Inside the time nexus, days had slipped by without clear meaning.
The training with both queens had only grown stricter and more demanding.
After another long session on court etiquette and noble bearing, Jon and Rhaenys finally took a break on one of Dragonstone’s wide sea-facing balconies.
They sat at a carved round table while Visenya stood a short distance away, a glass of bright fruit juice in her hand, watching the dark, churning waters of the Narrow Sea.
“Jon,” Rhaenys said lazily, leaning back in her chair, “there’s something I’ve never asked. You know your true name is Aenar, yet in your own mind you still prefer to be called Jon. Why?”
Rhaenys sounded bored.
Teaching posture and manners to a six-year-old was torture for a woman who had once loved music, poetry, and flying her dragon across open skies.
The only real pleasure she found in these months was the boy himself.
Jon set his glass down and met her eyes.
“Because I want to enjoy being an ordinary person while I still can,” he answered calmly.
“As Jon Snow the bastard, I can go anywhere and do anything without anyone truly caring. That cheap freedom is something the future Aenar Targaryen will never be allowed to have. Once that name echoes across the continent, he stops being a man and becomes a living god.”
Visenya turned from the railing, frowning.
“And how exactly do you plan to make the entire continent worship you as a god?”
“Simple,” Jon said.
“I’ll give them hope.”
He looked out over the black water.
A cold wind tangled his white-gold hair, but his purple eyes stayed warm.
“I will shape myself into the savior they need. I will promise them redemption. And the future I have already seen through Foresight Vision will become the future they believe in with all their hearts.”
His voice grew sharper, carrying the weight of command.
“They will spread my name into lands that refuse to kneel. They will bring death and chaos wherever they go. They will become an army of fanatics who obey every order I give, no matter how cruel, because they believe my every word is absolute truth.”
The two queens fell silent.
For the first time they saw not a boy, but a lonely king already carrying a burden heavier than the one Aegon had borne under his dragon dreams. This chapter was taken from novelping(.)com without permission.
Rhaenys’s voice softened with real pity.
“Then why not simply run? Let this broken world burn itself out. Take whatever happiness you can find and leave the rest behind.”
Jon shook his head.
“Because running would only make the disasters worse. It’s better to ride the current of fate and steer it than to fight it head-on.”
He looked at both women without any trace of self-pity.
“I can’t tell any of my so-called family these things. They would think I’m mad. But you two lived beside Aegon. You understand what it means to carry prophecies that crush ordinary men. That’s why I can speak freely here.”
Rhaenys studied him for a long moment, then sighed.
“Good luck, Jon Snow.”
Jon smiled, calm and certain.
“The winds of fate are already at my back. All I have to do is sail.”
…
Six months later.
The wolfswood lay deep under fresh snow.
Jon stood in a clearing while Korakshu’s massive crimson head rested beside him.
The dragon’s body heat had melted the snow for yards in every direction, turning the air warm and shimmering.
Kinvara and the rest of the red priests were gone.
Only one hidden contact remained.
The rest had returned to Essos carrying Jon’s orders and the new holy book he had written for them.
The scripture was nothing like the old red god’s teachings.
Jon had rewritten everything—stories, names, lessons—until it fit the soil of both continents.
It taught hope, order, and loyalty to the savior who would end the Long Night.
Kinvara would spread it like wildfire among the smallfolk.
The Hands of the Sacred Fire would grow from a temple guard into a massive army of fanatical soldiers loyal only to him.
Jon had also ordered the creation of a new sisterhood inside the faith—”Daughters of the Emperor.” Women trained as assassins, spies, and seductresses.
They would become his hidden eyes and blades in every lord’s castle.
“(Korakshu, my uncle’s army returns in two weeks. I have to go back to Winterfell.)”
The dragon snorted a plume of hot smoke and made a low, unhappy sound.
Jon rested his hand on the burning scales.
“(Don’t worry. As my power grows, I’ll find more ways to visit you.)”
He stroked the hilt of the star-forged sword at his hip—Lady Lyanna.
The pale blade caught the cold light.
“I’m leaving. Remember the rules. Only fly at night. Stay inside the forest during the day.”
Korakshu turned its head away in a very human show of sulking.
Jon smiled faintly, then turned and began walking back through the snow toward Winterfell.
The trip had given him more than he expected—some things planned, others pure gifts from fate.
He preferred the unexpected ones.
They were harder to control, and therefore more interesting.
He paused once and looked back.
The clearing where the dragon waited was already lost among the endless dark trees.
His greatest secret was hidden inside the oldest maze in the North.
Jon drew a long breath that fogged in the freezing air.
Then he set his face into something harder and kept walking.
The sleeping gears of fate had begun to turn.
Soon they would shake the entire world.