This Night and All Nights to Come

Chapter 10

The godswood was silent and serene, and Jon dared not speak lest he ruin the stillness of the hallowed thicket. The trees stood tall like statuesque sentinels, giving shelter and safety to the two disciples. They were ancient, and believed to be older than the realm itself, risen even before the Children of the Forest could see them as saplings.

The white weirwood trunks were hidden beneath the fallen snow; the branches extended out far like pale arms waiting for an embrace. Hanging from them were red leaves, deep and dark, but next to the blanched spectrum of the rest of the wood, they seemed brighter than even the sun. Jon wondered how these trees could only grow in this one corner of the forest; why the sanguine plant had not spread and colored the rest of the region.

The heart tree stood in front them, a face staring back with old and weeping eyes. Were they carved by the first men, as the eyes of the heart tree back at Winterfell was? Even at home, he had never felt the desire to pray to the gods. Always, they have been cruel with their apathy towards him, the unwanted bastard boy given up to the Wall. He felt he owed them nothing, the same as they have given him.

And still... did he not choose to take his vows before these gods? The same gods that have chosen to turn the other cheek to him. At that moment, Jon had decided to best them. The gods were detached and indifferent, but he would openly hurl defiance to them. For now, he would abandon his oath. For once, he would do as he pleased.

The stillness and sanctity of the wood no longer mattered. He slid closer to the girl who sat curiously quiet beside him in serious contemplation. "What troubles do you bring forth to the gods?" Jon asked. His voice sounded like thunder in the silence.

"Sometimes they seem trivial when spoken outloud," Sairette replied. The wind blew and shook the boughs, prompting a few leaves fall to the ground around them.

"But they dance at the sound of your voice," he said.

She smiled at him and sighed. "Everything north of the Wall to the Barren Sea, between the mountains in the west and the eastern plains - that is Sullenfaire," she explained to him. "That is my world, Jon. And at the heart of it is Crystalwood. It is small, I know. Humble. And inconsequential maybe in regards to anything else but, at one time, it was all I knew."

Sairette stood and walked a half dozen paces to the heart tree and caressed its face, as if trying to wipe the bleeding tears away. She stayed like this for a moment, staring at it, before she turned once again to Jon. "Now I know there is more," she continued. "All is different and it has caught me unaware."

She walked back to the boy and stood before him, making him look up to see her. "Maybe it is you that has changed this wood," she said as she looked down at him. "Or maybe it is something else that is yet to come."

"Winter is coming," Jon replied instinctively. Sairette nodded her head, not quite knowing his meaning, but understanding all the same. She wanted to tell him again that was always winter there; that she knew this because nothing ever grew there anymore. Everything was the same as it always had been and always will be and the allegorical winter that Jon spoke had no significance in her world.

The girl reached down to smooth his unkempt hair, brushing the curls away from his face. "We will collapse the tunnels," Sairette said, "and you will leave. And we will never see each other again. This is known to you?"

Jon pulled the wildling closer and laid his head on her stomach, hugging her to him. He felt the warmth radiating from her on his cheek, even with the layer of fabric in between them. She continued stroking his hair, melting the fallen snowflakes on her fingertips.

"What if I did not go?" Jon asked. "What if I stayed here?"

The girl took him by the shoulders and pulled away. "Do not give me false hope."

o0oOo0oOo0o

"Send a raven," Mormont commanded. "Alert Lord Stark that Jon has gone missing."

"Are you sure that is wise?" Alliser Thorne asked. "The boy is leading an army. Why worry him of his brother's desertion?"

The Lord Commander looked up from his paper and sat his quill down on the desk. "You are convinced he has abandoned the Wall?"

"He was here one moment and the next, he was not. How else could it be justified?"

Mormont stood and walked around his desk. He added more logs to the fireplace while he spoke. "I have no doubt that he left on his own free will," the man said, "but I am not sure of his intentions of returning." He straightened his back with a muffled groan and a loud crack was heard from his bones. "Brother Benjen, Lord Eddard, and now Jon Snow. We are losing Starks much too quickly."

Thorne seemed none too hurt at this realization. "Desertion is desertion, whether or not he intended to come back."

"Tell me, Alliser, how many times have you snuck in and out of these gates?"

The master-at-arms was at a loss for words. As a younger man, he had frequented the whore house not too far from Castle Black. Now, he was not questioned when he left. There was no more need to sneak.

"We would all be put to death," Mormont continued. He grabbed the paper from his desk and folded it, then added his seal to the crease. He handed the letter to the other man. "Send a raven to Lord Stark," he said again. "And do it with haste."