts of the dome to allow light and air in, but otherwise left untended. He knew it was an illusion, that this whole place was sung to life with magic of Old Valyria, dark, fiery and bloodthirsty. It lingered in these walls, black and hot like yesterday's embers ready to ignite again; very much like the Wall, dripping its tears of a false spring, would never stop breathing cold.

The far end of the room ended in dais leading up to the Obsidian Throne of Aenys Targaryen; of Aegon and Rhaenyra and Rhaella. That throne stood empty now, the dragonglass gleaming and glittering in the firelight of braziers. Davos led Jon across the hall and past the throne, through a less pretentious arched doorway into another chamber, just as vast, yet much more ordinary. The Queen sat there at the center of an enormous ironwood table, a goblet of wine in her hands and a demure smile on her lips; watching over her court of people who seemed terribly unequal and inescapably different; united only in darker colors of their clothing and metallic treads of embroidery, another referring to dragons, even with their own sigils in plain sight. Only a few stood out - some wearing skins and brown leathers, some - northern in appearance.

The Queen was the first one to notice Jon. The weak smile she wore blossomed until her whole presence was lit up with sudden joy; gaze bright and burning, she rose like the sun wished it could, and gradually, hushed silence fell amongst her guests.

Before one of them could greet the other, however, a smug, grating voice filled the hall.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the Bastard of Winterfell; he returneth to us at last!"

The Queen unleashed such a scathing look upon Tyrion Lannister, a lesser man, Jon thought, would throw himself flat before her, begging forgiveness. Tyrion, however, ignored her displeasure entirely, perhaps made easier since he sat on her right, and stared at Jon, face stern.

He had changed, had grown covered in scars and marks of his years, his cups and the battles he survived. His dark-and-golden hair was like mane, and his hooded eyes watched everything with sharp intensity betraying even sharper mind.

Jon didn't shy from his poisoned bait.

"Lord Hill," he said, his voice honed in kind. Whispers and shocked gasps broke out and died at the insult and the Queen's face fell; but after a moment of weighted silence Tyrion shook his head with a genuine laugh.

"Good one, Jon," he said, still chuckling. "We shall see if you can keep that up."

"Tyrion," the Queen snapped; he shrugged unapologetically.

"It is quite alright, Your Grace," Jon said, the dryness of his words to rival desert winds. "We must forgive him; there has been so little joy in his short life."

While Tyrion hissed another laugh, the Queen groaned and gracelessly flopped back into her seat. Even then, she was shining. After a quiet grumbling at Tyrion, she looked up at Jon and grinned happily, almost making him stumble back from the intensity of it.

"I am glad you two get along so well. Please, Your Grace, join us and be most welcomed."

There was already some shuffling and moving around to allow him and Davos seats opposite the Queen's one. Jon lifted a hand, and they halted.

"Thank you. But before I can, I shall have words with Lady Karstark and Lord Umber."

Beside him, Davos tensed; from the corner of his eyes Jon could see him giving a tiny shake of his head. The Queen frowned, and amongst the tiny northern party there were two who had frozen in their seats. Then one of them, a very young woman, her speckled skin sickly pale and long mousy hair dull, moved to stand up. Her hand gripped a shoulder of a boy, far from his adulthood, and just as pale as she was. Their men argued in whispers.

"I must remind you, Your Grace," the Queen said, "that they are guests under my roof."

"I understand."

"Do you?" she asked, deceptively lightly. "Your House endured much, Jon Snow, as had you. Can you promise me to stay just?"

Jon couldn't help it; he laughed. It had cost him a bout of wracking cough tasting like blood.

"Daenerys Targaryen," he forced past the tightness in his chest. "You needn't worry. I don't blame a daughter for her father's sins; neither I do a son."

"This isn't worth the time spent arguing, my lady," Alys Karstark spoke. She moved to stand before them and offered the Queen a shallow bow, hastily copied by Ned Umber. "We shall answer to our king when called upon."

"These are the words of a true heart, and a brave one," Daenerys said. She glanced around, meeting each of their stares, and nodded decisively. "Go on, then."

With another bow, that all three of them shared, they have stepped outside of the chamber; even in the darkness of the archway Jon felt the Queen's eyes on him, her gaze heavy with unspoken expectations. He held his head high - the only response he could give, the only promise he knew she deserved. A part of him wanted to hide, to cover; but he had grown tired of being a stranger hidden amongst the shadows. That man was dead. It took Jon too long to catch up, but now that he had, the thought of resurrection was unbearable.

Once they were in the open, Alys and Ned dropped to their knees, not daring to look up as they went. Their necks were exposed, and he knew what it was they have awaited despite his words to the Queen. He stepped carefully back and leaned onto the wall near the throne. The heat, dormant in the glassy scales of it, soothed him, lent him strength to do his duty.

"Arise," he said quietly. "Look at me."

Slowly, they did.

Ned Umber was a child, plain and simple. He was close in age to Rickon; not so tall and so tough, and it reminded to Jon just how young his little brother had been. Looking into Ned's wet, terrified eyes, he could almost see Rickon running across that damned field.

Alys Karstark was older, a young woman already, but just as gentle, as sheltered as Ned was. She carried on with dignity; but even she couldn't hide the dread that emptied her face.

"Alys," Jon said. She startled. "I remember you visiting with your family. We all thought you will be Lady Stark one day, the Lady of Winterfell. And Ned - named after Lord Stark, I believe?"

"Aye, Your Grace," the boy whispered.

"My friend, a brother of my heart, killed your father, Ned. Smalljon had chosen to join his forces with Ramsay because I let the Free Folk, the Wildlings, south of the Wall, and he fell to a chieftain of theirs. And your father, Alys, answering the just execution of his father, he chose to betray his liege, to ally with his murderer, to lead the cavalry against me when I stood alone, my brother just killed before my eyes; and he fell in the first minutes of the battle." He watched them turn paler than the ghosts of his dreams and cry silently, and kept his voice quiet, lest it would betray him.

They were children; and in that moment, they were also a lord and a lady; subjects to his authority. Lord Stark’s lessons echoed in his memory, cold and dull after all the years that had gone by; and in the same memory Rickon was running, reaching, falling. Dying. Some say that at least we had hope, he thought. The worst poison; one that Lord Stark was happily feeding me my whole life. What else had he lied to me about?

Duty, he taught me about. It always’d come to duty, and I will do mine no matter the cost; but lies, I won’t tell. Even to these children.

"Do you think their deaths unjust?” he continued. “Do you think there is anything you could do that would change how the world knows them – murderers, traitors, men who had no honor and were slaughtered like rabid beasts?"

Tears running down her sunken cheeks, Alys mutely shook her head. Ned, clutching at her hand, sniffed and said bravely:

"Rickon was my friend, Your Grace. If I knew what father - had I any idea - I would have run with him and Osha and Shaggy. It wasn't right, what father did. He wasn't right."

"No, he was not," Jon agreed softly. "And here we are, blood of our families running in streams between us. You have a choice. You can stay as you are, children of ancient Houses whose time is at its end. You can declare for Daenerys Targaryen. Whichever you choose, do it wisely."

They stared at him, eyes reddened and hands intertwined.

"You are our king," Alys snapped, fear making her bold. "We have already declared for you, and Lord Manderly sent us here, to you."

He blinked.

"I am a king without kingdom, Alys."

"No," she said fiercely. "You are a King in the North. It has never had one king, one throne, did you forget? Here or Beyond the Wall, only winter rules it all."

"And what if Bran or – Arya... What if one of them returns and supports Sansa?" he asked. "No matter what I think of her, she is as much a Queen in the North as I am a King. What if a Stark were to stand with her?"

"Then that Stark would be a fool," Ned said sullenly, with a sort of childish impertinence that had Jon and Alys stay their laughter. "We'll never join a Bolton again. But what," he asked curiously, "if they come to you instead?"

"Then they are my heir," he said without hesitation, "and until then, Alys is. What?" he asked, shrugging. "I'm a Snow, you are a Karstark. We'll never have a better option."

Alys looked him up and down slowly. At first, she seemed torn between calling for someone to help Jon get back to his rooms, or simply laughing in disbelief; and he was reminded once more of a simpler, happier times. But then, she turned pensive.

"Lord Manderly has sent us all here," she said. "And I know this is safe, that here we are protected; but why? She is - a Targaryen."

"I haven't spoken to her about that, not yet, but I will the first chance I get," Jon told her. He pushed himself off the wall and gestured for them to go back to the Great Hall. "Our families had kept faith for centuries, until Aerys and Rhaegar. They were not all bad, Alys, and I won't paint this one mad when I don't even know her."

For some reason she exchanged quick glances with Ned and the two of them broke out in peals of giggles; answered by a similarly bright laughter that was unmistakably Tyrion's. Frowning in confusion, Jon followed the pair to the chamber, where they parted when Alys and Ned returned to their seats, beaming to everyone’s visible relief, and Jon went to find his own, the task made easy with the Queen waiting for him with a smile like a beacon. He hardly noticed anyone else, only remembering to offer a nod of acknowledgment to those around her at the last possible moment.

"A word of advice, Your Grace," she said, quiet but so full of joy and gentleness her voice carried. She faltered, and Tyrion Lannister continued as smoothly as if they had it practiced:

"If you wish for anything you say to stay private, choose a room that doesn't echo your words. All the stone and vaulted ceilings, sound travels rather far inside the castle."

"Winterfell is much the same," he said. Indeed, she was; and he'd learned from a young age that anything he wanted secret, he couldn't say aloud. It was a lesson learned the hard way; and now, he said nothing but what he didn't mind to share - which he kept to himself.

While the Queen had dimmed at the mention of Winterfell, Tyrion only leaned forward, eager.

"I confess I cannot recall; truly?"

"I would be surprised if you remembered much," Jon said. "You were drunker than Robert the one time I spoke to you, back then." Tyrion gave a shrug at that, a well, what would you know snort, and motioned to continue. "Do you even remember what we were talking about?"

"I had not, but then you went and called me a bastard," Tyrion answered, carefree. "As I said, well done."

"Don't encourage him, Your Grace," a man seated to the Queen's left just after an elderly woman, said in a delicate, elegant tone that was smooth like his silken robes. "You would never see the end of it."

"Who knows," the woman wedged in, thin and cold and no-nonsense. "He died once, he could again."

The conversations around them stopped, the pause awkward and stilted and grim. From the darkness lingering in the corners of the hall, shadows stretched; and with the next breath, were gone. Jon took the woman in - the black she wore, the offensively bright roses stitched in a fine gold tread, her place beside the Queen.

He knew what she wished to hear, what would be the kind thing to say; but it would be another lie.

"All men must die," he murmured instead. It was an old and odd phrase Tormund said once and Ygritte did as well, and it was a cold comfort, but the only truth he knew.

Strangely, it earned him not only her derisive scoff, but also a few appraising looks and grim nods from the Queen's men. He only wished the Queen's face did not break upon hearing those words, however fleeting it was. Thankfully, he wasn't the only one to watch her, and Davos at his right cleared his throat and asked Tyrion a meaningless question, a clear offer for easy banter suitable for this occasion; and the moment passed.

Ignoring the Queen's pointed look, Olenna Tyrell kept staring at Jon. Her eyes were keen and thoughtful, and she didn't speak again that night, but he knew that her gossamer silence won't last.

Chapter Text

He didn’t stay long, both to her disappointment and short-lived relief.

The King was a dangerous man. Dany had been told this more than once; but usually she would be warned about his battle prowess, his skill that in the times past would have seen him a pupil of a Whitecloak, no doubt. She wondered briefly, how came Ser Barristan didn’t notice him, whether it was deliberate on the knight’s part or if the talent had been revealed too late. Regretfully, back then Dany wasn’t interested in the Usurper’s Dog’s children, too busy with her conquest; blinded by all the differences and obstacles her life had been grown full of. She wished she had been wiser – but then, had she made that choice, she might have been in more danger now.

She knew some of what the Starks had been in the last days Ser Barristan wore the white. Robb Stark led his own rebellion; Sansa was a girl on the cusp of womanhood, alone and frightened and kind still; and Jon Snow served in the Night’s Watch, sworn away for life. If not for treason, if not for death; he would have stayed out of her reach. At best, they’d meet each other in a fight against the dead, or she’d hear of him as a Lord Commander, one of the many… at worst, he’d burn, his pierced heart rendered asunder and ash.

And would she have learned of what his sister had become? Would she have struck an alliance with Sansa Stark, to be betrayed and murdered like Elia was?

Daenerys Targaryen knew to never look back. It was harder yet to not entertain herself with realities that didn’t come to be.

With that realization she subtly shook herself out of her contemplative state. Tyrion, she knew just from his crinkling smile, she didn’t deceive, but all others seemed not to notice anything amiss. Varys was too deep in his thoughts, Missandei knew Dany’s mind all too well to mistake her silences, and Olenna had still been staring after the King’s retreated form.

“Something’s on your mind, Your Grace?” Ser Davos asked then, reminding her that it wasn’t only her own she needed to keep watch for. She smiled at the old knight, easy and serene.

“Nothing much tonight, good Ser,” she said. The title brought a wave of bittersweet memories, as it always did. Davos and Jorah couldn’t be less alike, Dany had been thinking until she saw him talking quietly at his king, caring for him when his charge lay barely conscious, helping him out with subtle gestures and a well-timed word when the conversation tonight would grow awkward. It didn’t escape her notice that Jon Snow ignored his advisor more often than not, neither that he did acknowledge him every time. He was kinder, more patient in that regard than Daenerys herself had been when she felt frustrated with Jorah’s stifling concern. It both baffled her, since he was a man and men didn’t like to be ordered around, however subtly; and made her like him even more. She took a delicate sip of her wine and continued, “He seems in much better health, yet I found it curious that he left alone.”

She didn’t joke; the thought bothered her, that the King, who hadn’t left his chambers once in the days he was awake, was now wandering her halls without anyone at his side. Her men would keep an eye on him, she knew. She also knew that he was in pain still. He either didn’t try to or couldn’t hide how exhausting simply walking was for him.

Ser Davos merely smiled into his bushy mustache.

“His Grace is a stubborn man,” he said.

That he was, she easily agreed.

“That one is a warrior, Queen Daenerys,” said Pale Eye in quick Valyrian, quietly enough she could only hear him because she knew the tongue so well. “He battles.”

“He is, indeed, but there is no one to fight right now, Pale Eye.”

He shook his head, careful to convey disagreement, not disobedience. One of the oldest ones, he was still new to the whole concept of speaking one’s mind. Yet, when he did speak, she’d found it was better to listen.

“There is always one, my Queen. Valar Morghulis. Jon Snow knows Him well.”

His words made her feel the chill of winter, of white blizzard she witnessed that had been threatening to bury Winterfell under mountains of snow. The fact the King himself said those words, all men must die, looking cold and almost brittle, all men must die, and he did, and he shall again; it stolen her already strained smile and seemed a fitting farewell for the night.

So, goodnight she bade them, rising to her feet and feeling their eyes on her. In turn, she looked them over, lingering for a moment longer on her northern guests. Young Ned Umber sat with his eyes glassy with sleep, leaning heavily against Alys Karstark’ side, who didn’t look much better; yet both were content, finally relaxed in the safety of her home. She made sure to get Ser Davos’ attention onto them and left, reaffirmed in her believes.

Jon Snow was a dangerous man, with steel in his hands or fire in his words, quiet; yet devastating nonetheless. She couldn’t pretend anymore – she wanted him on her side.

There were her dreams, yes. There was also the look in his dark eyes, that would be startled or heavy with understanding; cold, detached; or outright smoldering… but never again had he looked at her with the recognition she’d longed for. She had no need for a lover when her body was a coin to pay with for a measure of peace; she had no desire for another stranger in her bed. She wanted him; the mere thought of his lips on her skin, his calloused hands, his heavy body pinning her down; the fact it was more than a fantasy, and a little less than a memory –

Without her knowing it till it was too late, her feet brought her to his door. She paused; but there was no one to witness, and flickering orange light pooled under that door –

She raised her hand and gently pushed it open.

He startled, turning away from where he had been leaning over the dining table, and looked at her, mouth slack in surprise and eyes already guarded. Dany resented that look on him. People who put it there, she wanted to burn them alive.

She stood by, letting Drogo kill her brother. Would the King let her kill his sister, she wondered?

“Your Grace,” he half-asked. She curtsied, mockingly, and echoed:

“Your Grace.”

Outside, the buffeting rain had grown into a thunderstorm. She took solace in the way lightning struck the sea and sent off tremendous, explosive noise, as if hundreds of dragons danced in the night sky. Stormborn, I am called, she thought. This night is mine.

Just as carefully as she opened it, she closed the door and locked it. The King watched her quietly.

“What are you doing, Daenerys?”

“Making sure we remain uninterrupted.”

“Wouldn’t your guard worry?”

“They trust me,” she said simply. Reluctantly, the King nodded and looked away; Dany lamented the loss. But whatever it was that lay on the table, at the moment it seemed to own his attention, and she walked closer to have a look.

It was his sword, with its blade of Valyrian steel and the pommel of ivory and blood-red garnets fashioned into the likeness of a wild beast. A direwolf, she was told; his direwolf. The scabbard lay aside, and the smoke swirling throughout the length of the sword gleamed darkly in measly light.

“I thought Longclaw had been taken away,” the King said, senseless. “I thought… many things that were wrong.”

“But not anymore.”

“No.” He reached carefully and took the sword into his hands. It was light, Dany knew, but the ease with which he held it, the handle on one palm and the flat of the blade on the other, still surprised her. I should be afraid, she thought; why am I not? The King turned and offered the sword to her, and with her silent agreement let her hold the handle – but not the blade. She found herself tethered – the sword in her left hand, the sword on his right palm: trust shared.

“You’ve many riches,” he explained not unkindly, “but I doubt you’ve ever handled a Valyrian steel sword. The blade is too sharp.”

Dany tilted it experimentally.

“It feels too light.”

“It is, in terms of weight. But it’s all in the force of the strike and the angle. One mistake, and you won’t wield any sword again.” He was letting go slowly, until Dany was able to hold the sword on her own, and watched her skeptically before taking it away and laying back down on the table. “I would advise you find someone to teach you. Even if just a dagger; it’s a foolery to go to war unarmed entirely.”

“I do not,” Dany said, irritated. “I ride a dragon – ”

“Forgive me, but if I am not terribly mistaken, you don’t have him share a table with you.”

The image made her choke and laugh. The King laughed as well; short and stuttering, but it was there all the same.

“I’ll take your advice under consideration, Jon,” she said. She was there to see how strong an alliance with him she could broker; how beneficial. His advice was little, almost inconsequential – if not for the fact no one had thought of teaching her arms. It simply wasn’t done. And with her being a dragonrider, who would think her defenseless?

Someone who would wish me dead. Someone who would wish me broken, suffering, lost.

Someone like Pyat Pree, and Cersei, and Sansa.

“I will,” she said again, somber this time. “Perhaps we shall discuss it further some other time.”

He gave her an unreadable look and a small shrug. His brow was furrowed in thought when he turned away to walk a few steps to the fireplace that mirrored the one on the other side of the wall, in his bedchamber. There, he sat heavily down in a chair and invited her to sit in another. Fatigue seemed to roll of him in spades.

“What shall we discuss now, then?”

Dany smiled.

“Several things come to mind; you may choose one. The fate of the North?” He grimaced, and she snorted at the openness of his disdain. “My war for the Iron Throne. Your war, for the Dawn.”

“You make it sound personal,” the King said, shifting uneasily.

“I do take usurpation rather close to my heart,” Dany answered airily, and he cracked a smile – a bright, beautiful one, that she fell in love with for the moment it was hers to observe. Might it be, she gave something away then, because the smile fell and those eyes grew sharper; the heaviness of his gaze making her want to squirm in her seat. She resisted.

Jon Snow was a stubborn man; but Daenerys Targaryen was no less stubborn a woman.

“I think we will postpone these, too,” he said slowly. “I think… there is a question you ought to answer first. What do you want from me?”

Oh, several things come to mind, she thought, unable to stop in time. Thankfully, if he noticed anything strange in her expression, he attributed it to the seriousness of task he put her to. She felt relieved. Disappointed. Enraged, too, she won’t lie.

Jon Snow could be infuriating, she learned.

“The North, ideally,” she said, and stood to pace. Nervous energy was thrumming in her veins, and the castle, the thunder, echoed her turmoil.

“I won’t bend the knee,” Jon Snow said easily. Her fists clenched; it took a forceful exhale and a conscious effort to relax.

There he sat, a king with no kingdom, no crown, close to none vassals; a man she’d brought to safety, had given rooms and clothes to, had a maester heal him, fed him from her own table. There he sat, the last son of Eddard Stark, the last brother of Robb, and followed in their footsteps. There he sat, the man of her dreams, of her desire; and denied her.

He asked for nothing of this, she reminded to herself. He said he didn’t blame her for Aerys’ doing; he said, our families had kept faith for centuries, and it was her family, not his, that had broken it. He owed her nothing and less.

“I understand,” she forced out. The King scoffed.

“Do you?” he quipped. Under her burning glare he shook his head once, harsh and emphatical. “I don’t think so. I don’t refuse Daenerys Targaryen. I don’t seccess.” He leaned back in his chair, looked her in the eye, calm. “A year ago, when we were still enemies, Tormund Giantsbane told me that there is too much North in me now. That I won’t be a kneeler again. He sought to strike at a weakness of mine, but instead gave words to a truth. Do you know what it is, to obey your entire life, to punish yourself over someone else’s sin; and suddenly to break free?”

Her throat felt dry when Daenerys tore her gaze away and walked heavily to a window. A gust of window lashed at her, sprayed with icy droplets of rainwater; the noise of the storm grew suddenly, deafening and wild. She breathed the rage of it in, let it calm her senses.

She knew all too well.

Viserys left no lasting marks on her body; yet every little bruise, every welt he gave to her, flared with forgotten pain. Drogo, who had been so careful, so tender that beautiful starlit night of their wedding, who then tortured her, tormented, took every ounce of her wish to live until Daenerys was naught but a shell, a womb, and the dragon inside her screamed -

Xaro and Doreah, the Sons of the Harpy, Moro, the Masters; all of them wanted her to die or worse, to serve. She would still wake up crying for crucified children, crying all the tears she refused to spill on that road. She would still dream of leaving the inferno of burning temple, emerging to watch khalasars and her friends kneel before her, worship her – only to see the fire spreading, growing, claiming them and eventually whole world. She would look for her children dancing in the sky – and she would remember their frightened growls and anguished screams, and how they attacked her the third and the last time she went to that catacomb –

It was all behind her. She never stopped to look back.

Too bad the past sometimes found its way into the present.

“I am sorry,” she said, turning back to Jon Snow. He sat as before, comfortable, in control; the tightness around his eyes betrayed him. “Please, don’t believe me so vain that I cannot think of nothing but the power I cannot gain.”

“But I don’t,” he answered. “I believe you are afraid. It’s easy to mistake power for safety. To decide if you are the one wearing crown, then no one would hurt you again.”

He was talking about his sister, Dany understood. The sister who betrayed him; the one who was responsible for his friends’ deaths, for his wolf’s. The sister he’d given up his idea to leave the Night’s Watch for –

“Why were you going to go south?” escaped her. “When you named Eddison Tollett the next Lord Commander, when you were leaving alone – why go south?”

He froze. Shadows and light of the fires and constant by then flashes of crescendous lightning danced around him, furious. But he sighed quietly, giving up and looking away from her face, and the darkness receded.

“Because to the South is where you go if your goal is in the East,” he admitted, and Dany heard the same lilting cadence with which Quaithe had spoken; and Melisandre; and Rhaegar. It should have dissonated with the rasping grit of his voice, with his thick accent. It didn’t. Just like Valyrian flowed freely from Dany’s lips after years of disuse, his words rang clear.

“What,” she asked, taut like a string, “would you find in the East?”

He laughed.

“I was going to battle the fucking Death himself, Daenerys. I would stand against him on my own if I must – but allies are always welcome.”

Dany closed her eyes; leaned forward, breathing. Just breathing. For a moment, it was all she could do.

“And that,” she said thinly, cuttingly, “is the only reason you would have come to me?”

He can still choose to remain silent… He can, but it doesn’t matter. Remember this, Daenerys, she said to herself, trying to steel her heart. Remember every thought you had. He is just a man, and there are only wars ahead.

But the words of the prophecies swirled around her, and promises made, and snippets of dreams. It was once all she had. That, and the fire in her chest, the power.

She was, Daenerys admitted, still very much afraid.

The silence stretched. Then, his lips moved, but a terrific explosion of thunder swallowed any word he might have said. The castle groaned around them; and Daenerys turned and fled.

The door she locked herself stopped her. Suddenly feeling weak, she fell against it and laughed, more amused than angry with herself. She heard the King rise and walk across the room, felt his hand reach around her and unlock the door – and then gently grip Dany’s hand.

His palm was wide and rough and fingers calloused, and his skin almost unbearably cold. She imagined his lips on hers, cold too and bruised; she wanted nothing more but to warm him with her own heat. She couldn’t.

“Rest well, Jon Snow,” she said softly. “We’ll speak again soon.”

She didn’t remember his answer, if there was any. She didn’t know how she found the way to her rooms. Come morning, she awoke to the rare sun in blue sky and knew that something changed in the world.

Chapter Text

That night he did dream.

The hallways of Dragonstone became in his dream a foul, chaotic spindle of black walls and darker archways. He wandered, aimless, restless; following a ghostly breath of warmth felt now and then. Sometimes, he would see a flash of moonlight, a flicker of something bright and beautiful. He would follow; would stumble his way across suddenly uneven path; yet never reach. Daenerys would always slip away, laughing, faintly amused and terribly distraught.

The walls changed; the castle grew colder, darker yet.

It was not the moonlight now, but the whiteness of freshly fallen snow.

“Ghost!” he screamed. Bitterness coated his tongue, trickled down his throat. “Ghost, please!”

He was running by then, tripping over the thick, gnarled roots that grew from the walls and the ceiling and upturned the floor. First snowflakes fell on his face, and he threw himself forward, through the massive bluish gray wall of the squall, into the whiteness.

A tall, thick heart tree grew before him, higher than the boiling clouds, its canopy reaching down almost to the ground and full of red leaves rustling all around; fluttering like a thousand startled birds. The white bark of the tree was weeping blood – it ran down many cracks and hidden valleys and treks – the roots were awash with it. And there, at the base of the tree, in the crib of those gnarled, wicked, bloodied roots a boy and a wolf lay huddled together, asleep. Their chests were moving jerkily, breath was tearing itself from their blackened lips with a whine; Rickon’s hands were fisted in Ghost’s mane, and Ghost was curled around Jon’s brother protectively.

They never looked up at him, never called back.

He fell to his knees, felt his hands hit the boulders hidden beneath the snow; and suddenly, recognized the place.

A sob shook him.

“There must always be a Stark in Winterfell,” he gasped.

The leaves ruffled up in agreement. He brought Rickon to rest beneath the heart tree before the boy will be inferred in the crypts; and Ghost’s blood soaked the bark, the roots, the snows where Rickon had been laid. In the godswood of Winterfell, in front of this heart tree, their lives were declared lost. The tree took them; the roots cradled them, the leaves murmured above their heads.

“Are they at peace?” he asked, defeated.

“There is no peace in death,” the wind in the leaves whispered. “There is no one in death.”

“Aye,” he said. He remembered now. Memory was cold blackness lodged behind his breastbone, simmering in his veins. “I know.”

The wind laughed.

“You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

He shot up, gasping. His bedchamber was empty and drowned in pale, chimerical lights of pre-dawn; the embers long burned out and crumbled to ash, and his covers felt too heavy and slightly damp, as if morning dew soaked them through.

Shivering from the terror of his dream, Jon pushed himself up and out of the bed. He couldn’t see much from his windows, just the sea and the sky. They were murky gray and still, and far away in the east a glow was growing, golden and warm. Not looking away from that light for long, he pulled on his clothes and boots, strapped on one belt, then another, and with the calming weight of Longclaw on his side, left the chamber, restless; almost frantic to escape. He crossed the dining room in a few hurried steps, doing his best to stop his thoughts from turning to the Queen. He got out of the rooms and forced himself to slow down.

At that hour everything was quiet. The hallways were unlit; only through regularly cut narrow shafts the pale beams of light were falling, slicing the twilight like dragonsteel blades. The torches were all burnt out, and servants have yet to change them. He felt like a ghost himself, haunting these halls.

He could still remember the way to the throne room; and there he went, longing for something familiar that wasn’t tied to death. It was only there that he encountered someone awake, a pair of guards – dark skinned and clad in black and tarnished silver, they’ve met him with stony faces but let him pass without a word. He nodded his thanks, just as silent, hoping against all hope that their presence didn’t mean there was already someone behind those heavy doors.

At first, he thought the luck was his; but when his sight adjusted to the bright light engulfing the hall, he saw the woman sitting on the steps below the throne, and stopped, struck with sudden hatred.

She watched him, unmoving and shockingly beautiful; that slow enigmatic smile curved her lips, and made her ancient eyes blaze.

“My lady,” he said, eventually. He was not in the North; he couldn’t kill her where she sat. Courteous, he could still be. It was a trait he had been ridiculed much for; Ygritte’s mocking voice rang from the past, and he forced that memory down as he did many others.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

I know I love you – I know you love me…

Years down the path, he would know their love was real; and that it destroyed them both.

Melisandre smiled.

“My Prince,” she returned, soft, titillating.

“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, revulsed. “I am no prince; I never was.” He was a bastard; elevated straight into the ranks of kings. His title was a lie, a deception. He could allow Davos his delusions; he could allow Daenerys Targaryen the right to call him anything she wished; he could accept Alys and Ned if it pleased them.

Between him and Melisandre there was no need of lies and falsehood.

She rose, like flame of the stake would rise to consume its offerings. Half the hall separated them; yet it felt there was nothing, no feet of polished floor, no air. He stayed the hand that thirsted for the sword, but barely.

“Not long had I been gone,” the Red Woman murmured, not looking away from him. “Yet much changed in these moons.”

“Sometimes, a single night is enough.”

“True,” she acknowledged. “A night full of daggers; another, full of swords; what was this one filled with, I wonder?”

It was Jon who let their standoff break. Melisandre was one of the few capable of rendering him helpless and scrambling; he knew he baffled her with equal force, but sometimes he wished they could be allies.

Enemies, though, were much more reliable, he thought, amused.

“With snow, my lady,” he answered.

“Ah,” she said. What possibly she could find worth appreciation in his answer, he wasn’t sure he wished to know. “So, it seems, the Lord of Light is less wroth with you than I feared.” At his confusion she raised a delicate brow. “Did you forget? I told you, I begged Him to show me the Prince, and all I would see was Snow.”

Jon flinched back from her. She was still as strong in her faith as the day they first met. He remembered her dark, greedy gaze on him; and the sharp, cold anger that turned her face into marble mask when he killed Mance before the fire would devour him; and that condescending, yet still disappointed look she wore when she stepped away from him to fix her dress. He remembered her hands on his own, grip painfully tight, eyes reverent and afraid.

“You are easy to deceive,” he said coldly. “You are so desperate for your Prince, you’d find him in anyone who fits the description for the moment. What does it matter that all the other time he is just a man?”

She laughed, brief, benevolent; blood curdling.

“Fool. Azor Ahai, who do you think he was? What a hero, he who plunged his sword into his Nissa Nissa’s heart! Yet we still pray for his return.”

“The wish to live – the fear of death – it is a strong motivation. When the Night King came to Hardhome, even the most stubborn and proud threw themselves into waves and fought for a place in the boats,” he said bitterly. “They denied me so loudly; they swore they’d die before they obey my law; and then they begged to be still let through. The only payment I took from them was a promise, and it cost me my life.”

“You said before that you failed,” she asked.

“I did – fail.” I went and died, he thought. It seemed he allied the Night’s Watch and the Free Folk; it seemed he would be there to demand the promise be fulfilled. Instead, he set them further apart, and then left his brothers, and then led the Free Folk to their deaths in a bid to do impossible.

So many were dead because of him, and Melisandre still thought he was a savior.

He blinked his eyes open and looked at her, smiling wryly.

“Rickon is dead.” She nodded slowly, clearly confused. “So is Ghost. Sansa, worse than that. And the entire Northern Kingdom, save but a few, had broken their oaths rather than simply deny me their help, or give me to Ramsay Bolton right away. I wish I knew why you still think me worthy your allegiance.”

Melisandre sighed, then reached and took both his hands in hers. It was a kind gesture this time, but her eyes kept that smoldering, unforgiving light in them.

“Come with me,” she said.

He didn’t resist when she walked them to the closest brazier, nor when she pulled a thin knife from the folds of her sleeve and moved to cut his palm. It didn’t hurt at all; he watched his blood, dark like it was the night of his death, well up a good amount before the priestess turned his wrist and that blood flowed onto the burning logs.

Flame surged, licking their faces before it had retreated; even then, it burned unsteadily, ready to burst like wildfire. “Watch,” Melisandre ordered, and he leaned closer – but it was just burning logs and sparkling, glowing embers to him.

“What do you see?” he asked tiredly.

“Winterfell,” she said. “The battle in snows. The Prince That Was Promised.”

“Then you see nothing new.”

“And what about you?” she demanded. “You saw what your blood, royal blood, does to fire. You must be shown something.”

Jon shrugged.

“They are just flames, Melisandre.”

Disappointed, she released him and returned to her beloved visions. Jon watched her for a while, standing there enthralled, and mesmerizing in her belief, but eventually he drew away and quietly left her and the room that lost all its appeal. As he stepped through the doors, he noticed that there was no blood on his hand anymore. The fire licked it clean off the skin and left behind a fresh scar that would heal in a sennight.

He doubted his blood was royal enough for such a great miracle; but thinking of asking Melisandre’s opinion only made him laugh, much to confusion of the guards.

He walked for some time, not caring where his steps led him to. Contrary to his dream, and much like the last night, the castle was warm and welcoming. There were faint voices coming from afar, but still not as many as it will be later in the day. He met a few servants – they steered clear of each other, to mutual unspoken relief; and more than a few guards and those who he believed were Dothraki, dressed in their tan linens and horse skins and brown leathers, with their black braids tied with leather cords and sometimes decorated with silver bells. They all watched him curiously, but never said a word, and he answered them in kind.

And suddenly, he was stepping out of the doors so large they could be rightfully called a gate, and found himself at the top of a long and narrow passage cresting the mountainside. From his place so high up he could see that in some places the passage turned into stairs or went through other gates built into the rock; but never – where it led to, for there was a fat, puffed up cloud that was lazily ascending the valley up, hiding the base of the island. The sight was most peculiar; queer, even. In the north, there were sometimes low hanging, furious clouds that scraped trees and towers as they stormed by, but the most similar Jon had seen was the fog lifting with the summer sun rising. He walked a little down the path and sat on the stone ledge, watching the cloud climb and climb. The sun was high in the sky by then, and the warmth was something he remembered himself aching for, back at the Wall – but Beyond the Wall, less so.

Light, decisive but delicate steps alerted him to someone coming close. He thought that this gait was becoming to him too well-known for the short time he’d spent awake.

“I thought I told you to rest,” she said, forgoing greetings, her voice being not that of the Queen, “yet the first thing I learn today is that you took to wander the halls before the dawn even broke. What can you say to this, Jon Snow?”

Fighting a snort, he glanced at her. She was radiant in daylight; breathtaking.

“I plead guilty, Your Grace,” he said, dry as yesterday’s pie. “Although I must point out, you may have told me to rest – but I am not obliged to obey. Benefits of being a king, I suppose.”

She stared at him, brows climbing up, expression hilariously confused; then laughed, bell-like and bright. He quite liked the sound of her laughter, Jon discovered. Of course, he doubted there were many who didn’t.

Still laughing, she walked closer and leaned onto the parapet, so near Jon he could feel the warmth coming off her. For a long, peaceful moment she just stood there, watching the same cloud, that was now only some hundred of yards away from their vantage point; and he said nothing and didn’t move, allowing himself to watch her and enjoy the sweetness of air surrounding her.

“I feel the last night I left too abruptly,” she finally said to the island. “You must have been perplexed.”

Jon blinked.

“I admit to some puzzlement now. I assumed you didn’t like my answers.”

“No, I did not,” she agreed, a soft look in her eyes contradicting the meaning behind her words. “But that is my fault for having expectations in the first place.”

He remembered her gaze on him, the weight of those expectations like another stone added to the burden he had already carried. There also was that absolute surety with which he’d been told he did, in fact, belong in the South.

He reached, covering her hand with his where it was gripping the stone of the ledge.

“I am used to people thinking they know everything about me,” he said. “The Bastard of Winterfell; the only stain on the cloak of the great Eddard Stark. The North could forgive me being lowborn – but not to whom I’ve been born. The South simply hates the likes of me. And Beyond the Wall, I was son of a Stark and also a Black Crow, two more unforgivable sins. I wonder, though, what I am in the East.”

She turned her palm and brought her other hand to rest upon his; he couldn’t quite remember the last time someone shared this kind of intimacy with him. Perhaps no one ever had.

“It is a strange place, Jon. They don’t care on which side of the sheets one was born; but there are the right families to belong to and everyone else who is wrong. They believe in many gods, so many there is no false one; but their gods are lustful and merciless. Everything is worth only so much gold; and if you cannot pay with gold, you pay with blood. They value magic, so blood is worth more. Yours,” she turned his hand palm up, traced the fresh scar; he wondered how she already’d known, “would have been taken till the last drop. It’s a good thing you hadn’t gone there.”

“But you were there.” The daughter of dragons, the mother of dragons; he remembered Maester Luwin’s histories and Old Nan’s tales. Dragons were told to be fire made flesh, and fire was power. He felt it, burning under her delicate skin.

“Yes,” she said. “And I’ve lost everything.”

“I beg to differ,” he teased, and pointed out at the sky. Shadows were dancing up there, so far away, he couldn’t say how he knew them from birds of sea.

Daenerys looked at them, smiling.

“My children,” she said so softly, so warmly; he almost missed the pain behind it. “People are calling them monsters, and I am their mother. There were times I thought, what dreadful curse have I unleashed?”

“But not anymore,” he guessed.

“No, I have learned better. And yet, it didn’t make me less inhuman.”

It shocked him, how careless and lighthearted she was with her admission. Disgusted stares and cruel whispers followed him his whole life; hers might have hardly been any better, but she seemed – not ignorant, certainly not – amused with the thought felt closer to how she’d spoken. Was she, truly?

“Look at what humans do, though,” he blurted. She slanted her eyes at him, suddenly wary, and the rest of the words died on his lips.

“Aren’t you one, yourself?”

He laughed; his chest flared in short agony, but Jon resisted the urge to rub the pain away.

“Am I? I warged twice. The first time was before I died, and the second, when Ghost did. I don’t know if there are false gods, or what Melisandre’s Lord wants from us; but I know the Old Gods are awake, and they hunger.” Their attention was on him, wrathful, joyous, and so very cold. It didn’t surprise him they were very much alike with the Night King in how they stared at him. “I don’t know what I have become.”

“Do you believe yourself wrong?” the Queen asked him. The contrast between the power in her stance, her words; and the light, careful grip she still held his hand in; it was too much, and he drew away, slipped off the ledge to take a step back. The loss felt like an actual blow to his gut, swift and hard and deserved.

“I don’t, Your Grace. But it doesn’t matter what I believe or want.”

“It could.”

“Aye; in a different life.”

She took a step after him, unrelenting. Jon froze; acutely aware of how steep and narrow the path they’ve been treading was.

“Why were you going to go to the East?” she asked once more, harsh this time.

“Why have you brought me here?” he returned.

“I wanted to.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

“Would it be a lie?”

The dragons were now circling above their heads. Jon didn’t see them; he didn’t need to in order to know.

They have been silent, for now.

“I cannot tell you for sure. I have a feeling our wishes differ.”

“I can tell you they don’t.”

He wanted to laugh; or maybe to cry. It wasn’t so different in how much it hurt, or how much it hurt to stand so close to her, being almost able to touch, to breathe the same air.

But it didn’t make sense. She’d never been in his life before, only a spectre of her, a name from someone else’s letters and regretful words. His life was in the North, its mountains and valleys, its rivers and snowstorms and rare flowers growing under its pale cold sun. His life was in wearing the black cloak and bleeding from the black wounds.

He died once; to awoke to unfamiliar freedom and old enemies. He died again, and the first thing he’d seen was her face, staring at him from the shadows. He couldn’t even remember when it was – somewhere between the funeral pyre and the storm around the castle, between the edge of a blizzard and the feeling of her lips on his brow. A dream; a vision; or simply a memory of that different life he couldn’t have.

“What do you want from me?” he asked again.

“Everything,” she said.

Chapter Text

Her words echoed around them, damningly loud; Dany couldn’t have stopped them if she wanted.

The look in the King’s face told her she’d better. She had spoken unthinkingly, and unjustly at that. Dany had no right to demand anything from him, much less – everything he was. He didn’t even know what he was, it was clear to her. Like looking into the surface of a restless pond, the face mirrored back at her may have been distorted, but its expression was familiar like the back of her hand.

He didn’t know. What he was, himself, and to her, and to the world. Why he was alive. Why everything that happened –

- happened to him –

- but did she? The answer to that last question was not necessarily simple. She’d long since known why it was Daenerys Targaryen to walk into the fire. Who else could but the last princess of Old Valyria? But why had been chosen Jon Snow – he who wasn’t a Stark, or the last living child of his blood; he who wouldn’t have even been born, had his Lord Father been faithful; he who was barely anyone? No, she told to herself firmly; he was much more than that. She had seen it in her dreams, before even his death. He was more; and she wanted it all; she wanted to make him hers. To take, indeed, everything.

As the silence stretched, she wondered faintly if this was another dragon trait, the thirst, the absolute need; and if Jon Snow would see her different for that.

“Sometimes,” he slowly said, looking at her as if she were a stranger, “you seem to be speaking my mind. And sometimes…”

“Sometimes, I sound mad?” she asked with a laugh that did nothing to soften the blow.

He gave her a less than amused smile in answer; cold and rather unwelcoming.

"I told you, I won't bow,” he said, seemingly non-sequitur – until he said, “Anything I have is mine to guard, not to give away to the first one who asks."

"And I told you, I don't want your fealty," she retorted, genuinely annoyed now. The King glared, and she thought curiously, what was it he expected? For Dany to take her words back; to change her mind on a whim? He was going to learn better.

"Liar," he accused, his accent so thick she believed for a moment she'd misheard. But no.

"And what, pray tell," she asked, forcing her voice to remain steady when it was trying to snap and break and cut with every word out of her mouth; the fire making her vision black, "am I lying about, precisely?"

"You said, that first day, that my place is in the South," he snarled, "and the South is yours, by birthright, by right of conquest, anyhow; so don't stand there and pretend you just keep me your guest. You never asked; you simply took."

"You want to leave?"

"My wants are of no matter. My duty is to my people, it demands I fight in the north. Not - laze away, joking around with highborns, talking in circles what payment they'll demand for their oh so kindly given shelter. Or do you think, if I was such a fool to trust my sister, that I would just as readily trust you too?"

I struck men for less, Dany thought. I killed for lesser offence. Some of her fury might have leaked along the frayed seams of her temper, and Jon Snow visibly fought to keep his next words to himself; she couldn't care less.

"Go on," she said. "Please, tell me how I am anything like her. How I don't deserve your trust, or the common courtesy, or - "

"If I thought you were anything like Sansa," Jon Snow interrupted, and ice crawled down her spine from the terrible, lethal coldness in his eyes, "you would be dead. I don't think you trust me all that much, either, but you can believe this."

"I think I do," she murmured.

She didn't know if she meant her trust in him in general, or this latest threat; perhaps both. Thankfully, it seemed he had nothing more to say right then, and Dany turned away, grateful for a chance to regain her composure under the pretense of cloud-watching. She felt the King doing the same, easily guessing his actions from the changes in his breathing. A few quick, shallow breaths were forced into a slower paced, calming pattern, and then he was quiet, ghost-like again where he stood, gazing - she glanced to check - just a bit away from her. His face was paler and eyes unfocused, his expression more lost than angry. It looked somehow fitting, this faintness of presence. She hadn't thought before she'd ever imagine he was anything but that dark, foreboding figure whose larger than life presence dominated over her entire court just the night before. Now, she questioned which was his face and which was a mask of anger.

"Trust," she mused. The King focused on her in a snap moment of time, a little disconcerting if she were honest. "It shall go both ways, yet it is clear to me yours won't be won anytime soon. Let's not speak again on who is less to be trusted, and discuss instead what I can give you freely. It is, I assure you, quite a lot."

She thought he'd disagreed with something she said; she noted it for later, especially as he nodded reluctantly before giving her another less than courteous answer. "It's not a currency," he mumbled, his shoulders drooping slightly under invisible weight.

"Tell me about that too. I want no misinterpreted terms, Your Grace."

Finally, something like warmth was back in his eyes.

They've started down the path; almost companionable silence between them broken only by the sounds of their steps on the stone, of the rising tide and of the Dothraki camp far in the distance coming to life after a night spent making merry under the stars.

Now and then, Dany glanced at the man following her wordlessly. He was like a shadow, in his black clothes and with black thoughts weighing him down. His sword hung on his belt, the bone-white wolf head with its garnets for eyes the only piece of jewelry about him; and she wondered, how much of his pride and defensiveness was because of their apparent difference in wealth. It was a thought ill fit; she didn't like to think this man to be narrowly minded in any way, yet she also couldn't deny the universal truth - people, men and women alike, judged those around by their standing and the glimmer of their gold more readily than by their merit. Daenerys Targaryen, the Queen, the Khaleesi, adorned herself in silver, and gold she had; and even though she owned not a piece of Valyrian steel, she could, if she so wished, buy Jon Snow's sword trice over and feel no loss.

While all he had was a bag of clothing Manderly's seamstresses mended for him, lying in a chest in the rooms Daenerys'd given to him, and that very sword. Not even a family name to claim his.

Did he understand that in her eyes he was just as rich as herself, a king with his crown stolen, a beggar to whom people came of their own free will because they'd seen firsthand his worth as a human being, not because he bought their livelihood and with it forced their loyalty?

But look, he said, what humans do.

What did he see the world like, she thought; what he believed his men saw in him?

"I owe you apologies," he said, suddenly. By that time they reached the bridge spanning across the Dragonmont saddle, and walked ankle deep in the boiling white foam of the clouds. The sun was high in the sky, and the heat was almost reminiscent of a day in the Great Grass Sea. She remembered standing at the bow of the Balerion, whipping wind in her hair, all her being pulled west while prophecies kept her east.

"You owe me nothing, Jon Snow."

"A lie, again," he huffed, and Dany laughed.

"You are insufferable. Fearless, I grant you that; but truly, how come no one had explained to you not to utter apologies and insults in the same breath?"

"I didn't take you for a woman easily insulted by a truth," he wheedled. "Shall I stay silent from now on?"

She felt blindsided, so sharp and visceral was the feeling that arose in her breast; it stopped her in her tracks, unseeing as she was left busy trying to decipher what she felt. Was it anger, or was it sadness, or all of that and something else she didn't know the name for?

"No," she said, quiet and numb. "No, I don't ever want you to be silent."

The memory struck her, strong and unequivocal, of the day when he'd awoke, the sound of his rattled breathing, the flush of his skin, recognition and wonder in his tired eyes. His voice, low and grating, the words blurred; how it felt, to place a kiss upon his brow. She remembered the days spent waiting, and that last morning; remembered watching him lay unconscious and so very, very quiet.

No. She wanted to listen to his voice. She thought at day, she dreamt at night, what would the sound of it be like; if he would have the same accent her Bear Knight had; if he would whisper the same vows he uttered in her dreams; if it would be the voice of the man she loved.

He said nothing. Turning, she saw that he was looking away, staring blindly at the castle high above their heads and the dragons lazily gliding ever higher in the opalescent sky. His lips moved wordlessly; he pressed them tightly and straightened, starting to walk almost too fast for her to react in time.

“Don’t walk away from me!” she said. Her words echoed again, harsh and desperate. Jon paused in his stride; his shoulders heaved once, and he was motionless. He still looked at the castle, not at her, and Daenerys brought her hands together and gripped to hide how they trembled. “Don’t walk away from me,” she said again, steadier this time.

“Are you,” he asked, low, “the only one allowed to do so?”

“I cannot stop you,” she admitted. “But I know I made a mistake each time I left you.”

“Hardly a mistake, Your Grace.” There was emotion in his voice now. Resentment; she wanted to flinch, hearing it.

Instead, she walked to him and waited until he turned his head and looked, maybe not at her, but in her direction, at least. And then some more, until their eyes met. His were dark and burning with hatred. She’d never seen such horrible, all-encompassing rage – perhaps in Tyrion face when the man had been telling her about his father – perhaps mirrored in Jorah’s eyes, once, or she could have dreamt that up – and Daenerys knew, when Jon blinked and was calm once more, that she’d barely glimpsed the truth.

What, she asked herself, is he seeing in my own gaze?

“It was,” she said. Her hands itched to hold him; to touch pale skin and to skim over red scars and to comb through black hair. “I’ve been running my whole life; it has become a bad habit. But you are not at fault. And you are not doomed to mine own failures.”

“Aye, I’ve had enough of them myself,” he murmured. His hand rose, found hers. “Daenerys… What aren’t you telling me?”

Dany could laugh at her own foolishness.

Of course. Of course he noticed; how could he not? He was, maybe, too trusting in his own way, too ready to depend on the word of another; but it was before the knives in the darkness, before the blood soaking the grounds of his own home. How could she think he’d be blind to her seeking his company, allowing him, a king of a rebellious kingdom in her fief, so much freedom, and promising him so much more?

She wanted to draw back, to pretend he never asked. Could she do it?

Daenerys Targaryen could do anything she’d put her mind to. That was the way she had been made; that was how she survived. Dany –

“I don’t think you would believe me,” she whispered.

“I’ll believe anything you say.”

“Liar,” she snapped. Jon Snow laughed; his other hand found her elbow, gripped it tightly, and then he was letting go of her entirely and stepping back, appropriate distance once more in place between them. Dany swayed after him, as if a tread keeping their fates tied pulled her closer.

But Daenerys Targaryen blinked and took the smallest step away, raising her chin in defiance. Meeting her hardened gaze, the King nodded once.

“Fine; keep your secrets, Your Grace.”

I don’t want to, she thought, even as they continued on their walk, he at her side again. The cloud rose up to their knees – waists – and slowly swallowed them whole. Below the blindingly white surface it was just a fog, the pathway visible for hundred feet easily. Dany was used to such change, for a flight on a cloudy day was similar; she wondered if Jon Snow was – if the Wall had allowed him at least this freedom.

“I’ve been to the north,” she said lightly, careful to look only forward. “It was – white, mostly, and cold, and snows were falling everywhere north-west to White Harbor. What was it like at the Wall?”

“White, mostly,” he echoed, “and cold. The Wall is a miracle, but the castles of the Night’s Watch are less so. Beyond the Wall, however, the lands are beautiful.”

“I don’t know how the place devoid of life could be beautiful.”

“Who told you it was lifeless? It’s anything but,” Jon said quietly. “It is full of life, and full of light. You could see for miles, and never grow used to those mountains and valleys. Glaciers are different each, rivers are furious and fast, forests – they are old.”

“But there is so much snow,” she asked, confused, “how can anything grow and prosper there?”

He shook his head.

“Aye, there would never be crops and orchards, gardens and vineyards. There are firs and pines, sentinels and oaks, birch trees and iron wood. Beneath the snow, grass and moss cover the stone, and sometimes you’d find snowdrops and crocuses blooming for a single day in a glade on a southern hillside. There are berries, like cranberry and mountain ash, and red elder; and poisonous herbs – Feverleaf, Nightshade, Purple Star, Raven Eye. Ygritte told me, in spring they would sometimes even bear fruit.”

He looked livelier, talking about the lands everyone south of the Wall hated and feared; yet now and then he would pause, give Dany a covert glance before continuing. She said nothing, and slowly he told more, about freezing nights and faraway stars glistening like chips of ice beyond the curtains of colorful lights; about hunting deer and rabbits; about finding rare weirwood trees, saplings usually, but sometimes giant, old gnarly things.

“You love that land,” she said softly, when he ran out of words. “You speak of it as another would speak of home.”

Jon didn’t answer for a long time.

“I suppose,” came his answer, eventually. “I’ve no right to it, they’re Free Folk’s lands. But you’re not wrong, I suppose.”

Dany snorted. He eyed her warily; she took solace in making him sound and look so earnest.

“This is,” she said, pointing at nothing in particular, “the place of my birth. Here, amidst the worst storm in living memory, was I born, but when I think home, I remember a little house in Braavos and my silver mare carrying me though the sea of tall grass; I remember the cabin of my ship and Ser Barristan’s stories; and the terrace overlooking Meereen and the lands surrounding it, the Skahazadhan river winding its way down to the sea, Missandei at my side and Torgo Nudho keeping us safe. I remember Jorah,” her breath hitched, “and sometimes, I remember Viserys. Home is Drogon, the two of us flying against the winds, Rhaegal and Viserion in our sight. Home is not this castle – I love it, I love this island, I love standing over the Painted Table where my ancestors stood before me; but it’s just a place. I’ve been to many great places, and I will be to some more. I envy you, Jon. People die and castles turn to ruin, but the land itself will stay.”

He looked thoughtful, but said nothing. Only when they reached the lowest terrace, clear of the fog by then, and faced the long and empty stretch of the beach, he slowly asked, struggling to put his thoughts into words even after so long of silence, “Why are you doing this?”

Her lips quirked.

“Because I can. Because I want to. Because no one else would. People grow content over time, Jon, I have seen it in Essos, I see it here. The Masters, the Lords, they all crave power, and once they have it, they’ll do anything to keep it. Every evil, foulest thing, every accursed deed, they will do it and then some, and those beneath are too afraid to stop them. I had been too, long before. I am not, now.”

He knelt in the wet sand, put his hand down where the low waves were licking at the sand with the quiet whispering sound that was constant in Dany’s life, from the channels of Braavos to the shores of the Dothraki Sea, from the mouth of the Skahazadhan to this very inlet at the feet of the Dragonmont.

“When I woke up, for a moment there was nothing but fear. Death is nothing. You are swallowed whole, and it takes everything from you. And yet.” He looked up, squinting to see something at the horizon. “Since then, I hadn’t been so much afraid of death as of another betrayal, and when it came, I – stopped feeling anything. I keep thinking that this is what I shall be terrified of. Who feels nothing, if not a monster?”

Dany studied his face. His expression was serene, still thoughtful; there were the faintest crow feet at the corners of his eyes, and other lines she could see taking place around his mouth and between his brows. He was a man who smiled often and frowned when lost in his thoughts. There wasn’t an angry line about that face, save those thin scars. It was the face of a deeply feeling man, and Death may have touched him, but didn’t manage to keep.

“I burned alive the woman who killed my husband and the son in my belly,” she told, unashamed as the day it happened. “I left a lover in Meereen – I remembered how he fought his tears and how he smiled at the end, wishing me happiness; he loves me, I have no doubt. I felt nothing. The last night, you said you think me afraid; and sometimes, I am. I fear that one day I won’t be able to tell apart those deserving to die and those needing my protection. I fear to lose my way. I fear to become Aerys Targaryen.” She offered him her hand and smiled when he accepted and let her help him get to his feet. His hand was covered in sand, wet with saltwater - she remembered this sensation well. “I have never been afraid of what others would say of me. Let them call us monsters, let them tell stories. Let them know – they aren’t safe.”

He was smiling, wryly and with understanding that for a moment made Dany feel shy, like she hadn’t felt for many years. Perhaps since she’d lost Ser Willem, she thought. She could barely remember him, just his leathery palms, wrinkly smile, the smell of lemons and fish; and kindness with which he spoke to them.

“I wish I was so wise,” he said. “Alas, I am not, and now I am stuck between the wars when I hate fighting; crownless, homeless, a fool to waste your time, whining that my treatment is too considerate.” He shook his head at Dany’s retort before it could leave her lips. “Don’t. You could deny, and it would be just another little sweet lie of yours.”

“What do you want me to say, then?”

He raked a hand through his hair, messing up his already sloppily tied knot.

“There is a lot happening right now. How dire is the situation in the North? Was there news from the Night’s Watch?”

“Little, so far,” she said. “The Wall is standing. You should write to them, I am sure Lord Commander would be beside himself to hear from you.”

Jon grimaced.

“I’ve no doubt,” he muttered. “Alright, that’s good. Well, then,” with a careful, deep sigh he was focused again, “it leaves us with the matter of your conquest.”

Dany gripped his wrist, curious and hopeful.

“You wish to take part in my retaking the throne? Despite, as you put it, hating wars; despite wanting nothing to do with the South?”

“They are just notions,” he said, only a bit morosely. “I know many whose life would have been different under a better rule. Many who should have lived still,” he added bitterly. “The question is, would you accept me, little as I can offer?”

“Yes,” she said, too fast and loud, and maybe too happily, but Dany couldn’t care, couldn’t think past the joy of having him at her side. “Yes, anything you’ll give me, I’ll be grateful for. But,” she hurried to say before he could decide this was a deal or something equally silly, “this is not a bargain. Our help to each other is not,” she bit back a smile, “a currency. I will stand with you in the war against the dead - you don't need to ask. You truly don’t owe me.”

Jon regarded her carefully. Dany's grip remained fast, and he didn't try to free his hand. He said only, “We’ll see."