After receiving a message from Winterfell, Jon temporarily left Castle Black and returned home.
His arrival happened to coincide with his sixteenth birthday.
By evening, the great hall was brightly lit.
A roaring fire blazed in the hearth, waves of heat filling the hall and driving away the chill of The North.
The long tables were covered with freshly baked bread, sizzling haunches of venison, and steaming beef stew.
Servants moved constantly through the hall, bringing fresh food and drink whenever anything ran low.
Eddard Stark sat at the head of the table, with Catelyn beside him, smiling as she watched the children make merry.
Robb had already drunk two cups of ale and, slightly tipsy, was loudly telling a joke that was not particularly funny.
“By the Seven, Robb, that wasn’t funny at all.” Sansa rolled her eyes.
“I’m no bard.”
Robb raised an eyebrow as though that settled the matter, drawing a round of good-natured laughter from the hall.
Even Hodor, passing by with a large platter of roasted meat, grinned along with them.
“Hodor!
Hodor!”
Jon smiled as he looked at Bran, Arya, and Rickon gathered around him.
Rickon, the youngest, had both arms wrapped around Jon’s leg and stubbornly refused to let go.
At the height of the feast, everyone brought out the gifts they had carefully prepared.
Bran gave him a crude wooden dagger he had carved with his own hands.
Arya eagerly shoved a crooked wooden wolf she had carved into his palm, lifting her chin proudly.
Sansa gave him a gray woolen scarf she had sewn herself, its stitches fine and neat.
Finally, Robb rose and handed him a well-made steel sword, then grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder.
“Take it.
Next time you come back from The Wall, we’ll have a proper fight.”
The hall rang with laughter.
Theon Greyjoy sat at the other end of the long table with a cup of ale in hand, the same careless smile still hanging on his face.
Yet his gaze kept drifting toward Jon, surrounded by his family.
He watched Arya throw herself into Jon’s arms and saw the warmth in Eddard’s eyes whenever he looked at his bastard son.
Suddenly, Theon thought of Pyke.
No one there would ever prepare a feast like this for him.
Even King Balon rarely remembered his birthday.
Theon lowered his head and took a long swallow of bitter ale, forcing down the ache that had risen in his chest.
“Damn…
I’m fucking jealous.”
Just then, Steward Poole hurried into the hall with a grave expression.
He leaned close to Lord Stark and whispered a few words before presenting him with a sealed letter bearing the wax seal of King’s Landing.
…
After the feast ended, candlelight flickered inside the Lord’s study.
“The King is coming to Winterfell?”
Robb stared at the sealed letter on the table in astonishment.
“Yes.”
Eddard’s brow was tightly furrowed, concern faintly visible in his eyes.
“King Robert gave no exact reason.
He only said the matter was urgent.
He and Queen Cersei are traveling north with their family, and they’re already on the road.”
Jon stood in one corner of the study.
“Do I need to leave?”
Eddard understood exactly what he meant and slowly nodded.
“It would be best if you were gone within three days.”
Jon nodded.
Eddard walked to the window and gazed toward the distant mountains covered in snow.
“Robert isn’t bringing only the royal family.
A great many nobles, knights, and attendants are coming with them.”
“The more people there are, the more eyes there will be.”
He turned and looked at Jon.
“No one can be allowed to discover Frostflame.”
“Her existence could change the balance of power throughout Westeros.”
Jon understood what Eddard meant.
Dragons meant conquest, war, and power great enough to topple dynasties.
The moment word of a living dragon spread, Winterfell would never know peace again.
Robb, standing nearby, caught the name Frostflame and looked over with obvious curiosity.
He had just opened his mouth to ask when Catelyn gently stopped him.
Beneath his cloak, Jon’s hand slowly tightened.
From the broken fragments of memory he still possessed, he knew that everything had begun on the day King Robert entered Winterfell.
Unfortunately, his memories of what followed were scattered and incomplete.
He could not remember exactly what had happened.
All he knew was that in the end, only a few members of House Stark had survived.
His father, Catelyn, and Robb had all died, though he could not remember how or why.
But things were different now.
He was here.
And he had a dragon.
The tragedies he remembered did not have to happen again.
Late that night, after the feast had completely ended, silence settled over Winterfell.
Back in his room, perhaps because of everything he had heard that day, Jon slept restlessly.
Caught between waking and sleep, his consciousness once again sank into the familiar void of white mist.
The world around him slowly took shape.
But this time, the silver-haired girl who always greeted him with a smile in these dreams looked completely different.
They had not seen each other for several months.
Daenerys had grown noticeably thinner, and her face was so pale that there was hardly any color left in it.
When she saw Jon, her violet eyes were filled with helplessness and despair.
“Dany?
What happened?”
Jon’s heart tightened, and he hurried toward her.
Daenerys looked up, and tears immediately spilled from her eyes.
“Brother…
Viserys is going to sell me to a Dothraki horselord…
as his bride.”
“What?!”
Jon stared at her in disbelief.
His memories of his previous life were incomplete.
Some things he remembered clearly, while others existed only as scattered fragments.
As for Daenerys’s future, all he remembered was that she would become the Mother of Dragons and possess three dragons.
Beyond that, he knew almost nothing.
“I saw Khal Drogo today…”
Dany wrapped her arms tightly around her thin, frail body, almost as though she wanted to make herself disappear.
“He’s a barbarian.”
Daenerys hugged herself more tightly.
Remembering the way Khal Drogo had looked at her, she could not stop herself from shivering.
“When he looked at me, it was like he was looking at prey that had already been bound for him.”
Jon forced down the anger rising inside him.
“Has Viserys lost his mind?
What is he trying to do?”
“He thinks that if he sells me to the horselord, he can convince the Dothraki to fight for him, cross the Narrow Sea, and help him reclaim the Iron Throne.”
Tears blurred Daenerys’s eyes.
“He’s lost all reason.
The Iron Throne is the only thing he thinks about anymore.”
“To him, I’m nothing but something he can trade for what he wants.”
“I told him I didn’t want this.
I begged him.
He didn’t care.”
“He even threatened me.”
Her voice fell quieter.
Daenerys clenched the hem of her dress, her body trembling slightly as though some terrible memory had returned to her.
“What did he do?”
Jon’s expression darkened.
Daenerys did not answer.
She simply lowered her head and wept.
Only after a long while did she finally speak through her sobs.
“He grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the ground.”
“He said I had no right to argue with him.
If I dared defy him again, he said he would awaken the ‘Wrath of the Sleeping Dragon.'”
Jon’s fingers slowly curled into fists.
He remained silent for a moment, forcing down the rage churning inside his chest.
“When is the wedding?”
“In twenty days.
In Pentos.”
Daenerys answered weakly.
“Khal Drogo is gathering his tribes…”
“Dany, wait for me.”
Jon looked at her and made his promise.
“I’ll come for you.”