When Jon opened his eyes again, he was lying on the hard wooden bed in his cramped pantry room.
The impossible encounter he had just lived through in the deepest part of his mind should have left anyone shaken, but his dark purple eyes stayed as calm and still as an ancient well.
Meeting the legendary first queen of Westeros—Visenya Targaryen—across time and space had been a shock even for him.
With Foresight Vision as his greatest weapon, he still hadn’t seen that particular surprise coming.
He already understood the most important detail: time inside that black nexus moved on its own rules, completely separate from the real world.
In his mind he had spent days being hammered by Visenya’s brutal training, rolling in the dirt under the edge of Dark Sister.
Out here, only a few hours had passed.
It felt like nothing more than a short afternoon nap.
The memory of that iron-willed old woman—old in years but still terrifyingly strong—pressing the tip of that famous Valyrian steel sword to his throat made the corner of Jon’s mouth lift in a small, genuine smile of enjoyment.
He rolled out of bed, walked barefoot to the bucket in the corner, and splashed his face with the freezing water until the northern cold woke every nerve.
Breakfast was the part of the day he looked forward to most.
This morning felt heavier than usual.
It might be the last time in a long while he would sit at the same table as his uncle, Eddard Stark.
Only six years after Robert Baratheon’s rebellion ended the Targaryen dynasty, the Lord of the North was about to ride out again—this time to crush the Greyjoy uprising.
Jon checked his plain black clothes, found nothing wrong, and walked out without hesitation.
The grey-stone corridors of Winterfell were loud with armed men and hurrying servants.
Some looked at him with open curiosity.
Others made no effort to hide their contempt.
Most simply walked past as if he didn’t exist.
An ordinary six-year-old might have broken under that treatment.
Jon had long since stopped caring which was worse—being stared at like filth or being treated like air.
After six years he was immune.
He walked straight to the great hall where the entire castle ate.
The heavy doors creaked open.
Heat and the smell of roast meat and ale rolled over him.
At the high table sat his “family” with several important northern lords.
The most noticeable were the massive Greatjon Umber and, from Bear Island, Jorah Mormont and his aunt Maege Mormont.
Jon gave Jorah one extra glance.
Foresight Vision had already shown him the future—how the man would sell his own people into slavery just to please a vain southern woman of House Hightower.
Otherwise Jon wouldn’t have wasted the effort.
“You came, Jon. Sit beside me.”
The calm, steady voice belonged to Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.
Jon studied him without expression.
Ned was still young—only twenty-six—with dark brown hair to his shoulders and grey eyes that could be soft as mist or hard as crypt stone depending on his mood.
Next to him sat the legitimate heir, six-year-old Robb Stark, tearing into a greasy chicken leg.
Red-brown curls, bright blue eyes—every inch his mother’s southern blood, a smaller male Tully.
On Ned’s left sat Catelyn Stark of House Tully.
Beautiful, elegant, with a waterfall of red hair and sapphire eyes that stood out sharply in the rough North.
If Jon hadn’t lived under her cruelty, he might have believed the pretty face belonged to a kind and virtuous wife and mother.
Reality had taught him otherwise.
In his judgment she was a useless ornament of a wife—an outsider with no respect for the ancient northern ways that had stood for thousands of years.
When she chose to be cruel, she could be colder and more vicious than winter itself.
She had cursed him to die more than once and found countless petty ways to make a defenseless child’s life miserable.
In her arms she held baby Sansa, the eldest Stark daughter, not yet a year old.
The infant already looked like a tiny copy of her mother.
Right now Sansa was the sweetest little angel in the world.
Jon knew that if nothing changed, she would grow into her mother’s perfect image—head full of empty southern dreams about princes and knights.
If he didn’t step in, those dreams would one day cost her blood and tears.
Those problems could wait.
Jon walked to the high table and sat beside Robb, ignoring the lethal glare burning into the side of his head.
“Hey, I thought you weren’t getting up today,” Robb said around a mouthful of chicken, grinning.
When Robb’s clear blue eyes met Jon’s dark purple ones, the smile was open and completely without guile.
In Robb’s heart they were brothers, blood or not.
They would live and die together.
Jon shrugged.
“Army moving around all night. Sounded like they were tearing the place down. Hard to sleep.”
Robb nodded, still chewing.
Jon tore off a piece of black bread.
The moment he put it in his mouth he felt that snake-like stare wrap around him again.
He lifted his eyes and met Catelyn’s cold blue ones.
She looked at him like he was something she wanted to scrape off her boot.
Jon swallowed, took a sip of water, and turned to her with calm, almost innocent curiosity.
“Is there a problem, Lady Stark?”
The hall went quiet.
Every northern lord stopped eating and turned to watch.
Catelyn forgot her husband was sitting right there.
In front of all his sworn men she spoke in the sharpest, most poisonous voice she could manage.
“A baseborn bastard has no right to sit at this table.”
The air turned to ice.
Robb froze mid-chew, staring at his mother in hurt confusion.
Ned’s face darkened with real anger.
Robb was upset because his mother had attacked the boy he saw as a brother.
Ned was furious because his wife had aired their private shame in front of his vassals and shown no respect for his authority.
What would these proud northern lords think of a man who couldn’t even keep his own wife in line?
Before the silence could choke the room, Jon laughed—clear and light.
Every head turned toward the six-year-old.
He set his cup down.
There was no fear in him at all.
“If I remember correctly, it was Lord Stark himself who gave me permission to sit here. As a sworn man of the North, my only duty is to obey my lord without question.” Jon’s eyes sharpened.
“So, Lady Tully, are you telling everyone that your wishes now stand above the will of your husband—the Warden of the North?”
He didn’t give her time to answer.
“And the way you’re acting doesn’t seem to match the reputation of a devout follower of the Seven who holds our ancient northern traditions in complete contempt.”
The words landed like a blade.
The northern lords had never liked their lord marrying a southern woman steeped in the ways of the Seven.
When she had built a sept inside Winterfell itself—the heart of the Old Gods—that resentment had already been burning.
Jon had just thrown oil on the fire.
Dozens of cold, hostile eyes locked onto Catelyn.
She went pale, then flushed dark with shame and rage.
Jon sat back and prepared to enjoy the show.
She had dug her own grave.
He didn’t need to push her in.
In his mind he judged her again: pretty face, head full of straw.
No political sense whatsoever.
In this age most noblewomen received almost no real education, so it wasn’t surprising.
Truly dangerous women were rare.
The Queen of Thorns in Highgarden was the kind of woman worth fearing.
Catelyn could feel the open hostility from every direction.
Her cheeks burned.
She had been publicly cut down by the bastard she hated most, and now the entire North was looking at her like she was a traitor to her own lord.
She had forgotten one important detail.
Eddard Stark was still sitting at the head of the table.
“Enough. That’s enough.”
Ned’s voice cracked through the hall like winter ice.
The lords looked away and went back to their food, though Jon caught the lingering disgust in Greatjon Umber’s and Maege Mormont’s eyes.
Jon decided to let it go.
He went back to his bread.
When he felt Ned’s warning glare land on him, he instantly switched to wide-eyed innocence and had the nerve to wink at the Warden of the North.
Ned snorted in irritation and went back to eating.
Jon knew the man was already planning a thorough thrashing once the war was over.
Jon wasn’t worried.
Once Ned marched out to fight the Greyjoys, control of Winterfell would pass to a regent.
That regent would be Catelyn Stark—the woman who currently wanted to skin him alive.
He could already see how it would go.
While Ned was gone she would use every scrap of power she had to make his life a living hell.
Jon felt no fear at all.
If she pushed too hard he had plenty of dark ways to make her regret it down to her bones.
And even if she threw him out of the castle, he could survive in the wolfswood for months with what he knew and what he could do.
No pressure.
So he genuinely did not care what happened after Ned left.
“Really sorry, Jon… about my mother…”
Robb leaned closer, voice low and full of guilt.
Unlike the future Sansa, who would be completely poisoned by her mother’s values, Robb had always seen Jon as a true brother.
His mother’s attack felt like a knife in his own chest.
“Put it out of your mind, brother. If I let every whisper and every look get to me, I would’ve hanged myself a hundred times by now.”
Jon clapped Robb firmly on the shoulder and gave him a real smile.
Emotion worked both ways.
Because Robb had accepted him without reservation, Jon had accepted Robb the same way.
In all of Winterfell they were inseparable, especially when they trained together.
Robb’s face cleared at once.
The bright grin returned as he went back to his food and started telling Jon about everything he planned to do for the rest of the day.