Chapter 10
The news came in the evening.
Jon should have learned by then that his mail was never good. It was either an accident or a death, or a marriage turning sour. But he hadn't learned. He had been hopeful every time that someone would tell him the last message had been a mistake or an outright lie, that Arya had turned up or Robb hadn't died after all.
That never happened. Still, Jon hoped.
Mormont let Jon have the day to himself, saying just to take it easy and stay close to the camp. When Jon's back was turned, he told Sam to keep an eye on him.
"Told you that family was cursed," Grenn muttered. Pyp elbowed him in the ribs, which were about as high as the shorter man could reach. Jon ignored them.
He walked for a while, before the sight of other people made his stomach hurt. He headed to his bunk.
It was empty. Good. Jon lay down on his cot and stared at the tent ceiling.
Then he turned over, pressed his face into the thin pillow and wept.
He wept for all the family he had lost, for his father, for Robb, for Bran and for Rickon. He wept for Arya, who was missing, and for the servants who had been killed in the fire to the estate. He even wept for Cat, Cat, who had never been kind to him, not even when he was a small child and she was the only mother he knew.
He wept to know he was his father's last heir. He wept for so many things, wept and wept, and wept, until he felt hollow and his throat was raw.
It didn't bring them back.