At the tail end of 297 AC, only a little more than a year remained before Eddard Stark would travel south to King’s Landing to serve as Hand of the King.
That year passed faster at Winterfell than Aven had imagined.
He had once thought that a person carrying two souls in one body could never truly belong anywhere.
But Westeros had a particular quality.
It didn’t ask where you came from.
It only asked whether the same blood ran in your veins.
Eddard Stark gave him an identity.
The Stark children gave him a place.
And he, over the course of a year, made that place his own.
With Robb, he was a sparring partner on the training ground and a classmate in military lessons.
The two were close in age and build, and their wins and losses ran about even.
Robb’s swordsmanship was fiercer; Aven’s was trickier.
Ser Rodrik liked to say that between the two of them, you’d have one complete knight.
In coursework, Aven carried more of the weight.
The lessons on southern house genealogies and the economic arteries of the Seven Kingdoms put Robb to sleep, but Aven knew that knowledge would matter someday.
With Arya, he was an accomplice.
Whenever Lady Catelyn appeared with a frown and said, “Arya, there is mud on your dress again,” Aven would materialize in the doorway at precisely the right moment.
“Lady Catelyn, the maester sent me to find Arya, he says today we are to study noble heraldry.”
Catelyn knew it was an excuse.
She also knew Arya would actually learn something when Aven was involved, so she looked the other way.
In exchange, Arya promised him she would sit through at least one serious etiquette lesson a week, though she always looked like the chair was full of thorns.
With Bran, he was the storyteller.
Bran loved hearing tales from beyond the Wall, wildling tribes, ruins left behind by the Children of the Forest, legends of the Night’s Watch.
Aven took the things he’d absorbed in his previous life and repackaged them as “stories the old wet nurse used to tell back in Karhold.”
Bran always asked “And then what?” when a story ended, and Arya always mocked him for “still being such a child.” But Aven could see something in Bran’s eyes that other children didn’t have.
A hunger for the unknown.
It burned quietly, like a small flame that never quite went out.
As for Lord Eddard’s eldest daughter Sansa, Aven kept his manner polite and his distance consistent.
He knew how her story played out.
Her performance in the original was hard to sum up charitably.
Aven had no patience for fools.
Then there was Theon, wherever Robb and Aven were, Theon was sure to be nearby.
And finally, Jon Snow.
Aven had put the most thought into him.
Jon was younger than Robb, but he seemed older.
Not in body.
In the eyes.
That particular silence bastards carried, learned young, from years of making yourself smaller under the weight of other people’s stares.
Every time Lady Catelyn said the word “Snow” in front of everyone, her tone perfectly measured, her phrasing perfectly civil, and yet the message underneath, you do not belong here, sharper than any open insult, Aven would find Jon afterward. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
And today, what often happened, happened again.
“That is not your fault,” Aven said.
It was the sentence he had spoken more than any other.
“It’s fine, Aven.” Jon gave the same answer every time, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
“I’m used to it by now.”
Today had gone like this: Lady Catelyn walked past the training yard, and her gaze swept over Jon without stopping.
No pause, no acknowledgment, but that deliberate absence said more than a glare ever could.
Jon’s sword slowed by half a beat.
His opponent knocked the weapon from his hand.
Aven sat on a wooden stump at the edge of the yard and held out a waterskin when Jon walked over.
“‘Used to it’ doesn’t look like that,” Aven said.
Jon took the waterskin, drank, and didn’t look at him.
“You still care.
Don’t you?”
Jon was quiet for a long time.
Across the yard, Robb was sparring with Ser Rodrik, the clash of sword against shield ringing out in rapid, heavy bursts.
“I just don’t understand.” Jon’s voice came out low, as if it were meant only for the mud at his feet.
“Why is it that no matter what I do — no matter how well I train, how hard I study, how far to the side I walk in the corridors — I still can’t get her to look at me like I belong here?”
He lifted his head.
The confusion in his eyes was the kind Aven rarely saw on someone so young.
“Is it just because my name is Snow?”
A memory surfaced in Aven’s mind.
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Rhaegar Targaryen.
Lyanna Stark.
The Tower of Joy.
A hidden infant.
A secret kept for a lifetime.
Jon Snow’s name was not Snow.
His name was Targaryen.
He was the blood of dragon and wolf.
Heir to a claim that could shatter kingdoms.
Eddard Stark’s own nephew, not a bastard.
And this secret, Eddard Stark had not even shared with his wife.
He would rather let Catelyn resent Jon for the rest of their lives.
Would rather carry the stain of fathering a bastard on his own reputation.
All to keep the promise he had made to his sister.
Aven opened his mouth.
Your name isn’t Snow, you’re a Targaryen?
He couldn’t.
The secret wasn’t his.
And he had no proof.
What business would the third son of Karhold have knowing the truth of what happened at the Tower of Joy?
Speaking would only make Eddard suspicious.
Make everyone suspicious.
But he couldn’t say nothing either.
“Jon,” Aven said, measuring his words carefully, “you — ”
Robb walked toward them, brows drawn together, expression tight.
Aven caught it in the corner of his eye: a soldier had just said something to Robb.
“Father has summoned you.”
Robb’s gaze lingered on Jon for a moment.
He said nothing else, clapped Jon once on the shoulder, and turned to go.
Aven and Jon exchanged a glance, then followed.
Beyond Winterfell’s walls, the open countryside lay quiet under a pale sky.
Wind came from the north, and it had teeth.
A dozen soldiers stood in a loose half-circle, a thin skin of frost clinging to their armor.
Eddard Stark stood at the front, the great Valyrian steel greatsword Ice belted at his side.
The wolf’s head on the pommel caught the flat gray light in a cold gleam.
The blade was so long its tip nearly grazed the earth.
Robb took his place behind Eddard on the right.
Aven stood beside Robb, Jon beside Aven, and Theon Greyjoy on Robb’s other side.
Bran was at the back of the group, too short to see over the others, already up on his toes.
“What’s happening?” Bran looked up and asked Aven quietly.
Aven shook his head.
He was already looking past the crowd,
Two soldiers were marching a man forward between them.
The man wore black, but the cloak was so thoroughly destroyed it barely held its shape.
Cuffs and collar worn pale, a ragged hole torn through the knee, the skin beneath frostbitten purple.
His hair was a tangled mess plastered across his face.
His beard was packed with dead leaves and clots of mud.
He looked like something dragged up from the bottom of a bog.
A man of the Night’s Watch.
Aven’s chest tightened.
Had it begun?
➤ Next: The Story Begins