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“Lord Snow, I wonder if Winterfell’s master-at-arms ever taught you — once a blade is drawn, it doesn’t come back clean without blood.” The mockery in Alliser Thorne’s voice was impossible to miss.
Jon could barely hold his gaze.
What shocked him more was the realization that he’d lost the courage to swing.
The crowd saw it.
Jon stood there, head down, face red, frozen like a startled quail.
They erupted.
Jeering, jostling, hungry for blood.
The noise made Jon angry.
Angry enough that some buried instinct kicked in.
His grip tightened on the sword.
“I, Jon Snow of Winterfell, challenge you to a duel.
In the name of the Old Gods — if one of us must die, let the Old Gods bear witness.” He said it slowly, each word deliberate, each word firm.
The clamor dropped.
The sneers on nearby faces went stiff.
Then the crowd laughed harder than before.
This time, Jon didn’t hear any of it.
His mind had settled.
He stared at Alliser Thorne.
Thorne’s contempt hadn’t shifted an inch.
He spoke at his leisure.
“Because I called you Lord Jon?
You little bastard — you’d drag out your Old Gods for that?
Or maybe you’re just eager to see your damned mother.
That whore.
The one who probably crawled off somewhere low and died.”
The words detonated in Jon’s chest.
His jaw clenched, his face went scarlet, and his sword hand swung for Alliser Thorne’s face without a moment’s thought, like he meant to tear that foul mouth apart.
Thorne tilted his head.
Just slightly.
The blade missed clean.
Jon had trained since childhood under Ser Rodrik Cassel, one of the finest swords in the Seven Kingdoms.
It didn’t matter.
Against a man like Thorne, who had bled on a hundred battlefields, he was still a child playing at war.
Thorne’s hand shot out and snatched Jon off the ground by the throat, the way a man picks up a chick.
His grip locked.
Jon felt it immediately.
That crushing pressure around his neck, a force that felt like it could snap bone.
His strength poured out of him.
Images strobed at the edges of his vision.
His sword slipped from his fingers and rang against the frozen ground.
The sudden shift caught Leon off guard.
In everything he remembered about this story, Alliser Thorne was a man of words.
A bully who worked through humiliation, not his hands.
He’d never gone after Jon like this.
And Jon wasn’t nobody.
Bastard or not, he was the bastard of the Warden of the North.
How was Thorne this bold?
Jon hung there.
Silent as a puppet.
The red draining from his face as his eyes started to roll.
Gods, Leon thought.
Is the main character of Game of Thrones actually about to die right here?
This wasn’t in the show.
The alarm crossed his face and vanished.
Leon’s expression went hard.
He moved toward Thorne, hand going to his sword.
Whatever happened after, exile, a blade from the Watch guards, the infamy of attacking a senior officer, he’d deal with it.
He’d deal with all of it.
But at exactly that moment, Thorne let go.
Jon dropped like a wet fish, hitting the cold ground hard, already clawing at his throat with both hands, pulling in raw, ragged breaths.
Leon hadn’t even cleared his scabbard.
“Ridiculous little bastard.” Thorne’s voice was flat.
“You’ve sworn your oath to your gods.
That means if I cut you down right now, no one here could object.
But I want you to understand something.
Killing you is no different from killing an ant.
I just don’t care enough to bother.”
“The reason I’m letting you breathe is this: put away that laughable pride of yours.
From today, you scrub chamber pots.
You haul filth.
You eke out your little maggot life and be grateful for it.
You are not worthy of being called a brother of the Night’s Watch.”
He turned to leave.
But before he did, his gaze swept sideways, cold and unhurried, to where Leon and Edd Tollett stood beside Jon.
He said nothing.
He didn’t need to.
He memorized both faces.
Leon’s especially.
Thorne had felt it, that flash of killing intent coming off the young recruit.
It was the whole reason he’d released his grip when he did.
He wasn’t about to trade an arm for a greenhorn’s life.
That was a fool’s bargain.
Once Thorne’s back disappeared from sight, the watchers scattered.
Watchmen, smallfolk, everyone.
They drifted past Jon on their way out, and every single one of them looked at him the same way.
Up on The Wall, the coldness of men’s hearts cut deeper than the cold.
Jon hadn’t run.
That much was true.
When Thorne had pushed, Jon had pushed back, and that wasn’t nothing.
But a loss was still a loss.
And he had been the one to pick the fight, overreaching in front of the whole yard.
If this broke him, if he let himself slide from here, no one would look at him again.
When Jon finally got his breath back, he found only Leon still there.
Edd had gone.
“Are you the only one who stayed to enjoy the show?” Jon’s first words landed like a slap.
Leon hadn’t expected that.
This is payback, Leon thought.
For stabbing the Dragon Queen in the finale.
He’d had comfort lines ready.
Every one of them died in his throat.
He managed one.
“A gentleman’s revenge can wait ten years.”
Jon went quiet.
Maybe it was the first time in 15 years anyone had said something that cut that deep in the right direction.
The shame, the anger, the sick helpless feeling, it all burned off.
Like smoke.
Gone.
After a long moment, Jon looked up and gave Leon a single nod.
➤ Next: Night’s Watch Selection — Not Just Anyone Can Join the Watch