[Kill The Boy] Chapter 73: The Extinguished Torch (Patreon)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all rights for character, plots and settings belong to GRRM. I have no ownership.

A/N: Ooof, we get through a lot in this chapter. That ending tho :D

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Year 300 AC

Winterfell, The North

Winterfell came up through cloud-shadow. The godswood was a dark heart against the snow, and smoke lifted from the kitchen stacks in white ropes. Aemon banked east, and the soldiers on the outer wall turned upward as he passed over them, their hands lifting and their mouths moving on words the wind did not let through. He angled for the inner yard, where the keep waited.

He set his hind limbs down first, then his forelimbs, and his weight settled until the slush pulped beneath his feet. He lowered one shoulder so the passengers could climb off.

Arya slid down first, Blackfyre across her back and a bundle of Eastwatch clothes tucked under one arm. Meera came after, spear planted point-down for balance. Hodor stepped clear while he helped Bran down and got him upright on his feet. Leaf and the singers drifted off at the tail, small shapes the soldiers along the wall watched with the flat attention they gave everything else now.

Aemon's eyes swept the yard. Sansa stood at the keep doors, her breath rising in a thin wisp against the cold and her eyes only on the newcomers. Ghost sat at her feet, red eyes fixed on the him, between Val and Sansa. Rickon waited at the by Sansa's other side with Osha's hand on his shoulder. He had grown in the months Aemon had been south, and his head cleared Osha's elbow now. Wyman Manderly held the front of the few Northern lords still in the yard, broad as a tower gate, one hand resting on his pommel.

The warg-bond woke without being asked. For a blink Aemon had the yard twice, through his own sight and through the wolf's, and Ghost's inventory of scent came up at once: Stark, wolf, home. Aemon pulled back from the bond, it was neither the time or place.

Summer loped across the yard toward the kennels, and Shaggydog answered from somewhere inside the keep. Ghost rose from Sansa's feet and went to meet them both. The three direwolves found each other near the kennels in a low whine and a tangle of noses and shoulders. When the greeting had been said, the wolves settled onto their haunches where they were, three white-and-grey-and-black shapes keeping one another in sight.

Sansa was the first to move. She paused a half-second before her foot took the first step. She crossed the yard and put a hand on Bran's arm.

"You are walking," she said, her voice dropping.

"With help," Bran said.

"I refused to dream of seeing you again. To have you back—and you are whole".

She wrapped her hands around Bran in a fierce hug. Then she turned to Arya. The two of them looked each other up and down. They moved at the same time, meeting in the middle to hug wordlessly.

"You came home," Sansa said, a crack in her voice. "I—"

"I know, Sansa." Arya kept her face pressed into Sansa’s shoulder. "The last time... I said things I should have kept buried. Before they took him."

Sansa's breath went out of her. "I said worse. I was worse."

"You were a child," Arya said, pulling back.

A choked laugh escaped Sansa. "We are still children, Arya."

They held each other a moment longer until Rickon finally broke.

He had held still next to Osha for as long as a child could, and the bargain cracked the moment Bran lifted one hand to wipe a tear on his own face. Rickon hit him at full speed, and Bran caught him, and the two of them staggered back a step before Hodor's hand came in to balance Bran.

"You're walking!" Rickon's voice climbed. "But… last time… how?!"

"It's a long story," Bran said. "And that story can wait for later. I am happy to see you too brother."

"Yes! I missed you, Bran. I didn't think I would see you again. And, look Osha is still with me!"

"Still breathing, then, little lord?" Her voice was a low rasp, rougher than he remembered. A fierce, jagged grin broke through the dirt and windburn on her face. "I always knew you were too stubborn for the snow to keep down. And look at ya now, standing on your own."

"I didn't have a choice," Bran said, his voice thick and wavering. He didn't try to hide it. He took a hesitant step forward, the movement still feeling like a precious, fragile gift, and closed the distance between them.

"I couldn't stay broken," he told her, looking from Osha's wind-bitten face down to Rickon. A tear spilled down his cheek, but he smiled, a genuine, blinding thing. "I had to find my way back. I promised myself I would. Thank you for keeping him safe, Osha. Thank you for keeping my brother safe."

He reached out, wrapping his arms around Rickon and pulling him tight against his chest, burying his face in his brother's wild hair.

Rickon pressed his forehead against Bran's chest and did not let go for a long time. When he pulled back his eyes were wet, but he was grinning and turned to Hodor.

"Hodor!" Rickon shouted, jumping Hodor.

"Hodor!"

Hodor lifted him off the ground with one arm under his knees, as he had done when Rickon was small, and said his word with a grin that stretched his whole face. Rickon laughed, and the sound bringing a smile to Aemon's draconic maw.

Rickon turned to Meera next. She returned the embrace briefly, without performing warmth. Then, with no filter at all, he asked her the question.

"Where is Jojen?"

Meera's face changed in a way half the yard could read. Bran did not look at her. He looked at Rickon, and replied in Meera's place.

"Later. I will tell you later."

Rickon's eyebrows drew together, but he let it drop. Then Rickon finally turned to Arya.

"Arya!"

He he launched himself again, and Arya, who had learned to dodge blades in the dark, didn't move an inch. She braced her feet against the earth and let him crash into her. She held him fiercely, tangling her fingers in his thick, matted hair, burying her face against his shoulder. Looking down at all of his sibling reunited, Aemon's heart swelled with an indescribable emotion.

When he finally pulled back, he was grinning. Arya swallowed hard, her throat thick. She reached up, her thumb trembling slightly as she brushed a smudge of dirt from his jaw. She tried to find her voice, aiming for her usual stubbornness, but it came out as a breathless, watery laugh.

"You got taller."

Rickon’s grin widened, his hands still locked tightly onto her arms, as if he were afraid she might vanish into mist if he let go. "You got smaller."

"I did not," Arya crouched to meet his eyes. "You just got bigger faster. I used to carry you on my shoulders. You would break my back now."

"We can try it now!"

"Not here. Later."

Then his eyes went across the yard and stopped on the dragon.

Aemon saw the problem from Rickon's perspective. He began to pull the fire in.

"Jon, please stop!"

Sansa's voice came across the yard, in a panicked scream. He halted his transformation.

"What's wrong?" Aemon asked, looking around for any threats.

"Not here," she said, and her voice steadied a degree. "The outbuilding, please. Satin is inside."

The dragon's blood ran too hot for him to grasp the politics at once, but the command punched through the haze. She was refusing to give the yard a naked king, and she had found the only blind spot to hide him.

Aemon turned slowly so nothing in the yard had to flinch, and paced around behind the nearest outbuilding. The violet fire ran the other direction this time, scale into skin.

One knee hit the churned slush and steam rolled off him in thick white clouds. Satin waited inside the outbuilding with Stark-black wool draped over one arm and a pair of boots set by the door. He fastened the cloak at Aemon's shoulder with quick hands.

"My lord, hold still. If you keep steaming like that, I shall need a second cloak."

Satin and another steward helped Aemon get dressed fast and as he pulled the boots on, he stepped back into the yard.

Ghost bolted from the kennels the moment Aemon appeared.

The direwolf crossed the yard in three long bounds and hit Aemon's chest hard enough that he had to kneel to take the impact. Ghost's nose pushed against his jaw, cold and wet, and Aemon's hand found the thick fur behind his ear.

"I came back," Aemon said, low, for the wolf alone. "I told you I would."

Ghost huffed once against his throat and pressed harder.

Val walked behind Ghost at her own pace. She crossed the last paces between them and reached Aemon on his second breath, and she put her palm flat on his sternum, her eyes softening as she looked at man and wolf.

His arm closed around her before the king-mask could intervene. He held her for the length of a breath with her hair against his jaw, and the scent of woodsmoke and cold pine returned to him all at once. He did not want to let go.

"Mmm… I missed this warmth," Val said quietly, into his cloak.

"It's yours as long as I am here."

"Hm." Her hand stayed flat on his chest. "Still you under it?"

"Still me."

She stepped back then, not quickly, and her hand trailed down the front of his cloak before it fell. Ghost stayed at Aemon's leg. Neither of them spoke again.

"Jon!"

Rickon came up to Aemon, getting in-between Val and him. Aemon dropped to one knee and put his arms around his younger bother as Rickon wrapped both arms around his neck.

"Did you scare the southerns?" Rickon's voice was muffled against Aemon's cloak. "I want to hear about your adventure!"

"Yes, yes I did. Now, I will tell you about my adventures if you have you been a good boy for Sansa. So, have you been a good boy?"

"Yes! She hasn't gotten angry yet. Are you going away again?"

Aemon had known it was coming the moment he dropped to his knee.

"Yes, but you are coming with me."

Rickon pushed his face deeper into Aemon's cloak, and Aemon held him. The yard was watching, and Aemon no longer cared about the yard.

Arya crossed the yard in straight lines, cutting toward Val. Ghost stood between them for a moment, his white head turning from one woman to the other, before he drifted back to Aemon's side.

Val did not step back.

"You look at him like you own him," Arya said.

"Nobody owns him," Val answered. "But I claimed him."

Arya's eyes dropped to the bone dagger at Val's hip, noting the worn leather grip, then came back up. "And what makes you think you are worthy of my brother? Do you actually know how to use that, or is it just for cutting your meat?"

"I'm a spearwife," Val said.

Arya frowned. "...A what?"

Val rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know how to fight. Would the little girl like to test that?"

Arya's jaw set, and her hand drifted toward Needle's hilt. They held each other's eyes, and the yard had gone quiet around them.

"Arya." Sansa's voice came from the keep steps. "You two can challenge each other later. Let us head inside. Now."

Arya held Val’s gaze for a moment longer, then gave a single, sharp nod. It was their father’s nod, the one that settled a thing. She turned toward the keep.

Leaf gathered the singers with a gesture too small for most of the yard to catch. They drifted toward the godswood in pairs and threes, and a low sound followed them that might have been voices or might have been wind through bare branches. The men at the gate watched them go and pretended they were not counting.

He saw Sansa’s glance slide from the Children of the Forest to him, her eyebrows lifting a fraction. What are they? her look asked.

He gave the slightest shake of his head. Long story.

Sansa’s lips pressed together, but she turned and led the way inside, her skirts whispering over the stone.

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Aemon scanned the room before he fully went in. Sansa stood behind father's table, her hands flat on either side of an open ledger, the firelight catching the sharp edge of her jaw. Lord Manderly filled the chair nearest the door, a jolly smile on his face, having a short conversation with Bran who sat next to him. Arya had taken the far wall, arms folded, watching the shadows as if she expected them to strike. Rickon and Shaggydog were a single dark shape beneath the window.

Sansa drew breath, smoothed the crease at her sleeve, and put both hands flat on either side of the open ledger. Whatever sister mask she had on in the yard a quarter-hour earlier was gone now. He noticed other changes in his sister, like she almost held herself as a warrior now and not just a lady.

She opened the ledger.

"Last Hearth is empty. The Greatjon is moving his people south, and the column reached White Harbor a few days ago." Her finger moved down the page. "The Karstark holdfasts north of the Knife are cleared. Alys took the women and children south by the kingsroad. Sigorn went back to the Wall with the men to hold it."

Manderly inclined his head once. "Many of the most northern houses have their men at the wall serving side by side with the watch."

"Bear Island is harder." Sansa's eyes stayed on the column. "The Bay of Ice has started to… freeze. Lady Maege sent her ships south before the freeze took hold and they are still en-route."

Her finger tapped the next line.

"The winter town has been emptied in waves. The first two thousand sailed with Lord Manderly's spring convoy. Another two thousand are loaded at White Harbor now. The remainder, a little over four thousand souls, move south on foot under guard from the Manderly host."

The pause that followed lasted longer.

"The Queen's Men are gone." Her voice held level. "Selyse marched them south a fortnight ago. Melisandre, Ser Davos and Shireen went with her. I sent the worst of the zealots to the Wall instead of letting them follow." She turned a page. "Ser Davos is watching over Lady Shireen so we don't have to worry about her right now."

Aemon her the implication but trusted Ser Davos to protect Shireen.

Another page. "Most of the grain from the winter town has been moved with Lord Manderly's convey. I have men culling old horses first, then lame ones. The smiths want more charcoal, the kennels want less barley and more scraps, the washerwomen want more soap. Everyone wants more than Winterfell has."

Aemon came around to look at the ledger. Her handwriting lay across every page, clear and even and relentless. He knew that handwriting from the inside. He had filled the same kind of ledger at Castle Black through every winter night of his command.

He set the ledger down. "This is good work, Sansa."

Her hands fidgeted as if she was uncomfortable with the compliment. "It's only tallies."

"The Free Folk are moving. The grain is moving. The smallfolks are moving." He tapped the book. "That's not just tallies. You have kept the North on it's course while I have been away."

From his chair, Manderly let out a soft, wheezing chuckle. "She's made my work a redundant, Your Grace. How am I to complain of aching knees when the Lady of Winterfell has done the hardest work already?"

A faint color crept into Sansa's cheeks. She looked down at the columns of numbers as if they held a new secret.

Aemon smiled at Sansa's reaction then looked past her to the lord of White Harbor.

"Lord Manderly. Start the evacuation of the rest of Winterfell. Do not worry about my siblings, I will take them myself."

Manderly inclined his head once. "Your Grace."

No flinch, no hesitation. He had been waiting for the word since before Aemon landed.

Sansa's hand pressed the ledger flat. "Jon, I will leave only when the last of the smallfolk are out."

Aemon kept his voice quiet. "You will leave before that, I have already called for the evacuation of the Wall. It has already started… cracking so this is not up for discussion."

Bran spoke from his chair, his eyes on the fire and his voice flat as a man giving the time.

"Most of the Free Folk crossed the Neck three days ago. Castle Black is being emptied as we speak. The vast majority of the small folk are either past Moat Cailin or will reach it soon." He poked at the food at the table. "Your ledger is out of date."

Sansa looked at her brother, and Bran looked up to grin at her.

She narrowed her eyes at him and with a dramatic sigh, closed the ledger.

“I see,” she said, her voice the same calm. "I understand."

Manderly planted his broad hands on the table and did the slow work of standing. Before he reached the door he turned his jowled face back to Aemon.

"An old man with aching knees and too many ships to launch cannot leave a solar this warm, Your Grace, without asking one last question of his king. Begging your patience."

"Ask it, Lord Manderly."

"Harrenhal. How many of the southern lords mean to come when the dragon calls, and how many mean to discover a sudden fever on the road, or a ship that will not sail, or a daughter gone to bed with a chill they cannot shake in a fortnight?"

"Enough will come to make the rest look like cowards in their own halls. I have talked with Prince Doran, and he understands the precipice we stand at. Daenerys brings her Essosi host and her fleet, and her two dragons. She is convincing the Reach to fall in line. With Kings Landing taken, the rest will follow. The ones who choose to ignore my call by fever and chill will be dealt with."

That drew a wheezing chuckle out of Manderly, "Lady Olenna will follow where the winds blow, marriage or no marriage to the Lannister boy. Though, Prince Doran is a slight surprise, given… shall we say your unintended history with the Martells. I am sure them seeing you in your other form changed many a minds. Well Your Grace, my lords and ladies, I shall go prepare Winterfell for departure."

He inclined his head, and the door closed behind him. The solar held only Starks now, and the fire, and the slow breath of Shaggydog against Rickon's leg.

The silence after Manderly left held for three heartbeats.

Arya unfolded from the wall.

"I heard mother came to Winterfell and the both of you met her. You should know… mother is truly dead now."

Sansa closed her eyes though Aemon can see the grief roll through her. "I see."

"I was there." Arya's voice held steady. "At the Crossroads. She had just killed Littlefinger while the inn burned down around her."

Sansa's eyes widened and looked toward Aemon, who looked at Bran. The firelight caught the sharp angle of his brother's face and gave back whatever Bran wanted it to give back, which was nothing.

Arya looked at Sansa, then at Rickon, then back again. "I tried to get her to leave but she refused. She refused to leave and…"

A rough, choked noise escaped Arya that she tried to swallow back down. Her shoulders hitched once, then again.

Rickon was already moving as he just closed the distance and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her side. Shaggydog rose with a low whine, pressing his great white head against Arya’s leg.

Sansa stood and joined her siblings as her skirts whispering over the stone, and came up behind Arya. Her arms went around both of them—Rickon’s head and Arya’s shaking shoulders—pulling them into the circle of her hold. She pressed her cheek to the top of Arya’s shorn head and closed her eyes.

After Arya sobs subsided, she finally said. "She refused to leave and… I understand now why."

Sansa's fingers stroked Arya's hair gently. "She chose it, Arya. She was… she couldn't be our mother anymore."

Arya gave one short nod. "Aye."

"She looked at me and knew." Arya's voice held level, and the level made it worse. "Gendry hauled me out. She stayed."

Aemon watched helplessly as his three siblings still in an embrace, and a jealous part of him wondered what it felt like to grieve a lost mother.

The fire had burned down to coals. No one had fed it.

Bran shifted in his chair. It was a small thing, the way he straightened his spine and set both hands on the armrests, but Aemon had learned to read his brother's body language. Bran was uncomfortable.

"There's something I need to tell you, Sansa." Bran's voice carried the same flatness he had used to correct her ledger, but slower now. "My time beyond the Wall, what I have been learning has a name. I'm a greenseer. I can see the past and present, through the weirwoods and through different animals."

Sansa tilted her head in confusion.

"Through the trees…?" she said, her voice showing her skepticism.

"Through the heart tree in the godswood. Through every weirwood root that runs under this castle." Bran's eyes stayed on the fire. "Winterfell was built by Brandon the Builder. You know that. Every child in the North knows it. What they don't teach is why the crypts go so deep. Deeper than any other keep. The First Men wanted something kept hidden under Stark blood. Generations of Starks have been crypt-keepers without knowing what they were keeping."

Bran now had Sansa's full attention.

"The Horn of Winter," Bran said. "Called by old singers the Horn of Joramun. Bran the Builder buried the Horn itself with him when he raised the Wall. What was carried south was its mouthpiece. The mouthpiece, that is currently under Winterfell. Below the kings. Below the roots. In a chamber the weirwoods can't reach." He paused. "I know it exists but I've never been able to see it."

“What comes next?” Sansa asked.

Aemon’s hands rested on the table, still. “I go down and retrieve the mouthpiece from the crypts.” His gaze stayed on Bran. “If we can join the two pieces…”

He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.

“Then we have a weapon,” Sansa said, her voice quiet.

“Then we have a chance,” Aemon corrected. “Not a victory. A chance.”

Arya's voice cut through with a snort. "At least it's something."

Bran's hands stopped picking at the food. He looked at Sansa, and something in his expression shifted, like a man about to set fire to a bridge.

"There is something else I think you need to know. About the purple wedding."

Sansa's fingers tightened once on Arya's shoulder, then released.

"Olenna Tyrell was the one who poisoned Joffrey."

The room went completely dead at the sound of the name. Sansa didn't so much as blink.

"The poison was called the Strangler. It looks like a black amethyst when it is crystallized. It was hidden in a stone on the silver hairnet Dontos gave you to wear."

Bran's voice had not changed register. He could have been reading a shipping manifest.

"Olenna palmed the stone while she was straightening the net at the feast. A small old woman's gesture. Nobody in the hall noticed. Dontos was Littlefinger's man. Littlefinger supplied the poison and the delivery."

Aemon watched his sister's face. Sansa face shifted through multiple emotions until she returned to a blank face.

She said one quiet thing.

"Good to know."

Aemon’s reaction was not carved from ice like his sister's. The heat that flooded his chest cared nothing for the realm. To hell with the grain stores, the Dornish alliances, and the ravens from Harrenhal. This was a brother's anger, and it demanded blood, not diplomacy.

Olenna Tyrell was on her way to Harrenhal. She had meant his sister to hang for a crime she did not commit. She will feel his fury.

“Olenna Tyrell,” Aemon said. His voice was low, a statement of fact that carried the weight of a sentence. “She will answer for this.”

"She made you the scapegoat," Arya said, her voice getting louder with every word. "I can be in her chamber and slit her throat with none the wiser. Just say the word, Sansa."

Sansa stepped out from between Arya and Rickon.

"No."

The word held a quiet, dangerous calculation. It was the voice of a woman who had learned from Littlefinger exactly how much pressure it took to snap someone in half, and exactly when to stop pressing.

"Jon." Sansa turned to him. Her voice stayed courteous. The courtesy had teeth in it. "If you fly to Highgarden to kill Olenna, you will lose the Reach's grain. You lose the Reach's levies no matter how much you terrify them. The Reach is interconnected by marriage and I don't want to cause more problems when you have enough problems on your shoulder."

"She manipulated you, she almost got you killed!"

"How can you let her be?!" Arya said. "She deserves to die!"

"She's bad," Rickon said, his voice a child's sharp stone. "Make her dead. Like the men who hurt Mother."

He kicked the table leg, a dull thud in the sudden quiet. "Shaggy could eat her. He's hungry."

"I am the one she tried to hang, the decision is mine." She turned to Arya. "If you kill Olenna Tyrell during the Great Council, it will wreak havoc. Mother's lesson. The hand that strikes without the house's leave takes the house down with it. I will have her at Harrenhal, I will deal with her myself."

Aemon pushed himself back from the table, the heat in his chest demanding something far simpler than diplomacy. He turned on Sansa, the protest already on his tongue, but her expression was a wall of northern ice. He swallowed the words. There was no plea in her posture. She wasn't asking his blessing; she was handing down a mandate for the pack.

He yielded. One short word. "Fine."

Arya held for a count of three. Then two words. "Fine. But if she survives this war, she won't survive me."

The caveat stayed on the table.

"I need air." Arya was at the door in three strides.

The door struck the frame hard enough to rattle the hinges. Sansa didn't move to follow and the silence settled back over the stone room. Arya needed the freezing yard and Aemon knew exactly what happened when you tried to cage a wolf that was ready to bite.

Sansa crossed to the hearth. The coals had burned low; no one had fed the fire since Manderly left. She set a single log into the ash and stayed near the mantel while it caught. Her back was to the room for a heartbeat. When she turned back, she had her breath.

"Osha."

The wildling appeared in the gap of the door. She had been waiting in the corridor, because she never stayed far from Rickon.

"Take Rickon to bed."

Osha nodded once and stayed at the threshold.

Rickon didn't truly understand the Olenna politics. He had followed that Arya was angry and that Sansa was tired.

Osha crossed and took Rickon's hand. She said something low, a rasp that was not words so much as the shape of comfort, and Rickon gave her a small nod. She nodded to Bran as she passed, and once to Sansa. The three of them, the wildling and the boy and the great black wolf, left the room.

The door closed behind Osha and Rickon, and the room changed with it.

“Jon,” Sansa said, her voice softening now. “Tell me about Daenerys.”

Ah, that's how you wish to avoid the talking about the Olenna front.

He pulled out the chair Rickon had left and sat down.

“She didn't know who I was to her but Ser Barristan knew my face,” he said. “Or enough of it. He saw Rhaegar in me and brought it to her.”

Sansa gave a small nod. She had expected that much.

“After waking from my battle with Euron, I told them who I was,” He kept his eyes on the fire. “Daenerys was shocked to have a family that yet lived and agreed to a truce that she will differ to my judgement for Harrenhal and this war.”

“That was all?” Sansa asked, raising her eyebrow.

“That was enough.”

It had been more than enough. A queen who had crossed half the world and found another dragon waiting at the end of it. He did not want to relive Barristan looking at him as if the dead had opened a door and sent Rhaegar through.

Sansa closed the distance to the table in two slow steps. Aemon recognized that sudden quiet. It wasn't the frozen hesitation of a victim; it was the dead calm of a wolf waiting for the wind to shift. She had already laid the trap in her mind, and was simply waiting to see who would be foolish enough to step into it.

“And her?” she asked. “What did you think of her?”

Sansa watched him turn the cup. He took his time answering.

"She is a queen," he said at last. "Two dragons and an army that crossed the Narrow Sea without breaking. I would rather have her at my shoulder in this war than anyone else."

"She seems to have left quite the impression on you."

"She has been sold, widowed, crowned, and betrayed in four cities and survived each one," He set the cup down. "Viserys used her as coin when she was thirteen. She walked into a funeral pyre with three stone eggs in her arms and came out with dragons. How can that not leave an impression?"

Sansa inclined her head.

"And the fire? Even I have heard of the crucifying in Essos."

"Crucifying slaver? I don't hold that against her but she has a temper. The night Marwyn named the Citadel's crimes, she wanted every maester chained by sunrise. She would have done it. I argued for a trial the realm could witness, and she changed course inside the hour. She is reasonable."

Sansa said, gently, "She seems like an interesting person but you seem to be darting around something."

The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile. He met her eyes. "She is beautiful."

He picked the cup up again.

"Judge her yourself at Harrenhal."

He looked at Bran then. He did not even need to ask at this point.

Bran, who was quiet for the most part, finally spoke. “The Reach has bent toward her,” he said. “To you. Olenna has them moving with grain, wagons, and lords. All of it.”

Sansa’s gaze shifted to him. Bran went on in the same bored tone.

“She is at sea with her fleet, heading for King’s Landing with her dragons. Rhaegal seems to be antsy.” One corner of Bran’s mouth moved. “He misses you.”

Aemon smiled at that. He felt the connection to Rhaegal even now.

Would warging into Rhaegal be possible?

The log in the hearth gave a crack and settled deeper into the coals. Sansa said nothing for a span. He could almost see the wheel moving behind her eyes.

She stopped directly in front of him, leaving him no room to look away.

"Jon. You need a wife."

He didn't answer. He would have preferred an ambush. A wildling raid, a mutiny, a knife in the dark—at least with those, he was allowed to fight his way out.

Sansa kept going given his silence.

"The Long Night offers no shelter from this. If anything, it makes them more desperate." Sansa stood with her hands clasped loosely before her, stripped of any courtly pretense. "Leave the seat empty, and the lords at Harrenhal will fill it for you. You'll have Tyrell cousins pouring your wine, Martells demanding private audiences, and every Stormlord shoving a daughter of childbearing age into your path. Lords will play their games right up until the dead breach the walls. If you mean to take a wife, do it before they corner you."

Aemon leaned forward, resting his weight against the heavy oak of his father's table. Ned Stark had sat here to judge thievery and winter stores. Now, his daughter stood on the other side, laying out the brutal, undeniable truth of wearing a crown.

She waited a beat, watching him.

“I like Val, Jon,” Sansa said then, and her voice eased a degree. “I do. More than I expected. She has even become my martial mentor.”

Sansa looked toward the door, as if the yard still lay beyond it. “And I can see it in her eyes that she cares for you.”

Aemon finally looked up. He found Sansa already watching him, her gaze set and waiting, daring him to look away first.

"I am not asking you to cast her aside. I wouldn't. She is fierce, and she is beautiful, and I understand exactly why you want her." A shadow flickered across Sansa's face. "But."

Sansa took a deep breath.

“A wildling queen causes trouble beyond the North,” Sansa said. “The Free Folk will follow where you lead. The North may grumble and come along after. The Reach will smile and sharpen knives under the table. Stormlords will laugh into their cups. Septons will preach. Dorne might take her lightly, which is another sort of insult and no better.”

She took one more step, close enough that he could see how tired she was around the eyes.

“And if she bears your child, the trouble grows teeth. Every lord with a grievance will use that child against you. The Lords will call the babe half-wild and unfit and turn to Daenerys. Every sept will join in. You know they will.”

He did. He had spent enough of his life wearing one name given in contempt to know how men used blood when it suited them.

Sansa’s voice stayed even. “If you keep her, she cannot be the only one.”

The fire popped behind her. Bran shifted in his chair, blanket rustling over the wood.

“Well, luckily Jon doesn't have that problem. A Targaryen can have two,” he said, and even Aemon could hear the grin in his voice.

Sansa never turned toward him but her mouth did twitch slightly.

Aemon leaned back in the chair.

So this was the trap closing around him. One bride to buy the realm, and one to keep the man alive. But beneath the politics lay an older, deadlier pattern. Rhaegar, Lyanna, and Elia. Another prince who believed he could have both his duty and his desire without digging a single grave. Aemon pressed his palms flat against the heavy oak table, letting the rough grain anchor him.

“Not tonight, Sansa.”

Her face gave nothing away. She had likely expected resistance, or more accurately, retreat.

He pushed himself up before his chair had even settled. “I'm exhausted. I need one night to sleep in peace. This can wait.”

That was all he had left to give. Sansa studied him, her expression locked in that calculating quiet. She saw him stepping off the path she’d laid, yet she let the snare go slack. She knew exactly when to stop pressing a blade before it snapped.

“As you wish,” she said. The tone was perfectly polite, and completely devoid of surrender.

Bran finally looked away from the hearth. A faint, knowing smile touched his face—the look of a younger brother, rather than a greenseer. He knew where this road ended, whether Aemon wanted to walk it or not.

Aemon ignored him. He scooped up Blackfyre, buckling the heavy Valyrian steel to his hip. The familiar weight of the sword helped pull his mind back to immediate, physical needs: the corridor, his bed, the crypts at dawn.

Then the door closed, leaving him alone in the freezing hall.

-----------------------------------------------------

The corridor outside Val’s room held the same biting chill as the rest of Winterfell, but the door opened before his knuckles even brushed the wood.

"Eat first."

Val stepped aside to allow Aemon through. The room smelled of rendered fat and roasting meat. A bowl of thick, steaming stew waited on the small table by the hearth, flanked by a heel of dark bread and a wedge of hard cheese. She had prepared this before he even left the solar.

Aemon lingered in the doorway a fraction longer than necessary. He just stared at her and then the food. Without comment, he went inside and sat down. Val left her boots by the door and moved to the hearth. She remained standing with her back to the fire, watching him with a content smile.

He tore the bread, dipped it, and swallowed three heavy, salt-rich mouthfuls before he realized he was eating frantically.

Val gave a short, low laugh. Aemon looked up.

"Slow down," she said, tipping her chin at his hand. "The food ain't going nowhere."

Val watched him scrape the bowl clean. In silence, she took the empty dishes to the corner and returned to the warmth of the fire.

"So, Harrenhal," she said.

She dropped the word without warning, hitting the exact center of the dread he had swallowed in the solar. Her tone possessed that flat, Free Folk pragmatism, pointing out the threat the same way you point out a frozen river blocking your path.

He looked at her. The firelight caught the sharp line of her jaw and the honey-blonde hair that had grown past her shoulders since the Wall. She held her ground by the hearth, letting him come to her.

Aemon stood up, his boots pressing into the ancient wood that held generations of Stark memory. He crossed the room and stopped directly in front of her. The pale frost from the training yard still clung to the ends of her hair, marking her as a creature of winter.

The fire ticked in the quiet.

Val's knuckles brushed his jaw once, the lightest correction, and she did not ask anything. She let the silence carry the weight his words had been working around since he came through the door. Aemon felt the tension in his shoulders slide off him in pieces too small to name.

The fire ticked.

"I keep thinking about that pond," Val said finally.

He had not expected that. The memory landed like a handful of snow against the back of his neck. Val beside him as the first stars came out, Ghost's head across her thighs, her asking what any of it was going to change.

"You asked me if knowing would change anything," he said.

"Aye. And you didn't have an answer then." Her grey eyes found his. "Got one now?"

He let his breath go.

"No."

Val's mouth curved a fraction, not quite a smile. "Good. Means you're still the same man I took up with. The harp-prince's son and Ned Stark's son both, and neither of 'em when it counts."

She reached for him then. Not a grand gesture, just her hand sliding from his jaw down to rest flat against his chest, where his heart was working too hard for a man who had been king for ten hours. Her palm stayed there until his breathing started to match the steady draw of hers.

Aemon's eyes drifted past her shoulder while her hand grounded him. The bone knife on the table, handle worn pale from honest work. Her winter-chapped fingers where a southern lady would have worn rings. Every object in the narrow chamber disagreed with the pattern his new station called for but he didn't care.

She will chart a completely different course. The thought sprouted in his head.

Her other hand moved to his collar, working the laces open. She handled the leather with the same matter-of-fact competence she used to unbuckle a saddle strap after a long ride. She took her time, letting the quiet settle around them.

"This woman," Val said. She spoke as plainly as if she were asking about the weather. "Daenerys. Your father's sister. They say your folk marry their own to keep the blood strong. Are you taking her for a queen?"

Aemon swallowed heavily against a suddenly dry throat.

"Val, I —"

Val cut off his thoughts completely. Her rough-palmed hand simply moved up to catch his jaw, using her grip to pull his mouth down to meet hers.

The kiss was fierce and demanding. It was the grounding grip of a woman who knew he was drowning in his own head, pulling him back into his body by pure physical force. Her mouth was warm, tasting purely of the winter air she’d carried in from the yard.

His arm banded around her waist, pressing her back flush against his chest. The panicked, rapid rhythm of his breathing met the steady draw of hers, settling into the familiar cadence of two people who already knew the shape of each other.

His hand slid to her hip, his thumb brushing the rough, raised tissue of an old scar he had left entirely unquestioned. The contact anchored him to the floorboards better than the stew or the fire ever could.

Rhaegar took Lyanna and broke the world. Val brought him a quiet meal.

He rested his hand against her hip, letting the thought offer a brief, hollow comfort before the shame completely overtook it. He was measuring a kingdom-shattering prophecy against a bowl of stew, desperately trying to prove he was a better man than his father.

"Stop thinking," she mumbled against his lips.

Instead of accepting his new name, she was actively rejecting the entire southern game. She saw completely past the tapestry, the prize, and the crown, choosing to remain a player far outside their board.

The realization settled heavy in his chest. She had been refusing a cage he had kept buried deep in his own mind.

"You're right, no more thinking." Aemon replies, and kissed her deeper.

Aemon closed his eyes, and got lost in Val's embrace. The crown finally slipped away, and he let the dark take him.

-----------------------------------------------------

He woke in the black hour before dawn, roughly three hours after falling asleep. His time at Castle Black had ingrained the measure of a few hours of sleep before his watch.

Val lay curled beneath the furs with her hair loose over the pillow. The coals in the hearth had sunk low, hiding a faint red glow entirely under the ash. He eased himself upright and listened to the room. Val’s breathing remained slow and steady.

He dressed by touch, working in the half-dark with the speed of old habit. Shirt, breeches, belt, and boots still marked with yard mud from the day before. Blackfyre dragged at his hip when he buckled it on. He threw the heavy cloak over his shoulders last. The fur brushed the backs of his hands, feeling entirely too much like lord’s finery.

He turned back one last time before leaving. Val had rolled toward the empty heat he had left behind, exposing one shoulder to the cold air. He crossed back and drew the edge of the fur up over her.

Her eyes stayed closed. "If death waits under there, leave it hungry," she said. "Come back breathing."

It was a perfectly practical order, delivered with the same blunt authority as telling a man to keep his feet firmly on river ice.

Aemon rested his hand on her shoulder for half a heartbeat. "Aye," he said, speaking quietly and softly.

The corridors possessed that absolute stillness unique to a castle near dawn. His boots made little sound on the flagstones. Frost silvered the inner edges of the narrow windows, catching the light of a few wall torches burning low and mean.

He took the path by the godswood. The sound reached him long before the trees came into view. It was a chorus of many voices raised in an ancient, foreign tongue, running through the dark like wind forced through too many throats at once. The thin, green sound made the hair rise along his forearms. The Children were already at work.

Two men on night watch stood near the godswood gate with spears in hand, fixing their eyes straight ahead. They wore the rigid expressions of men fiercely pretending their surroundings were completely ordinary. Good luck to them. Winterfell had abandoned ordinary a long time ago.

He crossed the lichyard with his cloak pulled close against the biting cold. Frost coated the names on the grave markers. The iron door of the crypt stair waited at the far end, rimed white around the hinges. A freezing draft rose through the gap beneath it.

He pulled the heavy iron ring. The door opened with a slow scrape, releasing air that felt significantly colder than the yard or the wall walk. It held the heavy chill of deep earth.

Bran waited just inside. He sat on the steps with a blanket pulled around him, offering very little protection against the cold climbing out of the dark. Each exhale plumed white in the air.

As Aemon stepped in the Crypt, Blackfyre gained an unnatural weight. For a normal man, it would have stopped them from moving but it was an annoyance. But he got hint and unbuckled Blackfyre, handing the sheathed sword to the boy.

Bran set both hands on the leather anyway, assuming the solemn determination of a boy asked to guard a hall far too large for him.

Aemon pulled off his cloak next. He draped the heavy fur over Bran’s shoulders, letting it fall around him in a dark spill. The fabric swallowed Bran almost to the chin, burying him entirely beneath the king’s castoffs. Bran glanced down at himself, a faint curve touching his mouth as he registered the absurdity of the sight.

"I cannot see past the threshold," Bran said, his voice dropping to a quiet whisper. "I am sorry. I would tell you if I could."

"I know, I understand Bran."

Bran’s thin fingers tightened on Blackfyre’s scabbard.

"Come back as yourself," Bran said. "Please."

Aemon looked at his brother—small, shrouded in his own oversized cloak, holding a king’s sword like a sacred burden.

“I will,” Aemon said. The two words were practical and hopeful, but his own uncertainty bled through it.

Aemon walked past Bran, going deeper into the crypts.

The vast space of the crypts swallowed the sound of his boots immediately. The first gallery opened around him, revealing the Kings of Winter sitting with iron across their laps. He knew exactly what lay here. He had run these stairs as a boy, playing at ghosts with Robb and Arya, and when he needed solemnity.

He kept walking. The upper gallery turned, bringing Lyanna’s tomb into view. He saw the pale stone of her face catch the torchlight, noting the complete absence of flowers in her lap. His pace shortened for a fraction of a second before he forced himself onward.

Below her, the architecture aged rapidly. The walls tightened. Pale threads of weirwood roots pierced the stone, growing thinner and thinner until they vanished completely. The cold deepened by degrees. The torch began to struggle, the flame drawing inward as the heavy dark pressed close around it.

The flame thinned to a tiny pinprick. Then the dark consumed it completely.