JON
Against the total darkness, the milky-white, flaming blade was like a million suns blasting against his eyes. He could barely keep them open under the glow's assault, though he forced them to take the punishment as the icy spear came for his belly. Jon swipes it away and it retreats back into the howling shadows. The fiery sword in his hands reveals a cone of light around him, perhaps a few feet in diameter but no more. Beneath his feet the snowy, bloody ground shifts; the patchwork of rotting hands underneath him writhes, a grasping nest of graveworms coming for him. He slashes at the limbs, the great divinity of his blade driving him forward, filling him with energy. Jon carves through them like butter. Red and blue flicker and dance around him as the fire consumes ominous, unblinking blue eyes. For the first time in years he feels powerful, hopeful; here, with this fateful sword in his hands, Jon and the dead are finally on even ground.
The wights fall in droves. Scores of them pad out of the darkness like wolves, and scores of them are slain. They are lambs before the fire, cowed and destroyed by it. The flames lick their way up the blade, past the crescent crossguard and all the way to the blazing sun carved on the pommel. Crawling up his arm, the fire burning away his fatigue. Jon is swallowed by it now, filled with its vitality and might; unfailing, unflagging, undistinguishing. His whole body glows white hot, and through the hordes of wights he presses on, the sun itself made a man.
A sonorous cry perforates the burning darkness, and the wights either fall and die, consumed by the flames, or scatter like ants back into the depthless, roaring shadows. The wind dies instantly. Any speckles of pale snow fade from the air. The fires eating at Jon's slain adversaries burn low. The night is totally and terribly silent.
He strides out of the all-devouring blackness as noiselessly as mist.
The eyes give him away before Jon can even see him. He remembered this gaze. The disturbing mix between hatred and dispassion still terrified him, years after it'd bored into him from across the water at Hardhome. Now, there's a shadow of sadistic mirth behind the suffocating blue of the Night King's eyes. His arms are splayed triumphantly about him, horizon-thin spear in hand . . .
But he's distorted. The reflective, darkened ice that simulated his humanoid body was warped and twisted, as if it had thawed only to be frozen again in its half melted shape. Where once there had been lean, sculpted power in the Night King's body, now he was grotesque and ungainly. His entire right side slanted downwards, giving him an awkward gait not unlike a dwarf or hunchback; his horns had lost their points, now little more than gentle curves rising from his scalp. His dark steel armor, of no make Jon had ever seen, was blackened and scorched beyond its usual color. Sections of it appeared depressed and smelted, like they'd been fused to the Night King's freezing skin.
By far the most terrible thing, though, was how the great White Walker didn't even seem to notice. Still he comes at Jon with as great a swagger and grace as he can muster on stunted legs and droopy features; as if he'd not been wounded at all. His eyes still glow that terrible blue, brighter than Jon had even seen it.
He is still as deadly as ever.
Jon hears the slavering roars of the wights around him, the pitch and volume of their cries rising until it's replaced the whistle of the wind almost entirely. The Night King turns his head slowly, left, and then right as his horde surely surrounded he and Jon in the darkness; where once his movement had sounded like water freezing, it now split the air, like one of the glaciers beyond the Wall abruptly splitting in half.
The flames surrounding Jon illuminate the Night King's face from across the spit of ground between them, and the deformed features do not shift once. He's is a blank slate, incapable of being read or showing mercy.
Jon charges him, not intent on showing any in return.
They dance back and forth, Jon driving the Night King back at every point. The circle of illumination around him grows larger as he hammers his opponent, raining ferocious blows down upon the Night King's guard. One swipe at the hip, one at his face, another three at his breast, arm and breast again, a stab between his arms. All the while there is nothing in the Night King's face that suggests fear. It is the same resting, indefatigable visage Jon saw at Hardhome, and the same that had greeted untold numbers of unfortunates in their last moment.
Jon roars, and with a great overhead slash, the Night King's spear explodes. The tiny shards of ice scatter in a million directions like ten thousand diamonds. Jon shields his eyes. The shards only hiss out of existence as they touch the roaring flames around him.
Jon feels his arms guide his milky blade forward, though his vision is as shrouded as the blackness around him. Shredding through the air is a great clang. Impact cracks up his arms as the white sword lodges its blade deep in some marbled surface. Lighting his eardrums on fire, a second noise pierces the darkness; a shatter, like a hundred thousand slivers of glass clattering to the ground.
The wights cease their snarls, and sound vanishes once more. Even Jon's heartbeat quiets, as if the gods had snatched it from his chest . . . or he, too, had joined the Army of the Dead.
His eyes open. The Night King is gone. The great swarm of wights about him has fallen, as one, to the ground. Not an eye among them is blue, and they slump against each other with a great weight Jon has learned that only corpses have; the White Walkers' soldiers will never rise again, and were truly dead once more. In the new, greater light, Jon can see who and what they'd been in life. Many were swaddled in rotting furs and leathers of Free Folk make, wielding their stone and bone weapons with the rare metal or dragonglass spear here or there. There were Night's Watchmen in bloodstained black cloaks, pale, dead faces stark against their dark garb. Northern bannermen had fallen in droves. Speared among the snow and bloody stones were tattered banners; Manderly merman, Glover gauntlet, Umber giant, and others great and small. Men piled high and stinking amongst the sigils, whole hills and ravines made entirely of necrotic skin, frayed mail and steel, bashed in and broken. Other, stranger bodies knotted together in their great mass graves. Some wore southern mail and steel. Plumes of feathers stained red with blood rose from battered helmets of some of the dead men, and golden lions worked into the platings had been wrent apart, hacked and chipped at. Joining the Northern direwolves and giants and battle axes were Lannister lions, tattered green roses and Baratheon Greyjoy krakens and Arryn falcons, horses, the sun itself, plain black banners, eastern sunbursts and harpies and a thousand other crests of kingdoms west and east that Jon couldn't name.
But standing proud, unstained, and unblemished above the other banners was a three-headed dragon, set in blood-crimson upon black cloth, staked high upon a hill.
Here was where the fields of the slain grew truly strange. Now the bodies were no longer even Westerosi. Jon steps between them, around them, through them when he had to, his steps punctuated by the crunch of old and brittle bones. The blaze along his sword makes each corpse appear more gaunt than it truly was, digging the facial depressions made by decomposition a thousand miles deeper.
These men wore no steel, only slim and agile black leather. Every exposed head was bald, though many of those Jon beheld had plated, spiked helmets hiding their faces. They were shorter and thinner than the Westerosi wights, their skin the color of deep caramel. Other wilder, stranger warriors gathered flies and maggots in the new terrain of bodies; their armor was fur and horsehide, and they were hairy and broad where their counterparts weren't. Their circular, crescent weapons that one might call swords were almost as strange to Jon as the burning one he held in his hand.
The light grew brighter, and brighter, a shy sun burning behind the hills in the distance. Its glow and the blade's join. The cone of light around Jon grows stronger and stronger. The world unfurls out of the aging darkness anew. Old gray walls flash to life. Squat towers of dark stone erupt from the white earth like teeth biting into an apple. Winterfell traces itself into existence before him. Kennels where dog and direwolf had shared space in Jon's youth appear. The forge where he'd watched Arya's sword Needle being born belches into life, scattered embers lingering in space as if they'd burned into the very air. The broken tower where Bran had taken his fall stabs out of the northern wall, and before long the Great Keep rumbles into being. As its crenellations and awnings come into being, the Keep blocks out the light itself. Jon finds himself under a giant's shadow.
Jon's eyes widen as he scans the length of the castle. The likeness was uncanny, and yet here it was, the Winterfell of his childhood. Muddy and windswept, an island of dull colors in the midst of a sea of green. The dream of summer has melted all the snow, and Jon's nostrils fill with scents he hasn't smelled in years. Weirwood sap, wet hounds, summer rain, morning dew, bale and dung and the stone walls dripping with water, fresh timber. All of it, more powerful than it ever had been while awake. Not even in his wolf-dreams could he divine so much from a single whiff of the air.
He half expects to see Farlen walking a few hounds across the yard or hear Mikken pounding away at swords or breastplates as he ducks under the north gate. Jon swears he can hear Hodor spluttering excitedly on the other side of one of Winterfell's inner walls.
His heart leaps from his chest, and he laughs heartily. The troubles were over. The Night King was dead, his generals shattered and his army returned to their graves. The Lannisters and all their lackeys were out there, dead and broken against Winterfell's walls. Somehow, all the Starks still alive would find their way here. Arya would be here, ready to have her hair tussled just like he used to, and hopefully knowing how to use Needle by now. Bran would follow, and he would walk and climb and ride as he'd wanted so desperately. He would be Ser Brandon and his tales would be legendary.
There they were! Their voices rang along the jingling winter air, crossing over the walls and towers between them and Jon. They were different; Bran had become a man and Arya a woman, but Jon would've recognized their inflections anywhere. He hears them again. They're talking- laughing with someone. One of them asks a question and Sansa's voice answers. Yes, they've come, all of them, his family. They've heard of his victory and now they can rest, at home and together, forever.
He just has to get to the Godswood. As the fiery leaves catch his eye, they glow. The longer Jon looks, the more the heart tree seems to have sprouted blades of molten coals where its leaves had been. It's calling him.
My eyes have found what you crave. Your pack is at peace, Jon Snow. They are here.
The grass is playfully ticklish against his feet as he runs. Everything is pure splendor. Jon can feel years falling away from him. The scars on his chest and stomach where he'd been killed melt off his body. The mark along his right cheek vanishes, and his hair falls in his face as he traces through the castle and it grows back to its original length.
Jon delves into a darker world as he passes under the gate to the Godswood, and from that black passage he never reemerges from.
The flaming light that had painted the heart tree had not been some dream-element. The tree was truly on fire, its white bark blackening and peeling off to bleed out fountains of scarlet sap. The blaze ate away at smaller limbs and leaves, dissolving them into tumbles of red hot snowflakes. Jon's breath froze in his chest and he fell to his knees before the heart tree. The flames whorled around it like some kind of typhoon, flickering together completely unlike common fire. The burning tree was like an altar to some terrible god of slaughter whose motives were unknowable, but whose screaming face upturned to the heavens was all too easy to interpret.
Here the wind was fearsome, even with the shelter of Winterfell's walls. It had all the great white fury of winter behind it. The ground was covered in snow within moments, and even the fire seemed dimmed by the frosty gale pouring forth from the shadows. Not even Jon's sword is able to keep them back.
At the foot of the heart tree, several forms slump on top of one another with that same grim weight as those hordes outside the castle. Jon approaches them, his knuckles white, his eyes watery and freezing.
Through the haze he can just make out his father at the bottom of the pile of corpses. Only Ned Stark's head is visible. His mouth is slack, blue eyes empty of any human presence. A thin, darkly exquisite and curved line is drawn across his throat where his head had been cut from his body.
Ned's children, Jon's siblings, sheathe him in a neck-down cask of necrotic flesh. First Robb, riddled with holes from several wounds to his back and chest, then Sansa with half her face carved off of her skull as if by a Bolton flaying knife. Arya's entrails spill over her sisters still body, dry and flaccid, as do Bran's, snaking from the tear in his torso where his legs should have been. Lastly, sprouting an arrowhead from his stomach where Ramsay had shot him, Rickon tops the pile. The red of his fresh blood clashes terribly with the deep blue of their eyes.
None of them had blue eyes in life.
Jon's father is the only one who rises, though the eyes of every wight burn as intense a blue as those of a true White Walker's. He rips his way out of the lattice of corpses, pulling Robb's arm from his socket and taking a dry strip of muscle from his son's elbow when the limb will go no further. Ned Stark's wight claws, rips, pulls, and a scattering of times, eats his way through the prison of his dead children. Jon can't move, can't speak, his soul paralyzed and soured as the wight stumbles towards him. Though it's cracked and notched and covered in blood, Jon can still recognize Ice, Ned's greatsword, dragging through the snow from the wight's hand.
The heavy footsteps cease. The weight and the glow of the pale blade disappear from Jon's grip. His own body and Ned's wight are all he can see now.
Before his eyes, Ice ripples and withers, the Valyrian steel turning paler and paler as it lengthens and becomes nearly invisible. The pommel grows into a long, cloth-wrapped haft, and Ned Stark raises the icy spear above his head.
Jon's vision turns black just before the wight can strike him down.
He falls, and rises. He's torn left and right, up and down, his flesh bending through the darkness like light through a prism. The nightmare cascades him through open, black air, and now he can see nothing. Jon screams, and yet, he is glad to have his sight stolen. His eyes bore him only terrors, but the dark was safety.
Jon falls, and falls, and then he falls no more.
The void is ripped asunder and the world shouts back into existence. His hearing takes longer than his eyes, so Jon doesn't hear Maester Wolkan shouting or his own screaming immediately.
"Your Grace!" he reads off Wolkan's lips, the words only just being registered, and sounding quite underwater. The Maester shakes him by the shoulders. "Your Grace! It's alright! It's alright! Breathe!"
Jon's screams trail off in a hoarse croak, and he sucks in air desperately. Even, gentler breaths come as he clenches a hand on Wolkan's arm. What was the castle Maester doing in his chambers? Had Sansa called on him to bring Jon to her? Had he been crying out in his sleep? What time was it? Light peeked out in a soft radius from behind his curtains. How long had he slept that he didn't wake to a black morning?
"Open . . ." Jon commands, perhaps a bit too loudly. "Open the curtains. I . . . I want this room lit, now."
"My King, your sleep was troubled all through the night. It is still very early. Perhaps some milk of the poppy to give you a few hours rest?"
Jon groans and flies from his bed, clad only in smallclothes. Striding to the curtains guarding his window and threw them open. The light is soft like those of the long summer's Northern mornings, but like the wars to come, it would only become harder from here.
"I can't sleep right now, Wolkan," Jon said, staring out into the featureless grey sky for a moment. "It's the waiting that's killing me, I think. The Night King could be out there right now, climbing the Wall, or freezing the sea, and all we can do is sit in this castle and wait for him to come destroy us. We have no idea where he's marching, and all he need do is chase the people fleeing south. We'll lose our minds in here. Might be the Army of the Dead marches to Winterfell and finds we've destroyed ourselves."
When Wolkan doesn't reply, he turns and smiles sadly at the Maester.
"I'm sorry," Jon concedes. "I shouldn't have . . ."
"Don't be, Your Grace," Wolkan replies warmly. "Being in the King's confidence is not the duty of a Maester. But, man to man, my ear is yours when you need it."
Jon nods, meeting his eyes. "Thank you, Wolkan. Suppose I should dress now."
"Aye," the Maester agrees. "I imagine the Hand would not appreciate you coming to break your fast nearly in the nude."
"Is there something Sansa needs? She hasn't dined with me since I decided who sat my Council."
"Far be it for me to question Lady Sansa's commands. Perhaps she only wants to start her day in her brother's company."
Jon had to nod at that. It was more than likely Sansa only wanted to see him. Old Gods knew he had seen precious little of her the last few weeks. Her new duties as the Hand of Winter had her busy, chiefly with finding enough foodstuffs to accommodate tens of thousands of wildlings, Giants, and the great numbers of smallfolk who had fled their lands north of Winterfell in terror and settle around the great fortress or in the Winter Town. Between that and laying down the hammer of judgment on Northmen who didn't care for wildlings with Lyanna Mormont, or trying to sway the Knights of the Vale from loyalty to Littlefinger, Jon had seen her so rarely that she might as well have been back in King's Landing. King's Landing, the city where she'd learned how to maneuver men like figurines on a map from the best of the best.
Jon loved his sister, but he felt more than a little like a figurine now.
More than a few times she'd coldly brushed off his offers to eat together in the name of "duties of the Hand". Jon hasn't seen enough of her to know if she resents him for giving her the office. He suspects she does, but she's been hardened by the years as much as he has. She's icier, more merciless. Maybe he was only feeling the aftereffects of her disposal of Ramsay Bolton.
"I suppose I'll find out from her myself," Jon replied. "Let her know I'll be there shortly. And thank you, Wolkan. For your offer."
The Maester grinned and bowed his head, his chain turning pale as it caught the light. "Of course, Your Grace," he said as he left the room.
As soon as Wolkan leaves and Jon approaches his wardrobe, Ghost abruptly rolls up from his spot on the rug of skins, mouth wide in a silent howl as he yawns deeply. His depthless red eyes watch Jon as he dresses, waiting for his master to leave the room so he could sneak a blood sausage or two from under the breakfast table.
Jon chooses a pair of near featureless black-leather boots, and a long-sleeved brown tunic, tied by several laces down his pectorals and stomach and high on his throat. The gloves he omits; the heat below the ground seemed to be seeping back into the walls, and his hands instantly began to sweat when he put them on. The outfit was a favorite of his. Most of the clothing he wore as King In The North was too ornate, or made uncomfortable by being ornate, the crown worst of all. The tunic he wore now was emblazoned by only a spot or two of dust. It was humble and guileless, similar to his black cloak and doublet from the Night's Watch. Likely he only wishes to wear the black again, and be borne back to simpler times. He ties a baldric about his waist and slides the blade of Longclaw through it.
Ghost rises to all fours as Jon puts his hand on the doorknob, and he chuckles, patting his thigh. Trotting over and earning a scratch behind the ears after he licks Jon's wrist, they walk to the Hand's chambers together.
Jon enters the room to find Sansa at a short and unassuming dining table, tucking into white cheese and bread, with a pear and a glass of wine off to one side. Another set of food is splayed out in front of her, apparently for him. There is a small hill of bacon set upon the plate, topping darker bread which the fat drizzles and flavors, a strip of salt fish, and another glass of wine.
Sansa digs into her food ravenously, but the moment she glances up and sees Jon in the doorway she wipes her face and stops eating.
"Do I get to sit down, or do I have to wait in the doorway for a bit?" he quips. Sansa's face doesn't shift at all.
"Just close the door." she replies, hushed and conspiratory.
Ghost dashes through before the door closes, and settles by Jon's seat as he takes it.
"I've barely seen you these past few weeks," Jon begins, tentatively lifting a stretch of bacon into his mouth. "How are you?"
"This came by raven this morning," Sansa says. She slides a roll of new parchment across the table, only slightly ripped where the raven's talons had gripped it.
Unfolding it, Jon reads :
To The King and Kingdom In The North,
The true Queen has returned. Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons is landing in Westeros.
Send envoys to Yronwood in Dorne, and restore the pacts of fealty that bound Houses Stark and Targaryen for centuries under the true royal bloodline. All Northern Lords and Ladies will retain their titles, lands, and incomes should they bend the knee. House Stark will be made Wardens of the North, as they were under Aegon the Conqueror. All those who pledge loyalty to Queen Daenerys will be accepted back into the fold as friends, with no charges levied concerning their past misdeeds.
However, those who do not bend the knee will be taught the true meaning of 'Fire and Blood', as they were under Aegon the Conqueror.
Rejoice! Align yourself with House Targaryen, and together we will end the suffering that has plagued this country forever.
Signed,
Lord Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen to Daenerys I Targaryen
Jon sets trades the letter for his glass, taking a long and noisy slurp of wine.
"Is this a Southern threat worthy of your attention?" Sansa says.
Jon sets the win glass down and wipes the scarlet sweetness from his lips, his head resting in his left hand. In the Night's Watch, there had been few men around trafficking tales of the world outside the Wall or Castle Black. There were events pregnant with consequence for Westeros that he'd only heard of weeks after they'd happened. But even on the edge of the world, he'd heard whispers of the last Targaryen across the sea. She had slept in a roaring pyre unscathed, and birthed the last three dragons in all the world. She had torn the Masters of Slaver's Bay from their vice and killed them all, and done the same with scores of Dothraki Khals, rapers and evil-doers in their own right. Jon called her work justice, but at the same time the brutality of it worried him. The Dragon Queen's first answer to a problem seemed to be blasting it with her dragons.
And Jon's own people would damn him to the seven hells they didn't believe in if he bent the knee. Which meant Daenerys Targaryen would see Jon Snow and all the Northern Lords as a very big problem.
"Why couldn't you bring this before the Council?" Jon asks.
"Because I know what you'll do with the information, and I know how they'd all take your decision," Sansa replies, brushing a strand of hair from her face and nibbling a bit at her bread.
"And what exactly will I do with it?"
"You'll go down south, alone, to treat with her, because that's what you've always done. I made you come to me so I could tell you not to go."
"What are you talking about?" Jon has to stifle a laugh, despite the prospect of dragons and White Walkers falling on Winterfell in the near future. He had been thinking about seeking Southern allies; the Army of the Dead could not be stopped with twenty thousand men. Jon had been considering someone other than Daenerys Targaryen, and if he told even Sansa, nevermind the Northern Lords, he might as well give her his crown and disappear into the Wolfswood right now.
Sansa must have heard the laugh. She leans back in her chair, growling and tearing a whole hunk of cheese off the block on her plate with her teeth.
"That's what you've always done, Jon," Sansa manages to say through her food. "Always the hard decision, always the one that puts you right in the heart of danger. It makes you easy to love and easy to be enraged with."
Incredulity rises in his chest, flecked with rage. "You'd prefer I didn't go?"
"Of course I would. It's a stupid idea, to leave your people just as winter starts with an army of dead men bearing down on us and try to win an alliance with a woman who leads Dothraki and dragons by appealing to her love for her 'people'! What does it say about her that she's comfortable around savages like that?"
Jon bit into the end of his salt fish. "I think there's merit to her. Every horrible thing she ever did was to protect people."
"Including what she'll do to us if we don't submit to her?"
"That won't matter. The Night King will kill us all before she even finishes getting the South in order. But if she joins us in the North first, we'll have over two hunded thousand allies and three dragons greeting the Walkers."
"And what then, Jon?" Sansa asks angrily, as if daring her brother to try and convince her. "What happens after we win?"
Jon smiles wryly. "I don't know that we will. But I'd feel better about it with dragons on our side."
Her features soften, and Sansa for the first time in a long time looks terribly sad. Jon reaches over and takes her hand in his, squeezing as hard as he can without hurting her.
"You're going, then," Sansa said with a note of finality.
"I have to, Sansa," he replies.
"So everything I told you about needing a Small Council means nothing?" She shoots back. "That you weren't ready for a crown?"
"You're the one who decided not to tell them."
"Damn you, Jon. It should have been me."
"What?"
"I should be Queen."
Rage rises in Jon's heart, hotter now and fanned by the realization that he was halfway right. He draws his hand back as though he'd been burned. He almost was a figurine to Sansa, fit to be placed and stationed where she wanted, but not where he knew he had to be. To her, like so many others, the threat beyond the Wall was secondary to the little games and little hatreds of the living.
"This is what's on your mind right now? Envy?" he breathes. "You understand that none of this matters if we're all dead, don't you?"
"I'm sorry if my emotions are so unpalatable to you, Jon," Sansa said quietly. "But some of us plan on still being human and leading lives after this war is over. I got you to try and take back Winterfell. I brought us the Knights of the Vale when you lost the Battle of the Bastards. I gave us our home back, and they crowned you King because you're a man." To hear her accomplishments, those he'd mentioned when he'd made her his Hand, thrown back in his face hurt more than a little. But he looks at her again and just sees sorrow.
"I know- I know it's childish," she continues. "It's stupid. But I spent years in King's Landing with terrible men having power over me. Every second I told myself I would never be at anyone's mercy ever again. Not even you."
"Is that what I am?" Jon retorts, shoving bacon into his mouth to keep the vengeful words in his mind from coming out. "Am I a terrible man to you, Sansa?"
"No, of course not."
"No, I'm not. When the last White Walker falls, you can rip the damn crown off my head for all I care. I never wanted to be King."
He sits back in his chair, folding his arms, all of his food suddenly tasting as foul as Sansa's self-importance. Jon's face softens, though as he realizes she's once again only trying to help him. Why else would she want him to stay in the North if not to keep him safe?
All the same, her eyes still light up at the mention of the crown.
"Truly?" she says.
"Completely," Jon replies. "You think becoming King In The North was a power play? I took the crown because I know the Army of the Dead better than anyone still alive, and I know how to beat them. I don't ever want the kind of power over men a crown can bring. When the war is over, take mine. Rule the North. Be the Queen In The North."
"But to win the war, you say we need Daenerys Targaryen."
"Aye, we do."
"So I have to let you leave."
"You're not the only one who's clever."
"When?"
"First light tomorrow. Better to be gone before the Northern Lords wake."
Sansa sits back as well, rubbing Ghost's forehead as he walks along the table to her heel.
"What am I to tell them when the King disappears?" she asks.
"The truth," he answers. "That I've gone to the Riverlands to rally what Lords and men remain there to our cause. The story will still have me seek what I seek; only the names change."
She pinches the bridge of her nose, her brow furrowing. Ghost tries to get his whole slender nose into her hand, and his unrelenting desire to be pet finally prompts a smile on Sansa's face. Seeing it kills the anger in Jon instantly. If he named her an accessory to the dead for letting arrogance disrupt their unity, he was a hypocrite. Jon and his rage were just as guilty.
"Just tell me you aren't going alone," Sansa suggested.
"Of course not. I'll be taking Brienne," he responded. "She's my Kingsguard. I'll need another proper sword on the road. We'll pick up Davos in White Harbor; but he can't fight, as he's so wont to remind me. Neither can Lord Baelish, and he can't be bringing the Knights of the Vale with him."
Sansa's eyes widened at that. "What? You're taking Littlefinger with you?"
"He's the man who knows how to get in the good graces of strangers the best," Jon admitted."He did it with your mother, with Lady Lysa, the Lannisters, the crown, all of it. Who's to say he can't bridge the gap with Daenerys? Or give us safe passage through the territory Cersei controls?"
"I want him out of here," Sansa said, taking a dripping bite out of her pear. "More than anybody. But ultimately he destroyed everyone who called him an ally. Robert is dead. Mother is dead. Aunt Lysa is dead. Tywin Lannister is dead."
"Another reason why I am taking him to Yronwood, out of Winterfell, away from the protection of his Knights," Jon explained. "Tell me all that he has done to you, and when he is alone and without allies, I'll see to it that justice is served."
Realization dawns in Sansa's eyes when Jon's hand fastens around the gleaming handle of Longclaw, sharp as ever, at his waist.