The next morning, Jon woke but did not rise at once as he usually did.
Instead, he lay with his eyes open, staring up at the dim wooden beam overhead.
His mind was full of Daenerys’s pale, helpless face, and her bare feet red with cold.
His chest felt tight.
“I can’t help her. Maybe Father will know what to do.”
With that thought, he dressed quickly, pulled on his boots, and left the room.
Winterfell still held the chill of the night before, a cold wind pouring in from the far end of the stone gallery.
Jon’s breath came out in a white cloud before him, and vanished quickly.
He avoided the inner passage of the keep, where he was likely to run into Lady Catelyn, and went straight through the quiet courtyard gallery to the door of the lord’s solar.
After greeting Ser Jory, who stood guard at the door, he raised his hand and knocked lightly on the oak door, twice.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
Ned’s low voice came from within.
Jon pushed the door open, stepped inside, and turned to close it carefully behind him.
Behind the desk, Ned had just set down his pen, and lifted his eyes from the parchment.
Seeing it was Jon, a flicker of concern crossed his gaze.
“Jon. You’re here early. Is something the matter?”
Jon walked up to the desk and looked up at Ned.
“Father, there’s something I want to tell you.”
Ned smiled at his ‘bastard son.’
“What is it?”
Jon asked quietly: “Father, you told me before that the dreams I have aren’t real.”
“But I’ve dreamed of it again since then. That white beast in the dream… is it really not a dragon?”
The smile on Ned’s face stiffened for an instant, then smoothed over again.
Jon noticed the change but pressed on: “It has wings, and it breathes fire. It looks exactly like the dragons I’ve seen in books.”
He thought for a moment, then added: “I even gave it a name. I call her Frostflame.”
The pine logs in the hearth crackled, sparks flaring and dying, but nothing could lift the heaviness in the room.
Ned looked at the boy before him, his voice tightening without his meaning it to.
“You named it, in your dream?”
“Yes.”
Jon nodded, quite seriously.
“Her scales are as white as frost and snow, but her breath is as hot as fire, so I named her Frostflame.”
He bowed his head, thinking, then went on: “She’s always in my dreams. She’s very close to me, and even the feel of touching her feels just like something real.”
“But lately there’s been something new in the dream.”
Confusion filled Jon’s eyes.
Ned watched him, and said nothing.
“There’s a girl in the dream now, too.”
Ned set down the pen, already snapped in his hand, onto the desk, and looked at Jon with a grave expression.
“How do you know her name?”
“She told me herself.”
He hesitated, then went on:
“The first time she came close to Frostflame, I thought Frostflame would resist her, the way the dragons in the old books did.”
“But instead, she only looked at her once, and let her come close, just like that.”
Having finished, Jon asked, hesitating: “Father, do you know who Daenerys is? Is she connected to me somehow?”
Ned was silent for a moment before asking: “Why would you think she’s connected to you?”
Jon lowered his head, as though searching for the right words.
“Because she appears in my dreams.”
He lifted a hand, gesturing slightly.
“And Frostflame doesn’t push her away, either.”
“And her name is Targaryen. Maester Luwin once said House Targaryen used to have dragons… and it seemed like only their family could ride them.”
He pressed his lips together, then went on:
“And Frostflame is close to me, too.”
“So I thought… maybe she and I are connected somehow?”
Ned fell silent, taking in what he’d just heard.
He had not expected that keeping Frostflame a thousand miles away would still fail to sever whatever bond existed between her and Jon.
What surprised him even more was that a Targaryen girl, too, had now appeared in Jon’s dreams.
After a long while, he said, his voice rough: “Jon, there are some things I can’t tell you yet.”
Jon looked into his father’s eyes and asked.
“Is it because I’m still too young?”
Jon studied him a moment longer, then asked carefully:
“Then… did I guess right?”
The solar fell quiet once more.
Ned clasped his hands together, pressing them against his chin, his brow furrowed tight, and for a long time gave no answer.
In truth, he already knew the answer.
Those hazy memories in his mind had long since let him guess at some possibility, but now, seeing it confirmed for real in Ned’s reaction, something still stirred powerfully within him.
He lowered his head, and after a good while said quietly: “I understand.”
“You can tell me, whenever you’re ready to.”
He added earnestly: “I won’t tell anyone else.”
A flash of relief, mixed with an ache of tenderness, crossed Ned’s eyes.
He rose, walked over to Jon, and crouched down before him, his broad hand settling gently on the boy’s shoulder.
“Father, there’s one more thing I want to ask of you,” Jon said quickly.
“What is it?”
Jon looked up into Ned’s eyes and told him of the girl’s situation.
“In last night’s dream, Daenerys told me they’re living in Braavos now.”
“A couple of days ago, Ser Willem died. Someone took all their money and threw them out of their house. They have nowhere to go now.”
Ned looked at the boy before him, at the worry showing plainly on his face, and had already guessed what he meant to ask.
“What do you want me to do?”
Jon said quietly: “Could you send someone to help them?”
“If they’re really in Braavos, it’s such a big, cold place. What if they have nothing to eat?”
He paused, and caught hold of Ned’s sleeve.
“If she really is connected to me, I want you to help them.”
Watching the worry in the boy’s eyes, Ned was silent for a moment.
The oath he had sworn years ago beneath the Tower of Joy overlaid itself, in his mind, on the clear grey eyes before him now.
Looking into those eyes so full of hope, he thought it over for a long while, and finally made his decision.
“I’ll arrange, through trusted merchant-ship channels out of White Harbor, for a few men I trust to travel to Braavos.”
“Their only task will be to quietly find the two of them and see to their safety. They won’t draw anyone’s notice, and they won’t reveal that House Stark is behind it.”
Jon finally let out a breath of relief, and bowed at once.
“Thank you, Father.”
He turned to go.
“Jon.”
Ned called him back once more, his expression stern.
“Everything spoken of in this solar today cannot be told to anyone.”
He paused.
“Including Robb.”
Jon nodded seriously.
“I won’t tell.”
He gently closed the heavy oak door and withdrew from the solar.
Outside, the cold wind swept through the gallery.
Jon walked briskly some distance away before slowly loosening his tightly clenched fists.
Inside the solar, silence fell once more.
Ned walked slowly to the window and pushed it open a crack.
The bone-chilling wind and snow of the North blew in, flecked with fine drifting snow, tousling his grey-brown hair.
Frostflame.
The dreams.
And that Targaryen girl, so far away on the other side of the Narrow Sea.
Ned gazed out at the vast, snow-swept sky, his expression heavy.