Jon exhaled a thick plume of white breath and swept his gaze across the endless white.
The deeper he rode toward the Wall, the more vicious the cold became.
It clawed at exposed skin and turned breath to ice in seconds.
He wondered, not for the first time, how the wildlings north of the Wall survived this frozen hell year after year.
Through the swirling snow he spotted a small clearing ringed by old trees.
Scattered stones and the blackened remains of old fire pits marked it as a long-abandoned campsite—probably used by travelers heading north over the years.
Jon swung down from his horse and gave the sturdy animal’s neck a firm pat.
“Good lad. You’ve done well.”
He tied the reins to a thick tree trunk, then unstrapped the star-forged sword—Lady Lyanna—from the saddle and buckled it at his hip.
This was not the safety of Winterfell.
Wildling raiders who had slipped south of the Wall were always a possibility out here.
Going unarmed would be stupid.
He struck flint to tinder with practiced ease and soon had a crackling fire going.
The orange flames pushed back the worst of the cold for him and the horse.
Jon pulled a strip of dried meat from his pack and chewed it without ceremony while feeding the animal handfuls of frozen leaves and dry grass he scraped from under the snow.
Three days out from Winterfell.
According to the maps in his head, he was only a few miles from Long Lake.
The snow had been lighter than expected, and the journey had gone faster than planned.
Even the weather seemed eager to hurry him toward Castle Black.
He would have to keep his face covered from here on.
Some of the older northern soldiers who had fought beside Ned might recognize him.
The last thing he needed was gossip reaching the capital and drawing the attention of the Spider.
Jon leaned back against an ancient tree, the sword resting across his shoulders, and stared into the dancing flames.
Exhaustion pulled at him, but he refused to let himself fall into deep sleep.
Rhaenys had turned dream-invasion into a nightly ritual.
The moment he slipped too far under, she would appear—treating him like a fragile little brother she had to shield from the world with that fierce, almost desperate protectiveness.
He didn’t mind the company in theory.
But being held and fussed over like a child grated on him.
He was no ordinary boy.
He had been chosen.
A true king had no childhood—only duty and the crushing weight of what was coming.
Even now, while the rest of the realm slept, he trained.
In the waking world and in the dream-realm, Visenya and Rhaenys hammered him with blood magic, strategy, courtcraft, and the brutal realities of power.
Twelve hours a day, nine of them spent in merciless training.
All of it to survive the game that was coming and lift House Targaryen higher than it had ever stood before.
A faint crack of breaking branches reached his ears.
The forest went deathly still.
He spoke in a flat, calm voice.
“If you just want to warm yourselves by the fire, I’ll make room. If you’re here to cause trouble, I’ll open your throats before you take another step.”
For several long seconds there was only the hiss of snow hitting the flames.
Then a rough, arrogant laugh shattered the quiet, followed by the heavy crunch of boots in snow.
“Ha! This southern wolf pup’s got stones!”
Jon’s mouth twitched.
First time anyone had called him a southerner since he left Winterfell.
He slowly raised his head.
Three wildlings stood at the edge of the firelight.
The leader was a big, broad-shouldered man in ragged furs.
A second man and a black-haired, blue-eyed woman flanked him.
All three looked half-feral, hair tangled, faces wind-burned, and they smelled like they hadn’t bathed in weeks.
Wildlings.
Or “free folk,” as they called themselves.
Jon remained perfectly still, one hand resting on the hilt of Lady Lyanna.
A ten-year-old boy facing three armed adults should have been terrified.
Jon felt nothing but calm assessment.
With Foresight Vision showing him every move they would make before they made it, these three were no real threat.
The big man—Cranna—studied Jon with open surprise.
Most boys his age would have pissed themselves by now.
“Since you’re offering to share your fire so generous-like, we’d be poor company to turn it down, little wolf,” Cranna said with a yellow-toothed grin.
He dropped onto a log across from Jon without invitation.
The other two followed.
In the firelight Cranna got a better look at the boy’s fine clothes and the beautiful sword across his knees.
Noble blood, he decided.
Some highborn brat who’d run off from a northern keep.
The woman, Grace, stared at Jon’s face and went very still.
Even out here in the frozen wilds, she had never seen anyone so strikingly handsome.
Cranna and the other man noticed her expression and burst into crude laughter.
“Look at Grace! She’s ready to drag the pretty lad back to her tent and make him her husband!”
Grace’s face darkened.
She punched both men hard in the shoulders.
“Shut your filthy mouths, you idiots!”
Cranna rubbed his shoulder, still chuckling.
“That look in your eyes is worse than any ice spider, woman.”
“Cozy little family of three,” Jon said dryly, tossing another branch onto the fire.
The flames leapt higher.
In that sudden flare of light, Jon’s deep purple eyes glowed with an unnatural, cold phosphorescence.
Cranna felt ice race down his spine.
Real fear—something he hadn’t felt in years—clamped around his heart.
This boy was wrong.
Deeply wrong.
Jon smiled, and the expression was anything but boyish.
“If you keep heading toward Winterfell, you’ll die. Your heads will be cut off by Ice, the Stark greatsword, and roll across the ground like balls.”
Cranna’s hand tightened on his axe.
“How the fuck do you know where we’re going?”
“Because I’ve already seen it,” Jon answered, tearing off another piece of jerky and chewing calmly.
“Your skulls bouncing in the mud.”
The wildlings went pale.
They knew magic.
They prayed to weirwoods and feared the things that lived beyond the Wall.
They recognized real power when they saw it.
Jon flicked a bone into the fire.
“Do something for me and I’ll make sure you reach safety. A place where no one will hunt you.”
Cranna swallowed hard.
“Name it.”
“Cross back over the Wall. Deliver a message to Mance Rayder.”
All three wildlings flinched like they’d been struck.
“I’m never going back there,” Grace snarled, voice cracking with old terror.
“Never.”
The two men didn’t speak, but the dread on their faces was answer enough.
Getting south of the Wall had nearly killed them.
Going back would be suicide.
“Don’t worry,” Jon said mildly.
“You’ll have a guide.”
He pointed upward.
The three wildlings followed his finger.
Perched on a thick branch just above the firelight sat a large black raven.
In the center of its forehead gleamed a single, enormous, impossibly deep eye.
The three-eyed crow.
None of them breathed.