When Jon opens his eyes he is grasped tight by the sight of Sansa's pleased smile, and tighter still by the wet clench of her cunt. He bites off a moan. His hips remain unmoving. The edges of his vision are blurred by sweat, but Jon still follows the ever-widening curve of Sansa's smile: pink, lush, approving.

Approving, most of all.

It yanks him to the edge of climax. He teeters. Throbs.

Sansa shifts on his lap and gives his cock a slow, comforting, goading squeeze.

But Jon stays still, his palms gathering sweat from where they are clinging on to Sansa's hips.

"That is good," Sansa murmurs as she starts to roll her hips. Each languid movement sucks out dribbles of his soul, only to be fed back to him by her words. "That is good."

Sansa's face tips forward, a shadow of a kiss away from his. The fall of her dark red hair veils them off from the wintry light sidling in through the shutters, from the tumble of furs at the end of the bed, from the rest of the world.

Jon wants to thrust up. He wants to surge towards the devouring warmth of her cunt, to fuck, fuck, fuck.

But he can't do it now.

"Really good." The words skitter hotly against Jon's cheek. "You are so good, sweetest, so good." Jon's eyelids flutter, and he snarls, and he almost comes but for Sansa's steady grip on his nape.

For Jon, there is a before and an after.

After the time when he was Ghost and Ghost was him, it was a struggle to get his bearings. The world was magnified yet shrunken: every moment was a crunch of worn rushes under equally worn soles, the swirl of snow against creaking shutters, the musty furs and leathers passing by his sickbed, the clicks of teeth and gulps of throats. Every moment was the reeling ache of his muscles, the scabbing of his wounds, the stale swish of ale in his mouth. Every moment was the thrumming just under his skin, ever restless, always seeking warmth.

Every moment was a catalogue for his senses.

All the finer points of life, of the living, overwhelmed and relieved him at the same time.

Jon found himself wanting to cling to that. He hungered for life.

When Jon first saw her, After, the copper in her hair struck him as familiar. The curve of her cheekbone was familiar as well. So were her blue eyes and the bow of her lips.

But the blue eyes he remembered had always been cold and seen from down a great height, as if he had been straining his neck. And that particular bow of lips he remembered had always been tightened into a disapproving line. Most of all, Jon remembered the devouring want to please her.

Jon made to step closer. The snow under his boots crackled as something slyly slid into the back of his mind, cold and clammy, and held him back.

A horse grunted in the sudden quiet in the yard.

And Jon blinked.

Then he saw, through the lightly falling snow, that the handsome face was longer than what he remembered, but no less finely boned. Her eyes were so warm, summer blue. He saw the smile on her full lips, the pleasure in it spilling over so that it turned into a watery grin, and it nearly took the breath out of him, he could barely believe it. He saw the fraying edges of her grey cloak. He saw the snowflakes on her hair.

And when she rushed towards him and they embraced each other, Jon's mind whispered the reminder at last: she was his sister. She was only his sister. His sister Sansa.

"You are alive," Sansa choked out. "You are alive."

She pulled away a bit, just far enough to properly regard him. He tracked the progress of her gaze as it roved all over his face. Her breath fogged in the hand span of space between them. It was a tinge sour, the smell of empty stomach.

Jon's voice came creaking past his dry lips. "I am."

"Thank the gods," said Sansa. Her gloved palms were tender on his cheeks. There was a whiff of wood smoke on the leather, and also bitter freshwater as if she'd waded through an icy river.

"Come inside," Jon told her, but made no move to disentangle himself. "Come have some warmed ale."

Sansa sat with him in his sickroom all afternoon and most of the evening.

At first they were both quiet. His sister busied herself with taking over the heating of ale when she had realised that he was still recovering from his wounds. Once she had poured for the both of them, Sansa took off her gloves and wrapped her hands around her cup and wordlessly gazed at him between sips.

Jon didn't mind. He basked in the palpable sweetness and wonder in Sansa's gaze, and felt anchored in it at the same time.

So he gazed back.

The snowflakes caught in her hair were melting. Sansa's sips were measured, her gulps dainty. Her eyelids were pulled halfway down, either by weariness or by the thick auburn fan of her eyelashes, or both. In Sansa's misty eyes, Jon thought he could distinguish warmth and relief.

Sansa was the first to break the silence.

"I read a book once," she said, "and the archmaester who wrote it listed what he called the quintessential features of members of House Stark."

Jon leaned over his bedside to nudge the jug towards her.

"Brown hair and grey eyes," Sansa continued, and poured herself another cup. "A long face with, more often than not, a solemn countenance."

"That's Father," said Jon.

"And you," said Sansa. "I am so glad. So utterly glad."

These were the things which wholly remained to Jon, After: the dead beyond the Wall, Ghost, Father, and Winterfell.

After a beat, he reminded her, "I'm a Snow."

"You are Father's son. Look at you, no one can ever doubt that." Sansa made a short, hesitant movement with her hand before drawing it back towards her cup. "You are my brother and my blood. The only one –" She stopped. Her lower lip wobbled before it disappeared behind her cup.

Jon did not presume to take her hand in his. But his ears buzzed pleasantly when Sansa had claimed him as her brother and her blood, and he realised that she was quite the stranger and he wanted to know more about her.

So Jon said, "What's your favourite food?"

The corners of Sansa's lips tipped up. "Lemon cakes. Still lemon cakes. Even my dolls liked lemon cakes."

"Your dolls."

"Doll parties, remember? I even let you play with the blue doll's horse ages back." Her smile turned wistful. "I left my dolls in King's Landing."

Jon tried to remember playing with the blue doll's horse, or the blue doll, but before he could Sansa went on, "How about you? Is summerwine still your favourite?"

Summerwine?

Jon frowned, grasping at the wisps of air in his mind. All of them kept floating away. He looked at Sansa's upper lip instead, moistened by ale and cradling a small wistful smile.

"You drank quite a lot of it," Sansa was saying, "when King Robert's court visited Winterfell. Remember? You told Robb during breakfast that it tasted fruity. And he teased you about your headache, so you stole all his smoked fish."

Sansa's laugh was small and so very sweet.

"I remember," Jon decided. "I still like summerwine."

There were a few casks of summerwine left in Winterfell, as it turned out.

Jon learned this as he traipsed past the servants who were softly and shakily chattering as they carted out Stark banners to replace the Bolton ones.

He ambled on, his knuckles smarting, his boots scraping the stones as his feet became heavier. Polished sconces, richly dyed tapestries, diamond-paned windows tucked in alcoves, and stone direwolves leapt out at him, echoing feelings and entrenching the memory of Winterfell deeper into his mind.

He was back in Winterfell, and there were casks of summerwine, and he wasn't the only sibling left to Sansa. Jon slowed to a stop beside a narrow window. He leaned his forehead against the grey wall, pleased at the fierce and sudden warmth greeting his skin. It had never been this warm at the Wall.

The stench of filth and blood was clogging his nose. He needed a bath.

A heavy door opened down the corridor.

From the steady and almost quiet steps, he could tell that it was Sansa.

"Rickon has settled in," she said, and Jon peeled himself from the polished grey stones to look at her. "Lady Brienne is with him."

"Is he wounded?"

"Nothing more than scratches and rope burn. The maester has seen to him." Sansa was regarding him with worried eyes.

Jon had come to distinguish a lot in Sansa's eyes, during those long weeks with Sansa either by his sickbed sewing cloaks for the both of them, or by his side calling on their bannermen and planning the battle for Winterfell. She had always looked at him with a mixture of relief and warmth, worry and impatience, curiosity and guilt, and –

"You look completely exhausted," Sansa said, softly. "I had them ready Mother's chambers for Rickon – for the meantime, because it is the hottest. But Father's has a wonderful hearth, too."

The rug on Father's outer chamber was wonderful as well.

Jon curled his bare toes on it, marvelling at the way his feet sank on the dyed and embroidered furs.

Sansa was further in the chamber. The firelight glinted on the beaded direwolf on her bodice as she bustled about arranging a small ironwood table and issuing commands to the serving girl putting more logs into the fire. Satisfied, Sansa smiled tiredly at the girl before turning, the blazing light skimming down her auburn braid. She gave instructions to another serving woman who was carrying in a basin, and to yet another one who was balancing a silver jug and two silver cups on a tray.

That cold strange thought slid into the back of Jon's mind again, the confusing feeling of dread and longing, like he might be misremembering something. He lurked near the door and sank his toes deeper into the rug.

The serving women eventually left with quiet little bows, the oldest of them, a woman with gnarly hands and white hair, beaming and sniffling politely whenever she looked at Jon or Sansa. It was rather puzzling.

When the door closed behind them, Sansa looked up from the basin, her smile warm and inviting.

Jon had nothing to be scared of.

"What are you doing?" Sansa said.

He felt a smile crawl up his cold-stiffened cheeks, and he was pleased when Sansa's smile turned brighter and somehow less tired.

Then Jon started to unlace his muddy breeches.

"I've missed it," he explained. "Rugs, I mean. And carpets."

"I am quite sure you have." Sansa ducked her head and reached for the silver jug on the table. "The rushes in Castle Black were not as warm, were they?"

Leaving his soiled boots and muddy pieces of armour by the door, Jon sauntered closer to her, still pulling his tunic over his head. "What's in the jug?"

"Take a guess," Sansa said, lips curving behind her cup.

His bare shoulder brushed against her woollen-clad arm as he bent over to peer at the basin. "It's not summerwine, is it?"

Sansa let out a little laugh, which sounded rather breathy. "Of course it is. Let me pour you a cup," she said, "after I have cleaned you up."

Jon couldn't stop the half-smile on his lips. He settled on the chair beside the table, clad in nothing but his braies. Thankfully the chair, which was intricately carved and wide enough to sit two people, had a cushion on the seat and Sansa's fur cloak hanging over the back.

"Rose oil is the best for these things," Sansa softly chattered, as was her way with him. She dipped the first wash cloth into the basin of scented water. "Do you remember when I tried to brush Lady's coat with rose oil? Father was not pleased. He said Lady was not a gown."

She chuckled, and he smiled at the sound.

Jon enjoyed how she told him stories of what had happened Before. "You learn a lot about a person by the kind of stories she tells," Sansa had told him one evening in Castle Black, and sometimes he had got the sense that she wanted to hear him talk a bit more.

He did want to return with some stories of his own, but whenever he'd tried to they were almost always wisps of cold air slipping through his fingers.

There were some that he remembered but he dared not speak of, though. Like the blood dripping thickly from his sharp teeth and hotly smeared across his chin, or the dim memory of tottering towards a richly embroidered gown and the skirts being briskly drawn away from him as Jon looked up, and up, and up into a beautiful disapproving face.

So Jon had only spoken of Ghost and of Father, during those long weeks before the battle, and had asked Sansa questions to prod more stories out of her.

Sansa brought the wash cloth to his face. She was gentle but firm as she wiped the grime off his forehead. Off his nose. Off his cheeks. The rose oil was a subtle pleasant scent and the water was hot, and there was almost a rhythm to when Sansa would dip the wash cloth back into the basin.

The ever present, ever hungry thrumming just under his skin was coiling hot low in his belly.

Jon obligingly tilted his head as Sansa rubbed from his jaw down to his neck. Then around to his nape, and back to his neck. He closed his eyes for a moment, a hum rumbling from his throat, then opened them again to slant a look at Sansa.

She was very intent on rubbing his collarbones, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

He asked, "Why did you kiss me in the tent?"

The wash cloth paused, high on his chest.

"I –" Sansa made to lower the wash cloth.

But Jon gently clasped her wrist. He liked the hot water. He liked Sansa near to him. He liked her skin against his. "I liked it," he admitted. "When you kissed me. I only want to know why."

It had been a soft press of Sansa's lips against his, barely lasting five counts. It had felt like a lady's tourney favour. It had felt warm and alive. It had felt like something to come home to, a touchstone, as Jon rode to battle.

The wash cloth on his chest was faintly trembling.

But Sansa's voice was steady. "You were the only one left to me. Even now – Rickon is just a child and. I was alone for so long." Sansa reached up with her other hand and her thumb caressed his now-clean cheek. "You were all I have. Do you remember what you told me? That you promised to help me win back our home?"

Jon nodded.

He'd promised that to her. The dead were threatening the living. The living North couldn't hope to be united under Boltons to fight off the dead. And Jon had an ever present, ever thrumming hunger for life.

Jon hungered for life, and Sansa's smile when he'd made that promise was like a spilling summer sunshine, filling his vision from horizon to horizon.

"I finally felt like I could trust a promise," Sansa continued. "And now we are home, and I have to help Rickon but it would be years before he can help me back. You are all I have, Jon. I cannot – "

Sansa swallowed back her words. She kept caressing his now clean cheek. Her skin was soft.

She was looking at him with that particular look again. As warm as contentment, and as humid as want. With a tinge of something less like fear, but more like guilt.

Jon let Sansa look. He liked to look at her, too.

At length, he said, "Did you like it? After all?"

"Yes." The firelight caught on the mild clench of Sansa's jaw. "I only give kisses which I want to give now. When I want to give them. And to whom I want to give them."

Jon asked, "Do you allow me to kiss you, then?"

Sansa regarded him, and after a moment she said, "I do, yes."

Another curiosity was how Sansa looked at him. Her gaze always roved all over his face, dragging, clinging, slow as the drip of honey. It reminded him of the way he clung to her warmth and to her calling him her brother.

And he wondered what she saw in his face. Jon had seen himself on a shield, After, and here in the water basin. His face was nothing remarkable, and made even less so by battle scars and harsh weather.

So when Sansa kissed him for the second time, softly, hesitantly, on his cheek, Jon couldn't help but smile. She took that as encouragement. The wash cloth fell on his lap. The clean scent of rose oil mingled with the fruity summerwine thick in Sansa's breath.

Soft kisses landed on Jon's cheek, on his nose, on his forehead, and fluttered across his brows and on his eyelids, like lightly falling snow.

Jon had nothing to be scared of.

He tilted his face and caught a kiss on the corner of his mouth. He sucked on Sansa's lower lip, closing his eyes at the taste of summerwine. When Sansa breathed, "That is good," the words twisting into a moan, a shiver lapped its delicious way up Jon's spine.

Jon's eyes snapped open.

Sansa's nostrils were flaring. Her pupils were blooming like ink.

But she was hesitating.

He ran her stories through his mind.

"Do you not want to?" asked Jon.

Sansa remained silent, eyes flickering, but she didn't draw away.

"The gods frown upon incest," Jon said slowly, noting how Sansa flinched, and at the same time thinking that he should probably be hesitating as well.

But he could never find it in him to hesitate. Whenever he looked at Sansa, the summer in her hair and the home in her eyes filled his sight from end to end.

Jon saw life, life, life, and he hungered for it.

Finally Sansa reached up to brush aside a stray lock from his eyes. "It is not that," she told him. "Not really. If the gods. If they should curse us, well, it might only be half a curse for each. You are my half-brother." Sansa's voice sounded as if she were gathering determination as she spoke. "And the gods have cursed us enough."

"If not that, then what is – " A cold rage gripped his gut. Sansa had just been to the kennels, who knew what that – "Has Ramsey Bolton – "

"Calm down, please, Jon. I only wanted." Sansa pressed her lips on his knuckles.

"Tell me."

"I want to see you. I hated it when he covered my eyes, or went behind me – I hated not knowing. I need to see you."

Jon could feel a small smile on his lips. She wanted what he wanted, and he needed what she needed.

"Of course," he said, and this time he was the one who leaned forward for a kiss, sliding his hand down her arm.

"Good." Sansa's lips molded the word against his. Jon shivered and crushed the sleeve of her gown in his fist.

Jon rather wished that Sansa wouldn't peer at him with such keen eyes. He put his hand on her knee and rubbed it up, then down her thigh.

She didn't stop him, shifting on the chair in a rustling of wool and silk so that her thigh could be closer to his, but it seemed like she wasn't to be stopped either. "You like it when I sing of your praises?" asked Sansa, her voice husky. "Of how good you have been to me?"

Wordlessly, Jon pulled her closer still, the wool and beads of her bodice scraping against his bare chest, rasping against his nipples. He mouthed kisses, full of teeth and tongue, up her throat and under her jaw, letting her tight little gasps wash over him. Lips against the shell of her ear, Jon said, "Yes."

Sansa ran her fingers through his hair as she squirmed against him. "Sweet brother – " She shuddered when Jon squeezed at her hips. " – you only need to say so."

Jon turned his head and greeted Sansa's open mouth with his.

He laved his tongue across hers, the dregs of summerwine bringing a smile to his lips.

Once they had had a taste, it was like he and Sansa simply couldn't stop themselves from fucking.

There was that first time in Father's outer chamber, where Sansa gingerly wrapped her scented hand around Jon's cock, her grip gradually becoming surer under his instructions, before she piled up her smallclothes and spent the better part of a half-hour just rubbing the tip against her cunt lips.

But there were duties to accomplish.

Shortly after the battle for Winterfell, Rickon was proclaimed king and was installed in the lord's chambers whilst Sansa moved to what had been her lady mother's.

At court, Jon and Sansa maintained proper distance. Especially during the morning audiences, when the king was sat on the high seat with Jon on his left and Sansa on his right, and the bulk of their planning with their bannermen and allies took place. Jon did so like to be focused when it came to dealing with threats to the life he hungered for.

But it didn't stop him and Sansa from excusing themselves before the company lunched. It didn't stop them from teasing each other and leaving each other wanting for the rest of the day.

One of Jon's favourite past times was watching Lord Baelish try to monopolise a pink-cheeked Sansa's attention whilst dining, with the blissful ignorance of the fact that minutes before the dining bell, Jon had had his thumb against Sansa's pleasure nub and two of his oil-slick fingers fucking into her cunt and then pulling them all away without letting her come.

Sansa was always perfectly gracious though pink-cheeked, measuredly chewing and carrying on a conversation as if her cunt hadn't been just desperately trying to gulp in Jon's fingers.

Her composure was admittedly arousing, that one such day, Jon took advantage of Lady Mormont pausing on a tirade about fish prices.

It was the day of Lady Mormont's turn to be invited to sit with them on the High Table, and a singer was singing the song Sansa had commissioned her about Jon's brothers betraying him. It was becoming quite popular.

He beckoned to a server and, noting the rather sudden hush in the conversations, Jon said, "Send this honeyed cake to my sister, if you would." The server was slightly quivering as soon as he'd approached Jon, Jon noticed. "Tell her that I've had my full, and I'd like her to be well-fed after a long audience."

It was also a source of amusement when one afternoon, over the steaming bowls of creamy mushroom soup, Lord Manderly decided to pay Jon the compliment: "You look well-rested, my lord. Healthy and rosy, and it's the best that can be had during winter, if I do say so."

"Positively blooming," quipped Lord Baelish.

Jon only inclined his head, his eyes never straying towards Sansa, but his mind replaying the minutes before the dining bell: feeding his cock into Sansa's pink mouth as she sat on her bed; Sansa enthusiastically if sloppily sucking as if she really couldn't wait for the dining bell; a bit of Jon's seed dribbling down her chin with saliva and Jon ducking down to lap it all up like a parched man in a dungeon.

Sansa was also sufficiently affectionate with him. She trusted him with the military decisions, but she would also openly praise his council suggestions if she approved of them.

She would look up from a parchment at the council table, surrounded by their allies, and greet Jon with, "Good morning, my lord. Your silver buttons are a delightful match to your eyes."

Or she would drift towards him in the Great Hall and fuss with his fur lined doublet, trail her gloved hands on his badge of office, and say, "Sweet brother, will you walk with me?"

By themselves, they'd cling to each other.

They fucked in Sansa's outer chamber. On her bed. In her bath with the water slopping over the sides and Jon's face deliciously squashed between Sansa's slick breasts.

They fucked under Jon's table. On his bed. In his outer chamber where he'd whispered in her ear that he might have left the door unlocked and would Sansa enjoy it if they'd been caught, before her knees were seizing up to his sides and she was letting out whispery gasps against his shoulder.

Sansa was always rather quiet when she peaked.

They agreed that it would be lovely to fuck under the weirwood, but it was still winter and the castle was teeming with guests.

They also haven't fucked in the solar.

Breakfast was held in the lord's solar with only family in attendance, like it was in Father's day.

This morning the sky was especially overcast, with the plump lead-grey clouds crowding around the turrets. The gritty scents of the solar's lighted lamps wafted with the healthy smells of blackberry preserves and freshly cooked bacon, and with the honey that the king couldn't seem to live without.

Rickon was sat at the head of carved oak table, his hair a wild auburn halo. He needed to perch on a cushion to be properly level with the bowl of sweetened porridge that he was slowly and very carefully spooning into his mouth.

Jon barely remembered this little boy, but at the back of his mind he did have impressions of wild black fur and snapping green eyes.

"Rickon of House Stark," recited Rickon, "King in the North and the Trident, and Lord of Winterfell. Sigil is a grey direwolf running on a white field. But the Trident is still held by enemies."

Jon, sat on the king's left, said nothing and only reached for the pot of tea. Sansa, who was on Rickon's right, nibbled on a piece of cheese and smiled encouragingly at the boy.

"Sansa of House Stark," Rickon continued, "Princess Regent of the North. Sigil is a grey direwolf running on a white field. Jon Snow, Lord Protector of the North. Sigil is a white direwolf running on a grey field."

Rickon paused, tapping his spoon on the rim of his bowl. With every clink came glops of porridge.

"There are two Lord Protectors in the castle," the boy told Sansa.

"Lord Baelish is the Lord Protector of the Vale," said Sansa, "and a guest for the meantime."

"Oh. I thought it means we'll be really protected. With two Lord Protectors."

"Of course. We are all of us fighting against the real enemy," Sansa said with a patient smile. She was the one who was quite anxious to get Rickon caught up in his studies. "Since we are speaking of our allies in the Vale, can you tell me who its lord is?"

"I know that one! Our cousin. Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie and Warden of the East. Sigil is sky-blue falcon soaring against a white moon on a sky-blue field."

"Oh, well done," said Sansa. She pushed the plate of little honeyed cakes towards Rickon.

Jon put down his bacon and told the boy, in a mild enough tone, "Straighten your back, Rickon."

"Yes, my lord," the boy mumbled, and did as he was told, the golden threads of his wool and velvet doublet gleaming in the lamp light.

Sansa was doing her best to hide her frown, Jon noticed. Rickon kept calling her Your Grace and Jon as my lordno matter how many times she reminded him that those titles were only for when they were holding court.

"You are our brother, Rickon," Sansa had told him. "You can address us by our names outside of court."

But Rickon had only said, "Where's Bran? When's he coming home?" after which Sansa's mouth had quivered and she had had to blink several times.

Jon had an hour and a half of sword play with the boy, every day, before handing him over to the master-at-arms for another hour and a half. Those first few weeks had been tiresome. Rickon couldn't focus, had only wanted to play and scamper around with his direwolf, and had screamed and kicked whenever he wasn't allowed to.

Jon had never shouted at him.

But he had forbidden the black direwolf to be in Rickon's presence for two weeks, and that had sent the boy in screaming tears, running up to Sansa and telling her how Jon was "mean and scary, and he never smiles."

It had been a complete fuss in the yard. Sansa had come striding from where she was speaking with Lord Baelish in the covered bridge, her waist-length auburn hair fluttering under her hat. Rickon had immediately clung to the white brocade on her skirts, and as she had looked down at his bawling face, the cold clammy thought slid into the back of Jon's mind again. But when Sansa had looked up at Jon, her eyes had been worried yet hesitantly approving, and Jon had had nothing to be scared of. "It is painful, Your Grace, I do know that," she had told the boy, soothingly tucking his ears back under his hat, "but you ought to learn that bad behaviour has consequences."

Jon picked up his bacon again and bit into it. "What else did you learn from the maester, Rickon?"

Across the breakfast table, Sansa smiled at Jon so widely that her eyes crinkled into nothing but gleams of vivid blue, matching the pendant twinkling on her bosom.

Her pleasure did please him.

Rickon dutifully recited: "There's Lady Brienne of House Tarth, heiress of Evenfall Hall and sworn shield to the Princess Regent. Sigil is quartered yellow sun on a rose field and white crescents on a blue field."

The king was listing his bannermen when a guard announced the maester. The man's chains clinked as he straightened from his bow, handed a message to Sansa, and stepped out of the solar.

Sansa picked up the tightly rolled parchment.

"Who sent it?" asked Rickon. "Is it from Bran?"

Sansa's eyes reached the end of the paper, then scudded to the top again to make a slower progress to the end. When she was finished, she carefully wiped her hands on her linen before reaching for her gloves beside her cup, all the while not saying anything.

Slowly, Jon felt himself bristling. He could almost taste the disquiet from Sansa.

At length she announced, "It is from Dragonstone. Tyrion Lannister writes that the daughter of Aerys II has landed an armada and declaring her claim to the Iron Throne. She has three grown dragons."

Sansa held Jon's gaze as she flicked the pearl buttons of her gloves in place. "And this is the summons for us to swear fealty to House Targaryen and to aid in Daenerys Targaryen's cause."

"Tyrion Lannister," piped up Rickon, his fingers sticky with honeyed cake. "Sigil is a golden lion on a crimson field." Then he paused, his blue eyes narrowing as he tilted his head. "We refused Cersei Lannister's summons. The North doesn't bow to the Iron Throne."

"No," Jon agreed, still keeping his eyes on Sansa. "But we need those dragons."

"Most certainly." Sansa was smoothing down her pearl-grey skirts. "That is why I must soon dash off to write a reply. I shall take a complement of guards and sail from White Harbor."

Jon frowned. The ever hungry thrum for life under his skin was often aligned with his want to please Sansa, but not all the time, which was terribly inconvenient.

"Must you?" he said. "South of the Neck isn't safe for you anymore. We did refuse Cersei Lannister's summons. I can sail to treat with them instead."

Sansa thoughtfully hummed as she finished her tea. She didn't send Rickon away, letting the boy watch all the decisions she and Jon made in his name, even away from other ears.

"But I must stay with our armies," Jon mused. He couldn't bear to think of the cold and the dead winning, he absolutely couldn't. Jon drummed his fingers on the table. "I'm Lord Protector, after all. And I must be where our army is. Perhaps we might send Lords Manderly and Seaworth and some maesters."

"No," Sansa finally said.

She reached across the table and gently squeezed Jon's hand. "You are right that you should be where our armies are. But I can treat with them as Rickon's regent. We might turn this in our favour with regard to Cersei Lannister."

"And you will take a complement of guards."

"I will. More than fifty, for sure, and with Lady Brienne." Sansa sent a smile at Rickon. "Will I not, Your Grace?"

The boy nodded solemnly. "Her Grace will. Don't worry, my lord."

"Our king has spoken," Sansa said, smiling, before she turned her serious eyes to Jon. "We ought to convene an assembly of all our bannermen and retainers. We need evidence of the threat to present in Dragonstone."

Jon turned his hand palm up so that he could hold on to Sansa, too. "Very well. But I insist that you take Ghost with you."

(1/2)