The first light of dawn had not yet burned away the winter chill when the warhorses began to scream and the banners snapped outside Winterfell.
The day after that tense breakfast, Eddard Stark led his loyal northern army out on campaign once more.
Thirty-five thousand battle-hardened men marched south, along with several fierce women warriors from Bear Island.
Most of these fighters had already been tempered in the bloody rebellion that ended the Targaryen dynasty.
Along the long road they would pick up another fifteen thousand men answering the call, swelling the host to a terrifying fifty thousand strong—a war machine rolling toward the front.
Westeros was fighting its first full-scale war since Robert’s Rebellion.
Later generations would call it the Greyjoy Rebellion.
For six-year-old Jon, Ned’s departure meant something else entirely.
While the Lord of the North was gone, Catelyn Stark would rule Winterfell as regent with absolute power over life and death.
To deny her any excuse to torment or quietly kill him, and to avoid pointless household scheming, Jon made his choice.
After a quick goodbye to the only brother he truly cared about, Robb, Jon took nothing but a sharp dagger, a little water, and enough hard bread and dried meat to last a few days.
Then he turned and walked straight into the vast, dark, and deadly wolfswood.
Inside the castle, the sudden disappearance of an unwanted bastard caused no ripples.
Only Robb cared whether Jon lived or died.
Even under Catelyn’s harsh questioning, the young heir kept his mouth shut.
Everyone else simply shrugged.
Winter was coming.
People had their own survival to worry about.
Why waste energy on a lowly bastard?
The wolfswood was a green maze that covered half the North.
Ancient oaks twisted toward the sky like they carried old curses.
Sentinel trees, soldier pines, thorny hawthorns, beeches, ashes, chestnuts, ironwoods, firs, and towering giant pines wove together into a canopy that blotted out the sun.
In the deepest shadows grew the rare weirwoods—pale trunks and blood-red leaves that looked both holy and terrifying.
The forest fed life and death in equal measure.
Direwolves ran in packs.
Enormous brown bears lumbered through the undergrowth.
Wild boars were vicious.
Deer and elk moved in herds.
Foxes, rabbits, and shadowcats slipped between the trees.
Black squirrels darted overhead.
In the damp streams, fierce predatory fish hunted.
And in the darkest hollows lurked spiders the size of small dogs.
The wolfswood was no place for kindness toward men.
For a thin, six-year-old boy it was a death trap.
His soft flesh would be the finest meal any predator in these woods could dream of.
Jon knew exactly how dangerous it was.
From the first step he took beneath the trees, every movement and every footfall demanded total focus.
He pushed his mind as hard as he could, activating Foresight Vision again and again.
The gift let him sense danger before it arrived, allowing him to slip past packs of hungry direwolves and irritable giant bears like a veteran hunter.
But Foresight Vision was not an endless well.
Overuse drained him badly.
During one brief moment when he had to shut it off to rest his mind, death found him anyway.
He stumbled straight into a starving brown bear the size of a small hill, its eyes red with hunger.
If his body had not been hardened by brutal training, if he had not reacted instantly and used the dense trees to dodge and weave before finally squeezing into a narrow crevice between two massive trunks where the bear’s claws could not reach, he would have died then and there.
A six-year-old with nothing but a short dagger had no business fighting a raging giant bear in open combat.
That would have been suicide dressed up as bravery.
What should have been a half-day ride or walk turned into five exhausting, terrifying days.
On the evening of the fifth day, Jon finally pushed through thick brush into a relatively open clearing covered in green grass.
At the far end rose a tall, sheer stone cliff.
At its base yawned a huge, light-swallowing cave mouth.
Jon was covered in mud and grass, his clothes torn by thorns.
He was exhausted and starving.
He half-collapsed onto the soft grass, breathing hard, eyes locked on the dark cave.
When nothing moved inside, he slowly lifted his gaze up the rock face.
Deep, shocking claw marks scarred the stone—each one nearly as tall as a grown man.
No ordinary beast could have left those.
Older, smaller marks surrounded them, a silent record of the creature’s growth over the years.
Jon stared at the marks.
After a moment his mouth curved into a satisfied, almost tender smile.
Comparing them to his last visit more than a year ago, he could see the truth clearly: his beloved winged companion had grown enormously in the last fourteen months.
The last light of sunset was fading fast.
Night in the wolfswood came quickly and brought new dangers.
Jon forced his aching body to move.
He gathered dry branches, pinecones, and stones to build a firepit.
Normally he would never dare light a fire deep in the wolfswood after dark.
The light and smoke would draw every hungry predator for miles.
But tonight was different.
This clearing belonged to the ultimate predator at the top of the food chain.
Nothing else in these woods— no matter how starving—would dare come near.
Using flint from his pack, Jon struck sparks into dry tinder.
A warm orange flame bloomed in the darkness, pushing back the northern cold and giving the empty clearing a small spark of life.
He reached into his nearly empty pack and pulled out a dead squirrel he had killed earlier with stones.
With his dagger he skinned and gutted it with practiced, almost cold efficiency.
This small animal would be his only real meal tonight.
If surviving the wolfswood by day was hard mode, night turned it into outright hell.
As Jon skewered the cleaned squirrel and set it over the flames, he heard the forest wake around him.
Wolf howls echoed from the deepest shadows.
The sound seemed to signal every hidden predator that the hunt had begun.
Jon showed no fear.
Years earlier he had survived alone in this forest for seven full days.
Ned had nearly torn the wolfswood apart looking for him.
With that experience behind him and Foresight Vision now stronger and more stable, this trip felt almost manageable.
The smell of roasting meat filled the cold air and made his empty stomach cramp with hunger.
Just as he was about to eat, heavy footsteps sounded from the cave mouth—slow, powerful, shaking the ground.
A low, rumbling growl followed, like distant thunder mixed with something deeper and more primal.
Jon did not reach for his dagger.
Instead, his face broke into a wide, brilliant, genuinely happy smile.
They had been apart far too long.
The footsteps grew closer.
The air around him began to heat rapidly.
A strong, acrid smell of sulfur and smoke rolled out of the cave on the breeze.
From the swallowing darkness, an enormous, terrifying dragon head emerged into the firelight.
Crimson scales like the finest rubies caught the flames and threw back a brutal, breathtaking beauty.
Any ordinary person would have died of fright on the spot.
Jon simply straightened, looked up at the massive creature, and laughed with pure joy, teeth flashing.
“(Looks like you’ve been living pretty well out here, you greedy giant.)”
He spoke in pure High Valyrian—the ancient, musical tongue of old Valyria’s dragonlords, not the bastardized trade version spoken across the Narrow Sea.
The words flowed like an old epic being sung.
The dragon answered with a high, slightly annoyed trill.
Then it lowered its huge, proud head and rested it on the grass close to Jon.
Its dark red eyes, like molten rock, stared at him with fierce focus and strange calm.
“(I’m glad to see you too, Korakshu.)”
Jon whispered the name that would have shaken all of Westeros history.
Smiling softly, he reached out with his small, muddy hands and touched the burning-hot crimson scales without hesitation.
In this cold, cruel world, being beside his dragon brother was the greatest happiness he knew.
The world believed dragons had died out one hundred and forty-four years ago in the Dance.
They were wrong.
In the year 283 AC, in this forgotten corner of the wolfswood, a dragon had returned.
Korakshu had hatched from an egg that simply appeared inside the hidden cave.
It broke free on the exact same day Jon was born.
Even while still an infant in his cradle far away, Jon had seen every moment of the hatching through Foresight Vision.
A fated bond had formed between them from the first breath—blood calling to blood across distance, tying their fates together.
Jon cut the roasted squirrel neatly in half with his dagger.
He kept one half for himself and tossed the other straight into Korakshu’s enormous, fang-filled maw.
For a dragon of this size the portion was nothing, but the act of sharing food was sacred.
It was how bonds were forged and strengthened, how generosity and loyalty were shown.
Jon took a big bite of his own piece, spat out tiny bones, and looked up at his partner with a teasing half-smile.
“(Don’t think I don’t know. Even though you’ve been careful and only fly at night, these past months there have still been rumors all across the North about a giant crimson beast weaving through the clouds.)”
Korakshu let out a sharp, protesting trill and turned its massive head away like a sulky child.
Jon rolled his eyes.
He knew the dragon hated this hiding, hated being forced to live like a rat when it was born to rule the sky.
Being separated from its only rider made it even worse.
“(I know this life disgusts you,)” Jon said, gently stroking the hot scales.
His voice stayed patient and steady.
“(But it matters. I need you to grow in complete silence and secrecy, without any interference, until your size alone can shake the continent. Just hold on for six more years. After that, we return to the skies together and pour fire and war across this arrogant, lying continent.)”
Jon never gave orders to Korakshu.
In their bond they were equals—comrades, soul-bound brothers.
Not master and dragon.
The great beast was still reluctant, but it accepted.
It bumped Jon’s tiny body gently with its huge head.
Even that careful touch carried enough force to nearly knock the six-year-old into the mud.
Jon caught his balance, looked into those burning eyes, and laughed out loud.
He kept eating the cooling meat.
In this cold and lonely world, having this magnificent being at his side—his truest friend and blood brother—brought him a peace and satisfaction he had never known before.