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In a secluded watchtower atop the Wall, Leon sat deep in thought.
His gaze stretched across the vast wilderness, but it couldn’t reach the doubts stirring inside him.
“First things first — who is Alliser Thorne?” He murmured the question to himself, hoping the memories of his original body would offer an answer.
But those memories were like ancient tomes long sealed in dust.
They had to be leafed through page by page.
He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began digging through the fragments in his mind.
A long while passed.
The original body, it turned out, did not have a particularly good memory.
The fragments were scattered and blurred.
For Leon, who had lived through an age of information overload, these memories were dull and nearly impossible to piece together.
He drew a deep breath, trying to steady the chaos inside.
He knew that to answer the question — Who is Alliser Thorne?, he would have to dig deeper, find some thread tied to that name.
He failed.
Even as he racked his brain, he could not recall a single thing about Alliser Thorne.
And yet, certain memories, his origins, his “exile” to the Night’s Watch at his father’s hand, remained exceptionally clear.
Those played out as vividly as events that had just happened.
His father, Vico Victor, was a vassal of House Tyrell, Wardens of the Reach and one of the Seven Kingdoms.
Among his many offspring, Leon Victor was merely one.
The eldest son still lived, which meant Leon had no prospect of inheriting a castle or lands.
On top of that, his predecessor had been a dissolute youth, addicted to pleasure, haunting brothels and gambling dens.
As the youngest, he had never been showered with affection.
Finally, after old Baron Vico had to visit a gambling den to bail him out one time too many, Leon Victor did not return to the soft, comfortable bed at home.
He boarded a Night’s Watch wagon bound for the Wall in the frozen North.
His predecessor had left Leon some less-than-glorious marks, but also a few undeniable merits.
One was his father’s handsome features, a face that often won him special treatment at establishments like the Red Romance in Mole’s Town.
But prolonged travel, compounded by a southerner’s first encounter with the brutal northern cold, finally caught up with him.
After a return trip from Mole’s Town, he came down with a chill and fell gravely ill.
At that critical moment, Li Ang’s soul crossed over and took up the baton of this fate.
Now, Li Ang had become the new Leon Victor.
Slumped on the floor, Leon felt the watchtower ladder tremble.
He turned toward the vibration.
At the entrance, a head crowned with a messy thicket of hair poked through first, followed by the slightly hunched figure of a man in black.
The newcomer’s face was expressionless, etched with the numbness the northern frost and snow carve into a man over years.
He saw Leon sitting dully on the ground, lacking any guard’s vigilance, and felt a flicker of disappointment.
But he didn’t lash out.
He just dropped a cold sentence.
“Time to eat.
Miss this meal, and you’ll wait until this time tomorrow.”
The absence of a scolding caught Leon off guard.
Ever since crossing over, he still hadn’t adapted to the medieval mindset, and he made a fool of himself at work more often than not.
Still, Leon didn’t know this older brother of the Night’s Watch.
Perhaps in the man’s eyes, the current Leon wasn’t yet worthy of wearing the same black or guarding the same oath.
Leon watched as the older watchman plopped down in the spot he’d vacated, nudged Leon’s equipment aside with his foot, and placed his bow and arrows within easy reach.
His gaze fixed resolutely on the wilderness.
The watchtower, not spacious to begin with, now felt cramped.
Left with no choice, Leon reluctantly shouldered his gear and climbed out.
Just as he stepped onto the last rung of the wooden ladder, two familiar voices sounded behind him.
One he recognized immediately, Jon.
The other was less familiar, but he’d heard it somewhere before.
He turned.
The owner of the second voice was none other than young “Good Brother Edd.” Neither Leon’s memory was particularly sharp, but once they’d met someone face to face, they could always match a face to a name.
There was no outright hostility in the two men’s words, but the teasing undertone was hard to miss.
“Today’s a rare sight.
Old Cohen actually didn’t curse at you.”
“What do you mean, Edd?
Why do you say that?” Jon asked, curious.
Leon stood listening quietly, a trace of puzzlement rising.
Their conversation seemed to involve him, but he couldn’t grasp what it was about.
“Ah, what’s become of the Night’s Watch these days?
Once they were the responsible heroes, warriors, and champions of the Seven Kingdoms.
Now they’re packed with criminals, thieves, robbers, and live-in sons-in-law!” Edd’s words dripped with disgust and deep unease, though he hadn’t actually answered Jon’s question.
“These days, the Night’s Watch does nothing more than deal with a handful of insignificant wildlings.
As for the White Walkers, I’d sooner believe they’re tales wet nurses made up to put children to sleep,” Jon said.
“How can you say that, you of House Stark?
‘Winter Is Coming’ — isn’t that the ancestral prophecy of the North, passed down generation after generation?
The very words of House Stark?
Does the bastard of House Stark not even believe his own house’s words?”
Edd’s bluntness darkened Jon’s face in an instant.
When Edd praised his Stark lineage, pride had crept across Jon’s expression.
The moment the word “bastard” landed, that pride curdled into sullen gloom.
Edd didn’t notice a thing.
Compared to Jon’s status as a noble bastard, Edd, being of common birth, probably wouldn’t care if someone hurled the low insult of “bastard” at him.
First, because he wasn’t one.
And he knew the names of both his parents.
In any case, Jon left old Edd still chattering on about Winter Is Coming and walked up to Leon.
In front of Leon, who was also of noble birth, Jon recovered a trace of his former sense of kinship.
They had joined the Night’s Watch at Castle Black at the same time, new recruits together.
Leon’s performance, nothing outstanding, still often brought Jon moments of levity.
Leon’s naturally sociable personality and endless supply of jokes never failed to amuse him.
Though Leon often boasted of bizarre and outlandish experiences that struck Jon as unusual, Jon had no grounds to refute them.
In recent days, however, Leon had grown unusually subdued.
Perhaps the novelty of Castle Black had worn off.
Perhaps he was beginning to feel lost and uncertain about the long, lifelong watch stretching out ahead of him.
➤ Next: Humiliate Jon in Public — Let the Grudge Begin!