The Wall, Castle Black.
Jon had been here three months now.
In that time, he’d grown used to the Wall’s cold and its tedium.
Most of the men of the Watch here were former criminals, blunt and rough in their speech.
As for him, a Stark bastard, no one thought any better of him for it.
When he’d first arrived, some had even gone out of their way to mock him for his birth.
Right now, he sat beside Maester Aemon, studying High Valyrian.
The old maester’s voice was aged and hoarse, but steady, as he recounted some old history.
Words that would take an ordinary person a great deal of time to memorize, Jon had already committed to memory, most of them, within just a few nights.
But he was not satisfied with that.
If he wanted to truly understand House Targaryen, a few phrases of High Valyrian would not be enough, though he was in no hurry.
There was time enough.
“I’ve memorized the words on their own, but when they’re put together, I still can’t quite grasp the full meaning.”
Aemon sat across from him, his faintly hollow eyes turned toward him, a light smile touching his face.
“You have more patience than many who think themselves clever.”
Jon lowered his head and turned a page of the book, his fingers tracing over the words on it.
Aegon the Conqueror.
Visenya.
Rhaenys.
Targaryen.
Dragon.
Throne.
Blood.
These names had once been nothing but words on a page.
Now, somehow, they were bound to him.
“Why does madness always seem to find House Targaryen?”
It was a question he had turned over for many days, and now, at last, he finally asked it aloud.
Aemon was silent for a moment.
“It’s a question I asked myself too, when I was young.”
Jon looked at him, waiting for an answer.
The old maester sat by the brazier, his aged face flickering between light and shadow in the firelight.
“We once believed that keeping the bloodline pure would preserve the power of the dragon.”
“And so, brother could wed sister. Uncle could wed niece.”
Aemon paused, then went on:
“But blood was never simply better, the purer it ran.”
“Some gained power. Others lost something else in its place.”
“Madness, for instance?” Jon asked.
Aemon nodded gently, his voice still calm.
“Madness, for instance.”
“The dragon gave us a great deal. And it took something from us in turn.”
“What exactly it took, no one has ever been able to say for certain.”
A log in the brazier popped softly, and the room fell quiet once more.
Aemon lifted his head, his blind eyes seeming, somehow, to make out the furrow in Jon’s brow.
“Does that trouble you?”
“There’s no need to rush toward an answer. Some things become clear enough, on their own, once you actually meet them.”
Jon nodded.
“I hope so.”
The smile on Aemon’s face deepened a little.
“Besides, you have no sister to marry, in any case.”
“In time, you’ll likely marry a woman with no blood tie to you at all.”
The remark, tossed off so lightly, left Jon strangely startled for a moment.
“Let’s continue the lesson.”
Aemon’s voice pulled Jon back from his thoughts.
“Aegon the Conqueror. And his two sister-wives, Visenya and Rhaenys.”
Jon gathered his thoughts back and turned his eyes to the page once more.
Whenever he came upon a word he didn’t know, he traced it out stroke by stroke on Aemon’s palm.
One taught, the other learned, the wood in the brazier burning steadily on, and the two of their voices drifted, on and off, through the room.
Castle Black’s training yard was small, its ground year-round packed hard with frozen earth and a thin layer of frost.
Every morning, the recruits were berated by their training master until they couldn’t lift their heads.
The knight had a foul temper.
Anyone too slow, whose footwork slipped, whose grip on the sword was wrong, would be torn into without mercy, kicked at without any hesitation.
But whenever it was Jon’s turn, he always pulled back his strength at the very last instant, just as the blades met.
“Ser, please don’t go easy on me.” This was the second time Jon had said it.
Thorne raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not.”
“I’m not as weak as you seem to think.” Jon said, exasperated.
The Watch’s training master tried to keep his tone serious.
“You’re still a boy. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“But if someone ever truly comes to hurt me, they won’t hold back.”
Jon tightened his grip on the sword hilt, his expression earnest.
“And besides, we’re using wooden swords.”
“If you never let me actually take a hit, I’ll never learn how to fight.”
Thorne studied him for a long moment, a flicker of surprise crossing his eyes.
“Fine.”
With that, the real sparring began.
The wooden sword in Thorne’s hand turned suddenly sharp and fierce.
The first strike came down, and Jon caught it crosswise on his own blade.
Thock!
A heavy force ran down through the blade, jolting Jon’s arm numb.
A second strike came right on its heels, then a third.
Thorne held nothing back; every stroke landed heavy and vicious, driving Jon steadily backward.
Jon was at a disadvantage the moment they engaged, forced to rely on quick footwork to dodge again and again, all while hunting for the openings Thorne’s strikes left behind.
After several strokes in a row, Thorne finally seized his chance.
The wooden sword, which had been cutting horizontally, suddenly changed direction, flicking upward and driving straight toward Jon’s chest.
The strike came blindingly fast, leaving almost no time to react.
But just as the blade was about to touch his coat, Jon’s body dodged aside on pure instinct.
The blade grazed past the hem of his clothes.
Thorne’s gaze sharpened.
Jon had already stepped back with the motion, putting distance between them once more.
That last strike, he had somehow sensed it coming before it landed.
“There it is!”
Someone in the watching crowd couldn’t help calling out in admiration.
“That was a fine dodge.”
“Hard to believe someone this young could manage that.”
Jon paid the voices around him no mind, standing where he was, thinking to himself.
Ever since the dragon-dreams had begun when he was four, his memory had grown far sharper than any ordinary person’s.
And now, after truly seeing Frostflame in the flesh, he had clearly felt something else changing in his body.
His strength was growing, and his reflexes had sharpened far beyond what they’d been before.
What was causing these changes, he couldn’t yet say for certain.
Was it some effect left over from whatever had brought him into this world?
Or was it Frostflame’s presence, stirring the Targaryen blood within him?
Or perhaps- both.
Jon had asked Aemon about it, circling the question carefully, and the old maester had told him that such a thing rarely happened among the old dragonlords of Valyria, and that even he did not know the reason.
Jon tightened his grip on the sword, and looked at Thorne once more.
“Again.”
The days at Castle Black passed, one after another.
That day, after breakfast, Jon set out with Benjen and Thorne to Frostflame’s lair.
As planned, they made the trip to see Frostflame every half a month, to build their bond and train in flight.
Two days later.
By the time they reached their destination, the white dragon was already waiting, sprawled at the mouth of the cave, her massive body covering nearly half the entrance.
Her eyes were half-closed, her tail sweeping the snow now and then, kicking up fine powder.
Warm currents kept rolling out from deep within the cave, carrying the dragon’s own scorching heat, colliding with the cold air outside until a thin white mist wrapped the entrance. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
From a distance, a pair of huge violet, slitted eyes flickered faintly behind the mist.
Hearing the sound of Jon and the others talking,
Frostflame rose slowly, her massive body stirring up a flurry of snow, and stepped forward toward them.
Watching the dragon draw nearer, Thorne stopped in his tracks on instinct.
He had seen Frostflame many times by now, but whenever the massive creature came near again, his body still tensed up beyond his control.
The great dragon lowered her huge head and nudged Jon’s shoulder gently.
Jon smiled and reached up to pat her snout.
Frostflame let out a low, plaintive sound, her tail sweeping the snow, as though urging him to come play with her.
Jon raised a hand, pointing off into the distance, and said quietly:
“Dracarys.”
Frostflame tilted her head, seeming not to understand what Jon meant, and simply stared at him for a moment.
Then, the next moment, she suddenly lifted her head.
Whoosh!
A pure white flame surged out of her mouth, blazing straight up into the night sky.
A wave of heat rolled over him, and Jon threw his arm up instinctively to shield his face.
“Seven hells!”
Someone not far off cursed under his breath.
The flame lasted only a moment before dying away.
Frostflame lowered her head again, her violet eyes fixed on Jon, a low, contented rumble sounding in her throat.
Jon laughed, and reached out to stroke her snout.
“Good girl.”
He didn’t push her to try more commands.
There was no rush to have Frostflame learn everything at once; some things were best done slowly.
Jon rested his arm against her jaw, stroking her scales gently, and waited for her to settle.
He unloaded a deer they’d hunted along the way from his horse and set it down before Frostflame.
Once the white dragon had finished eating, he brought out a long-handled brush and a wooden bucket he’d already prepared inside the cave, and set about cleaning her body.
The cleaning took far longer than he’d expected.
Frostflame had by now grown into a subadult dragon, her body stretching more than seven meters long, her wingspan a full fifteen meters when fully spread, her massive form already beginning to carry the presence of a true master of the skies.
Cleaning her scales was hard, painstaking work, like tending to some walking fortress.
Between the thick, silver-white scales, there was, now and then, packed snow, dirt, and bits of gravel brought back from the mountain forests.
Jon held the long-handled brush and worked slowly along the grain of her scales, careful not to hurt the joints between them.
Frostflame was just as impatient about it as she’d been the first time.
She lay low, her tail sweeping the ground now and then, kicking up a haze of snow, a low sound rumbling in her throat, as though asking just how much longer this would take.
“Stay still.”
Jon patted her scales, wrinkling his face in mock disgust.
“You’re starting to smell.”
Frostflame glanced down at him, something like incomprehension in her violet, slitted eyes.
She clearly couldn’t understand why he’d spend so long doing something like this.
But she settled down slowly all the same.
As time went on, Frostflame seemed to start enjoying it.
When the brush passed over the scales along her neck, she would narrow her eyes slightly, her huge head lowering slowly, drawing closer toward him of her own accord.
By the time he reached her wings, Frostflame had even slowly spread them open.
The great wings blocked out the sun overhead, their membranes covered in a thin layer of frost.
Jon picked up the bucket and rinsed the dust away little by little with warm water; at this stage, he needed to switch to wiping with a soft cloth.
The wing membrane was softer than the scales, and far more sensitive.
Frostflame didn’t pull away.
Instead, she spread her wing open a little further still, letting Jon continue cleaning.
Benjen and Thorne, setting out to hunt, quietly slipped away from the scene.
He couldn’t say how long had passed by the time Jon finally finished cleaning the last of her scales.
He sank down into the snow, exhausted, his arms so sore he could barely lift them.
Frostflame lowered her head and nudged his shoulder gently with her snout.
“Hahaha”
Jon couldn’t help laughing, reaching up to touch her nose.
“It’s good, having you with me.”