Guys this is a translation, this fic is new with just under 60 chapters.
here’s the raw – 权游:从私生子到龙王
Chapter 11: Catelyn’s Disbelief
Three more months passed.
That morning, amid driving wind and snow, Winterfell received a messenger from King’s Landing.
Covered head to foot in ice and snow, he dismounted and at once produced a letter sealed with red wax bearing the king’s own seal.
In the lord’s solar, Eddard Stark took the letter and broke the seal.
The letter noted, in particular, that the Spider, Varys, had recently received word.
The remnants of House Targaryen, long in hiding, had surfaced in Braavos.
Ser Willem Darry, who had taken in the Targaryen brother and sister, was dead, and Viserys and Daenerys had vanished from Braavos as well; their whereabouts were now unknown.
King Robert had proclaimed to the Seven Kingdoms: “Whoever finds Viserys or Daenerys may deliver them to the Crown, and shall receive a rich reward.”
“Should any dare shelter or conceal them, they shall be named an enemy of the Iron Throne.”
Ned pressed the letter down hard against the desk, his brow furrowed tight.
A man who valued honor above much else, he was deeply repelled by such a proclamation.
They were nothing but a pair of helpless children.
No lands, no army, not even a single person truly sworn to them.
How could they possibly threaten Robert?
But now the Crown’s warrant had spread across all Seven Kingdoms, and matters on the far side of the Narrow Sea would only grow more dangerous.
That the brother and sister were now tied to Jon weighed on Ned’s heart all the more.
Fortunately, he had already sent two household knights across the Narrow Sea.
He hoped nothing had gone wrong before they arrived.
If it had…
Over these past years, Jon had dreamed again and again of that Targaryen girl, and of the white dragon in his dreams.
Even across ten thousand miles, the two children could speak to one another in the dream.
By the old gods, he could think of no explanation for it, save some ancient magic.
Was this the mysterious bond between Targaryen royal blood and dragons?
Or did that dragon, a thousand miles away, possess some unknown power of its own?
Ned pressed his fingers against his aching temples.
Benjen, Howland Reed, Maester Aemon at the Wall.
More and more people were becoming entangled in this secret.
His wife’s face rose in his mind.
For years now, Catelyn had despised Jon, believing all along that he was the bastard child of her husband’s betrayal of their marriage.
Ned had never once explained himself, letting the rumor stand, precisely so it could serve as a wall to shield Jon.
But now the situation was worsening by the day, and if the secret were ever uncovered, or crisis came to Winterfell, Catelyn’s hostility toward Jon would become the most dangerous weakness of all.
He needed his wife to know the truth, rather than go on regarding Jon as a thorn in her side.
Footsteps sounded outside the door, and it was pushed suddenly open.
“Ned, what does the letter say, that’s put you so out of sorts?”
Catelyn stood in the doorway, an unfinished piece of embroidery still in her hands, and asked the question at the sight of her husband.
Ned was rarely so distracted; he hadn’t even noticed the cold draft she’d brought in with her.
“Close the door, Cat.”
Ned drew a deep breath and turned the letter face down on the desk, his expression turning grave.
Catelyn paused for a moment, then turned and shut the door firmly, setting her needle and thread down on the corner of a table.
She walked to the desk and sat, and at the sight of her husband’s grave expression, felt an inexplicable tightening in her chest:
“Has something happened?”
Ned came and sat before her, took her hand in his, and said, low-voiced:
“Cat, I need to tell you a secret. A truth that’s long overdue.”
Catelyn’s brow furrowed, unease creeping in: “What secret?”
“About Jon’s birth.”
At the mention of that name, an almost reflexive look of distaste crossed Catelyn’s face: “That bastard?”
“Cat, Jon is not my bastard.”
Ned said it slowly, each word deliberate.
Catelyn gripped her husband’s hand tightly, staring hard into his eyes, searching his face for any sign of a joke: “What are you saying? You admitted it yourself, to the whole North, all those years ago—”
“To protect him. To protect my sister’s child.”
Ned cut her off, and went on: “Before I say anything more, I need you to swear an oath to me.”
“Not a single word of what I’m about to say can go to anyone. No matter who. Including Robb.”
The resolve in Ned’s eyes set Catelyn’s heart pounding.
The solar fell dead silent, save for the occasional crack of a spark from the pine coals in the hearth.
She held herself rigid for a long while, drawing a few deep breaths: “I swear it. I will never speak this secret to anyone.”
His face full of sorrow, Ned told her of what had happened six years before, at the Tower of Joy: “Lyanna did not die of a fever. She died in childbirth.”
Catelyn’s breath caught, her eyes widening slightly.
“Before she died, there at the Tower of Joy, she placed her newborn child in my arms.”
Ned’s voice was hoarse.
“—Seven save us! Ned!”
Catelyn shot up from her chair.
The name “Rhaegar” tore open, in an instant, memories she had buried for years.
Brandon held captive in King’s Landing.
Lord Rickard burned alive by the Mad King.
And the war that had swept across all Seven Kingdoms.
Those images, which she had deliberately buried deep in her memory, rose to the surface once more.
And Rhaegar Targaryen was, among other things, where it had all begun.
She could never have imagined that the child her husband had brought to Winterfell six years ago was Rhaegar Targaryen’s own son.
It was madness.
“That child… that child is truly Rhaegar’s son?!”
Catelyn’s voice climbed higher and sharper.
“You brought Rhaegar’s son back to Winterfell? You’ve deceived the whole of the Seven Kingdoms… If Robert finds out, he’ll kill us all! He’ll raze Winterfell to the ground!”
“You gave me your word, Cat!”
Ned pressed both hands to her shoulders, his voice pleading.
“He is also Lyanna’s only child left in this world! She was my only sister!”
Catelyn stared hard at the man she had lived with for so many years.
What she had believed was her husband’s betrayal turned out to be a secret grave enough to bring down the entire Stark family.
“There’s more still, Cat…”
Ned looked at his wife’s stricken, hollowed-out expression, and told her something harder still to believe.
“That child… there’s a dragon as well, born the same moment he was. It’s hidden now in a cavern deep beneath the North.”
A dragon?
Targaryen blood… dead Lyanna… a dragon beneath the Wall…
Catelyn stared at her husband, and for a long while said nothing.
Suddenly, she remembered all the coldness she had shown that child over the years.
The way Jon had looked the first time he’d called out to her.
The careful way he stood at the table.
The way his eyes always, instinctively, avoided hers whenever they met.
The child, it turned out, had done nothing wrong at all.
He hadn’t even known why he was despised.
Catelyn’s fingers curled slowly tighter, her face growing paler still.