“Jon! You’re finally back!”
A young, high voice called out from the direction of the gate, full of delight.
Hearing it, Jon swung down from his horse and crouched halfway down, waiting.
A small figure came running out from the gate and threw herself straight into his arms.
Jon laughed and lifted her up, spinning around a few times where he stood.
Arya giggled with delight, gripping his clothes tightly with both hands, her head swaying with the momentum.
“Why did you have to be gone so long this time?”
Once Jon had stopped spinning, Arya, still clinging tight around his neck, said, put out.
Jon looked at her puffed-up, indignant face and couldn’t help pinching her cheek.
“Ha ha. I’ll stay a few extra days this time. You’ll get plenty of playing in.”
Robb, trailing behind, couldn’t help a small smile at that, then immediately straightened his face into a look of stern seriousness.
“Did you run into any bandits on the road?”
“No.”
“Any White Walkers, then?”
“None of those either.”
Robb’s face fell into a look of deep disappointment.
Arya, still held in Jon’s arms, and Bran nearby both burst out laughing at the sight of his face.
Sansa stood a little further off, offering Jon a polite smile.
Ned and Catelyn stood by the gate, nodding to him with smiles on their faces.
“Let’s take this inside, everyone. Jon must be hungry by now.”
The fire in the great hall burned high, its light playing over the stone walls, shadows swaying gently with the glow of the logs.
The smell of stewed meat, bread, ale, and woodsmoke mingled together, filling the air.
Jon sat at the place he’d always used to sit, and the rolling warmth soon wrapped around him.
Perhaps it was from having stayed so long at Castle Black, but the warmth here felt oddly unfamiliar to him now.
Robb sat beside him, studying him for a moment, then suddenly asked: “Have you grown taller again?”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Robb reached out and clapped him on the shoulder, surprise crossing his face.
“It’s not just your height. When did your shoulders get so broad?”
Jon shrugged, showing that he didn’t know either.
Months of training had worn thick calluses into his palms, and the clothes that had once fit loosely on him had grown tight, little by little.
The busyness of his days had kept him from noticing, but now that Robb mentioned it, he realized his body truly had changed.
The next morning, Jon went to the lord’s solar.
Morning sun streamed in through the high window, falling across the parchment and maps on the desk, the fire burning quietly in the corner.
Ned stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, and turned at the sound of footsteps.
“How have these past months been?”
“I’ve started learning to fly.”
Jon told Ned everything that had happened during that time, one thing after another.
He spoke of Maester Aemon teaching him High Valyrian, of Frostflame’s mischief, and of what it had felt like the first time she carried him up through the clouds, the wind rushing past him.
It was, of everything from these past months, what he most wanted to share with his family.
Ned listened quietly, a smile crossing his face now and then.
When Jon finished, he asked: “Father, the men we sent to Essos, are they still there?”
Ned walked to the desk and took two unmarked letters from a drawer, handing them to him.
“These came back recently.”
Jon took the letters and opened them at once.
They recorded a good deal of news about the Targaryen siblings.
For now, their lives were not in danger.
Magister Illyrio of Pentos, having recognized their identity and their worth, had settled them in his own household, providing comfortable lodgings, fine clothes, and servants ready to attend them at any hour.
The exiled prince spent most of his days lost in the glory of his family’s past.
He had taken to going about, trying to win support, dreaming of reclaiming the Iron Throne that belonged, in his mind, to House Targaryen.
The moment anyone questioned his plans, he flew at once into a temper.
As for Daenerys, the letters said far less about her.
She was, for now, still adjusting to life in Pentos.
The letters closed by noting that, though many eyes were watching them, neither sibling was in any present danger, as Magister Illyrio had them well protected.
Jon let out a breath of relief once he’d read through the letters.
Then he carried both letters to the hearth and dropped them, one by one, into the flames.
The paper curled quickly, the writing darkening in the fire until it turned, at last, to ash.
Letters like these could not be kept.
A few days later, having rested and recovered, Jon set out once more for the Wall, carrying supplies to support the Watch.
There was still much waiting for him to learn at Castle Black: swordsmanship, horsemanship, High Valyrian, and how to command Frostflame in combat and the hunt.
To be ready for whatever was to come, he could not afford to slow down now.
So he pressed on through the wind and snow, traveling for more than twenty days.
With only two days left to Castle Black, they entered a dense forest buried in snow.
Snow bent the branches low, a cold wind cutting through the trees, kicking up fine flurries of powder.
All around, there was nothing but the dull thud of hooves through the snow, and the occasional snap of a branch overhead.
At the head of the group, Benjen suddenly raised a hand, and the party came to a stop.
Sensing something wrong, Benjen scanned the surroundings, and once certain no enemy was in sight, swung down from his horse and crouched in the snow, brushing away the top layer.
Beneath it, a scattered trail of footprints was revealed.
The boot-prints varied in size, their edges not yet worn smooth by wind and snow, clearly left not long before.
Benjen looked up, staring deep into the woods, and sensing something, mounted quickly and drew his sword.
“Someone passed through here recently. And they’re waiting for us.”
The words had barely left his mouth when a chaotic burst of shouting rose from both sides of the trees.
More than a dozen brigands charged out of the woods, almost all of them mounted.
Their horses varied in height, most of them bony and gaunt, their tack worn and shabby, clearly stolen from different places.
The men wore ragged leather armor, patched in many places with animal hide and strips of cloth, some gripping notched longswords, others carrying rusted axes, a mismatched mess of weapons in their hands.
The one leading them rode a tall, gaunt horse, a vicious grin on his face.
“Leave us your horses, your food, and your weapons.”
He raised the blade in his hand and called out, loud and threatening: “Whatever the Watch has, we’ll be taking it.”
Benjen swept his eyes over their surroundings, taking stock of the enemy’s numbers and their weapons.
“Seems you’ve forgotten what happens to men who rob the Night’s Watch.”
The man let out a cold laugh.
“There’s only three of you. And more than a dozen of us.”
“Since you won’t hand it over willingly, then you can stay here instead.”
With that, no more words wasted, he swung his arm down hard.
“Kill them!”
The brigands surged forward with a wild, screeching roar.
Jon drew his longsword, his heartbeat quickening without his willing it.
A bandit charged in from the side, his axe whistling down toward Jon’s shoulder, and Jon raised his sword to block it almost purely on instinct.
Clang!
The axe blade crashed against his sword, jolting his arm numb, nearly knocking the weapon from his grip.
Seeing him under attack, Benjen and Thorne both broke off from their own opponents, one driving his horse in front of Jon, the other behind him.
Neither said a word, simply cutting off the enemies trying to close in around him.
Just then, another enemy came at Jon’s side.
He pulled the reins hard at once, and using the force of his horse’s forward charge, swung his sword, the blade slicing through the man’s leather armor and cutting across his ribs.
Blood spattered across the white snow.
The bandit clutched at the wound, swayed twice, then fell from his horse.
Before he even had time to catch his breath, another bandit was already closing in, a rusted longsword driving straight for his chest.
He twisted aside, his own blade grazing the man’s arm.
The man didn’t so much as glance at the wound on his arm, gritting his teeth and pressing the attack instead.
Only then did Jon truly understand what Thorne had told him: a real enemy would not stop, wounded, the way a sparring partner in the training yard would.
Wounded as he was, the man still meant to kill him.
Elsewhere, Benjen and Thorne had already engaged several bandits at once.
Benjen’s sword was steady and quick, every stroke driving his opponents steadily backward.
Thorne’s strikes were fiercer still, his blade crashing down heavy enough that no opponent dared meet it head-on.
Before long, the bandits found they were simply no match for the three of them.
They began to fall back.
“Run!”
Someone shouted it, and the rest turned and fled into the trees.
Benjen spurred his horse after them at once.
“We can’t let them get away!”
All three of them urged their horses forward in pursuit.
The snow made the ground rough and uneven, the horses’ hooves sinking again and again, but the fleeing bandits, having abandoned everything, quickly opened up the distance between them.
The chase went on for some time.
Just as Jon was about to catch up to one of the bandits, he suddenly felt a warmth flare in his chest.
As though a pair of eyes were watching him from somewhere high above.
The next moment, a low roar rolled out from above the curtain of snow.
Screeee!!
Jon didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
Frostflame plunged down from above the treetops.
Her enormous wings whipped snow up into the air, her body cutting through the sky, sharp claws shearing through several dead trees as she passed.
Her violet eyes blazed in the falling snow, like two burning flames.
The horses shrieked in terror, all of them freezing in place.
When Frostflame landed, the snow collapsed beneath her claws.
One forepaw pinned down the leader’s horse, her claws driving deep into its flesh, and before the leader could even swing his blade, a tremendous force sent him flying clear off its back.
The remaining bandits screamed in terror.
“Dracarys!”
Jon shouted it at the top of his voice.
A low hiss rolled up from deep in Frostflame’s throat.
The next moment, white flame surged from her mouth, swallowing the snowfield ahead in an instant.
Snow melted in the blaze, rolling up into thick white steam; bandits and horses alike were swallowed by the flames, their screams lasting only a moment before the wave of heat pressed them back into silence.
Once the fire died away, the frozen ground had turned black and charred, the air thick with the sharp smell of burning.
Silence settled over the scene once more.
Only the sound of the wind remained, the faint crack of broken branches falling, and the soft hiss of embers still smoldering in the snow.
Benjen swung down from his horse and hurried over to Jon.
“Are you hurt?”
He checked the wound on Jon’s arm first, and finding it only slight, let out a breath of relief.
“It’s only a scrape.”
Thorne came over too, and after hearing Benjen’s assessment, checked it over carefully himself; only once he’d confirmed all was well did the tension leave his face.
Then he looked over at the bodies scattered in the snow, and at Frostflame’s massive form beside them.
“Your Highness, your first battle, and your performance left me genuinely stunned.”
Thorne looked at the bodies in the snow, silent for a moment.
“Truth be told, I didn’t expect you’d be capable of this much.”