Thank you to my unique beta reader DrHolland for help and support. And to TopShelfCrazy for the swift second opinion :-))

Thank you for reading and reviewing.

Aegon's POV takes place in "present" day of the story, so right after Davos' POV ended, a week after Mance's chapter, on the western edge of the Wall (Shadow Tower).

Aegon

Jeyne swept past him without a word.

She probably failed to notice Aegon's existence, deeply engrossed in conversation with her new lady friend, the wildling princess as the Southrons were prone to call her. The free folk just called her Val.

"Jeyne! Wait, please!" Aegon was beyond caring if he sounded weak or stupid. Today he would talk to her. He had to know if she still loved him, before the command of the Shadow Tower drove him fully out of his mind.

Aegon was expected to resolve squabbles among groups of very different men, women and deadmen at almost every waking or sleeping hour of the day and the night. He had just spent the eighth morning since he was in charge of the castle rationing food and dodging the inevitable presence of the castle's official commander Ser Denys Mallister.

Ser Denys had been searching for Mance Rayder for the sennight, eager to tell him in person how he had always known that the lost black sheep, or in this case, the wildling, would one day return to the Wall where he belonged.

Unfortunately, Rayder had become so proficient and skilled in hiding from Ser Denys, knowing every corner of Shadow Tower and its surroundings, that it was always Aegon who ended up listening about lost sheep, or, occasionally, a goat. Every single day.

Sometimes he wished that the raucous horns of the Night's Watch sounded three times, for the Others attacking. At least that would put an end to the petty problems he had to deal with. Afterwards, he would hate himself for his boyish wish. Best if we are left alone. The castle was not yet ready to withstand an invasion of a dominant force. Fortunately, there was the Wall. It defends itself, Mallister whispered after concluding his eternal lamentation about Mance Rayder as the lost goat, and Aegon hoped he was right.

"Jeyne, please!"

Today, Aegon was adamant, or perhaps simply fed up and rash. He didn't care either way. On the edge of losing his normally moderate temper, he leapt after the two women. More rapidly than when he had fought the Others on the Bridge of Skulls, he sank to his knees in front of Jeyne and hugged firmly the legs of his love, entangling her in the dark, smooth velvet of her skirts and cloak, preventing her from walking away.

"Please," he repeated like a lovesick fool, looking up into the black pools of her eyes, several shades darker than his own grey ones. Jeyne turned stiff and silent; her immobile, petrified body pleaded with Aegon mutely to let her go.

I am so very sorry, my love, Aegon thought, mindless, desperate, embracing her harder. I just need to know what I did wrong.

Contrary to his expectations when he began his journey north, it had proven easier to slay white walkers with his father's sword than to receive a straight answer to his plea of love from the woman who claimed to love him back.

Val gave Aegon an amused look, as if he was Mance's son or that other little boy she often dragged or chased around, the one they called monster. The two nameless boys woke the castle every day as a pair of roosters, yelling cheerfully in their play.

"Do you need help?" Val asked Jeyne. The warlike wildling women were known to kill men who tried to take them and who were not to their liking. Or worse, unman them. Justice for rapers was occasionally swift beyond the Wall. Aegon was past caring.

"Please," he begged, "A moment of your time, my love. If you still value my life as you used to."

Jeyne trembled, hesitated, relented. "I'll be fine," she told Val, sending her politely away. "I shall see you later."

When they were left alone in a dusty corridor, Aegon stood up and offered Jeyne his arm. The walk to his borrowed solar was short, but still long enough for Aegon to remember their entire dalliance in a single, bright flash of memory.

Back when Jeyne was not properly alive, she saved Aegon from a white walker in the woods in the riverlands where he had ventured in a useless one-man search for Daenerys, seen riding her dragon. At the time Aegon still believed himself to be Rhaegar's son and the princess' nephew. This was how Aegon and Jeyne met.

In the beginning, Aegon did not know that his lady saviour was… special. Dead. He began adoring her from afar, as his own mystery lady, first without seeing the pale ruin of her face and blue markings of the hanging left on her neck. Later, when Aegon discovered the truth of her condition, it only made him realise he loved her… unconditionally.

Corresponding to his love in her spirit, if not in her body, Jeyne spent all her time with Aegon. In the Red Keep, she would share his chambers, but never his bed. She sensed threats to his life and veiled over him like his best guardian.

Yet ever since she was warm and alive and well, Jeyne slept elsewhere. She had never approached Aegon's bedroll on their journey North in King Rhaegar's retinue. She avoided Aegon every evening. She very rarely spoke to him after sundown and yet often came to his proximity and stared at him with unhidden, languid yearning.

She had never told him why she acted like this. Soon she began spurning his advances entirely, allowing him only a passionate kiss every now and then, always during daytime. In those rare, precious moments, she whispered she loved him too much whenever they were done kissing.

By the time they reached Winterfell, Aegon was sick of it. He proposed to marry her in front of the heart tree… thinking the impropriety and shyness may have been the reason she shunned him. Jeyne… Jeyne refused. He could not understand why. Not then and not now. They loved each other…

Didn't they?

The door of the solar was open and the guards were not there. Was it my turn to be here? Did I forget my shift? Did I leave him unprotected? Aegon must have been so tired that he'd lost count of the schedule of guard change. He ran to his bedchamber and sighed out in relief. Jon was still asleep in a separate bed. No one had touched him or harmed him. He had been ill for a week. His fever was gone for a day now and Aegon expected him to wake at any moment.

Mance and his wildlings watched over Jon at night, allowing Aegon some moments of much needed sleep. Aegon assumed the day duty in person, with the help of the few men from the Golden Company he trusted and cousin Ned Dayne.

Aegon returned to the solar, afraid that Jeyne might have run away while he checked on his most sacred duty; guarding the new king - Rhaegar's only son and heir.

His love was waiting.

Aegon took her hands. "Thank you," he exhaled. "For coming here. For waiting now. Please, Jeyne, if you ever loved me, tell me what I've done. I thought… I believed we would become closer since Lady Stoneheart, I mean Lady Catelyn, died to bring you back… Not… Not fall apart and- "

"-You? You did nothing." When she was upset, Jeyne always spoke as she was before Lady Stoneheart hanged her; the no-nonsense innkeep from the riverlands. She completely forgot the airs of a noble lady she'd adopted as a dead woman; tragic and unreachable. Aegon was in love with both.

"Stop it!" he yelled. "Why won't you marry me? Don't lie to me that we have no time or that we should wait for the winter to end… For all we know, it shall last forever!"

In truth, Jeyne had never told him any of that. She'd never said anything. Aegon himself conjured more and more monstrous explanations in his mind with every new day.

Do you not love me?

"A wife has duties," Jeyne offered after a long pause, almost gently, combing her long black hair with her fingers to hide her obvious nervousness.

"As does a husband," Aegon said sternly. "I have never been with a woman. Is that it? Do you think me incapable?"

"It's not that," she blushed so profusely and lowered her eyes so prettily that Aegon felt a surge of desire to have her then and there, felt himself blushing in return; his inexperience be damned.

Just as he said, Aegon had never bedded anyone. He believed that Jeyne might have, though, and he didn't mind. At least I confessed this to her now. He hadn't dared before. Best if one of us knows what goes where and how. Aegon regretted he did not remedy his condition of being innocent in the past, but he felt no desire to learn the art now, with any other woman, only to be able to impress more favourably the one he loved.

"Then what is it?" he implored.

Jeyne's eyes instinctively wandered to the open door of the bedchamber and to… Jon.

Aegon was taught to be patient and kind, but his torment suddenly got the better of him. "What? Do you like him better? Do you want a… a king? Is it because I'm not a prince any more?"

When he was done shouting, he noticed he was grasping Jeyne by both shoulders and shaking her.

"You are hurting me!" she said, deadly cold; grim. "He is handsome. But that has nothing to do with us."

"What is it then?"

"I shall talk to him when he wakes," Jeyne stated with icy indifference. "He may know something of importance for me."

"Can I listen to that conversation?" Aegon asked jealously. Am I not handsome enough? He was told that so many times about himself that he… he believed it. He… he hated when they called him a pretty boy on the Rhoyne, but now he would give everything for Jeyne to see him like that. Maybe my being handsome was a lie like everything else.

"No," Jeyne was now adamant as a white walker eager to drink king's blood.

"And if I do hear it by chance?"

"I'll never marry you if you do."

"And if I promise I won't listen, will you marry me?"

"Call for me when he wakes," his love grated through her teeth, lifted her head high and left him.

So much for the conversation.

Aegon dragged his feet to the bedchamber and sat on his own bed. He was sick of holding Shadow Tower while waiting for the new king to wake from his illness.

The green dragon waited as well. The beast lay sprawled on the Wall like a corpse, sharing Jon's poor condition. Its shiny, scaled green tail and bronze horns twitched in the animal's slumber. Fire erupted occasionally from the maw, defrosting the black brothers' path that ran along the top of the Wall, turning it into soft slosh.

The dead krakens camped on the inhospitable shore south of Westwatch, constructing a ship. Being dead, they didn't require hospitality. Some of the wildlings intended to continue South with them, to the Iron Islands, as soon as the vessel was built. All those able to fight would stay to man the Wall; men, women and wights.

Of their own free will.

The Others had to be opposed and stopped. That was the only goal that the different groups of people present could agree among themselves. Aegon was terribly, terribly weary from constant disputes about anything else, from the size of ice rubble to be used to permanently seal the gates in Westwatch to the benefits of pickled pork over dried cod for the maintenance of good health in winter.

Mance Rayder scurried from Westwatch to Shadow Tower at least once a day, overseeing the preparations for defence in both castles. The fact that he'd never run into Ser Denys on one of his comings and goings equalled a miracle.

Farther to the East, a thick black shadow rose high and hovered over the Wall where its main outpost should be; Castle Black. A raven came from it two days ago, asking of Ser Denys to swear fealty to King Stannis, First of His Name. Mallister instantly handed the letter to Aegon and went to play cyvasse with Harry Strickland, happy to be rid of unpleasant responsibilities in his old age. Besides, the elderly knight was now regularly winning over Harry, after only a few days' practice.

Aegon committed the content of the letter to the memory and the damaged, wet parchment to the fire. Having heard Mance's stories about Stannis and his red woman, in which Jon played a part, Aegon doubted that any of the two men would ever bow to the Baratheon lord, and much less call him king. Especially with the part where he offends Rhaegar's memory by saying Lyanna was forced or where he argues that Jon is an abomination of nature to justify his claim.

And I took Stannis' impregnable castle with the elephants of the Golden Company, without him or his sorceress being the wiser. Maybe Jon will like me for it.

Aegon remembered gladly his only self-earned moment of military glory. He had tricked the defenders by mounting a haphazardly made siege tower on one side of the impenetrable fort. Then he used the elephants, and the pirate hooks and ladders from the ships hired by the Golden Company for the crossing of the narrow sea, to climb up on the opposite side. Having braved the high, smooth walls of Storm's End, Aegon and his men caught the defenders by surprise and outnumbered them. There was no bloodshed. My old sword remained clean.

On the contrary, Aegon was forced to swallow bile whenever he remembered in any detail the sword fight on the Bridge of Skulls. He had to chop a mangled wildling corpse to be certain that it would not rise as a white walker again. He had to clean Dawn in snow after that.

The only unfortunate victim of Aegon's short siege of Storm's End was one of Harry's beloved elephants. Aegon knew he was going to listen to Harry Strickland's complaints about this tremendous loss until the end of their association, or of his or Harry's life, whichever came first.

He had left Ser Rolly Duckfield to hold Storm's End in his name when he marched on King's Landing. After the mummery which turned Aegon's life upside down, when he stopped being the crown prince in order to become a Dornish bastard, adopted by the king, there had been no time to call Duck to the capital, in order for him to join the northern campaign of King Rhaegar. Aegon occasionally missed the brawny knight. He could use another trustworthy man to guard King Jon during the day.

On second thought, maybe he didn't need anyone for the guard duty, not any more. Maybe him and Jeyne yelling at each other had done some good to the realm.

A pair of shrewd black eyes studied Aegon intently, wide awake and much less bright than during sickness. Jon's eyes had remained open in the throes of his fever and he had constantly maundered about stone dragons.

"I am Aegon," Aegon presented himself, at loss for words. He had imagined this moment for seven long days, and he felt completely inadequate and unprepared for it on the eighth day when it finally arrived.

"I thought so," Jon's waking gaze focused on Aegon's silver hair before staring deep into his eyes; the new king's deep, young voice rang with both honesty and coldness.

What will you think of me? What will you say when you learn how I almost caused your mother's death? Do you know that already? Aegon had confided to the parchment his discovery that Septa Lemore had been poisoning him when he was hailed as king in the capital. In his absence from the court, two scavengers in human skin used Aegon's manuscript to condemn Septa Lemore to death. The conspiracy had failed, the conspirators were long dead, but Aegon still felt responsible.

"How was the king's… my father's burial?" Jon's first concern was for Rhaegar's final rest. "Did the Hound have to… was there a need to desecrate his body?"

"He is with the Seven," Aegon explained with piety, well-learned in childhood from his septa. Your mother, Your Grace. "The gods were merciful. At the touch of Valyrian steel, King Rhaegar rose into the air as a trail of pure crystals, his shield had said."

"You mean his dog."

"They treated each other like brothers," Aegon blurted.

"Did they?" Jon sounded very surprised.

"They lived in a septry together, I heard… I also heard they saved each other's lives more than once. Later on, Clegane and his now lady wife read the roles of… Of your parents. Of King Rhaegar and Queen Lyanna in Mance's mummery…"

"Mance's mummery?" Jon removed a slightly wavy, prickly black lock of hair out of his eyes. His black mane had grown further in his sleep. The edges of it looked sharp, unlike Aegon's soft silvery strings. Is this what Jeyne likes? The wildness of it?

"Hasn't anyone told you?" Aegon asked with more force than he would have wanted, incredulous. Judging by Jon's expression, it was the first time he had heard about the mummery.

"And by Clegane's wife you mean Sansa, I suppose," Jon said dryly. "I find this so hard to believe."

Aegon nodded, shrugged. Love came when least expected. There was nothing much to say or do about it. Aegon knew this very well. Better than most.

"Others take me!" Jon cursed belatedly, and then let out a soft chuckle.

Aegon laughed back, before smiling sadly. It was Queen Lyanna's favourite curse. He wondered if His Grace knew it.

"What?" Jon asked, observant, noticing Aegon's change of mood. "It's just a stupid saying. Or are you that afraid of the white walkers? I know I am, at times."

"No," Aegon shook his head and answered honestly, fixating Jon with his grey gaze. "Or not more than you are. It's just that… the way you cursed reminded me of someone."

"I see," Jon did not have to be told everything, not at all. He could guess some truths more than well on his own. "And that someone would be a lady, wouldn't she?" The acid scowl Jon made next was extremely eloquent, suggesting that being educated by Queen Lyanna was somehow Aegon's fault.

"How was it, to have a mother?" Jon asked warily.

"I didn't have a mother," Aegon rebelled against the unspoken accusation, "I had a septa. She told me both my parents were of the highest birth and noble nature. She said they loved each other and me. That much seems to be the truth. However, she lied about who they were my entire life." The last sentence came out more bitter than he would have wanted it. "She made me ingest a drop of poison every day so that my grey eyes would contain a touch of Targaryen purple."

Jon studied Aegon for a brief moment as if he was seeing him for the first time. "I see," he stated. "I suppose I should be thrilled that mine are plain black."

Challenged by the statement, Aegon stared impolitely into Jon's eyes. His soul became filled with doubt. "Are they now?" he asked.

"Come," he said and dragged a confused Jon up from his bed and straight to the mirror Ser Denys had graciously left for Aegon's usage.

Aegon placed his face side by side with Jon's so that Aegon's silver hair flanked Jon's skin, several shades paler than Aegon's Dornish complexion. Cousin Ned had recently explained to him that the Daynes were very white for Dornish standards, but still tanned when compared to men from the other six Kingdoms.

"Look carefully," Aegon told Jon and did the same.

In the mirror, next to the silver shine of Aegon's hair, Jon's right eye showed the faintest trace of extremely dark blue, or dark violet within the black. Indigo. "You are fortunate that your father had very dark eyes for a Targaryen-"

"-and for having my mother's hair," Jon completed Aegon's thought. "Gods be good," he stared at his mirror image, tousling his hair with both hands, "I wish… I wish... Never mind… My father is dead... I had two fathers and they are both dead." Sounding thoroughly defeated, Jon abandoned the mirror and returned to sit on his bed.

Aegon was suddenly consumed by the urge to tell Jon about himself; to let Rhaegar's son make up his mind about Aegon's own worth.

If I have any.

"I had no father, be he real or a man acting like one," Aegon began. "I can only imagine how he was… Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning. And he lies buried under the stone cairn in the mountains of Dorne. Yet his renown still lives among people. Or perhaps it is soiled now that the kingdoms learned about me. My father loved his sister, and that is a crime, outside the house of the dragons… Your house. I only have the hair of your house…"

"When your father thought he was a brother of the Faith," Aegon continued, hesitantly, "he was bald. And his eyes looked naturally black, just like yours. I've seen it."

"What I want to arrive at is that the hair colour can either reveal or help hide the Targaryen eyes... So my guardians made me dye my hair bright blue in Essos, in Tyroshi fashion…" Aegon whispered miserably, "so that I wouldn't show the eye colour I only possessed and kept from being continuously poisoned… My entire life had been a lie."

"Don't tell," Jon observed, studying Aegon very attentively.

Aegon wondered what Jon saw. A weakling. A boy who is not even pretty enough to merit a woman's interest.

His Grace shifted his attention to his burned sword hand and commented carelessly towards Aegon, almost as if he were talking to an old friend. "Well, if Daenerys finds it in her heart to admire my modest looks, perhaps more women can be blind. Though I would have never expected it from Sansa. She had eyes only for beauty in the past."

"Beauty is far from obvious," Aegon was forced to react. He had loved Jeyne when she was anything but beautiful. But, to his galloping misfortune, there was nothing modest about Jon's looks. If Jeyne was so taken by him on his sickbed, what would happen now, when he was up and about?

Wait, Daenerys? Aegon was late in processing the entirety of Jon's words. Jon and Daenerys? The Mother of Dragons he knew was colder towards Aegon, and perhaps to men in general, than Jeyne in her death. Has she fallen for her real nephew? The notion was amusing and yet it seemed as… challenging destiny.

Jon and Daenerys together would be like the first Aegon and any of his two queens. Rhaenys may have been prettier and gentler than Visenya, but they had both been Aegon's equals, sovereigns and dragonriders, not only his wives. The Seven Kingdoms were not accustomed to any of it.

Soon, the nobles and the maesters interfered into the habits of the House Targaryen, in the name of their laws. Not even dragonriders could withstand them. There were no more marriages of three; the queens did not rule. There was no telling how the realm would react to Jon and Daenerys reinstating the old way. Aegon shuddered from the sinister feeling of premonition. He hoped he was wrong. He wished Daenerys well. And Jon. Despite barely knowing him.

"I don't know about you," Aegon commented with curiosity, "but I've found that love is never what we imagine." What Jeyne woke in Aegon escaped words. "They say it is folly. I wouldn't know about that. But it's an occurrence of an entirely different magnitude than any other."

"Maybe," Jon muttered, omitting to share his own views of love. "What I wanted to say, when I mentioned Sansa," he clarified, "is that there seems to be so many extraordinary news no one has told me yet that I shall be learning them one by one until the day I die."

Aegon chuckled. "Isn't that true for everyone?" he wondered, tapping the scabbard on his back for reassurance. His father's sword and a name belonging to a prince that never existed was all Aegon had. He was a highborn bastard on the Wall. He could take the black if Jeyne didn't want him.

"Show me," Jon commanded, pointing at Dawn.

"It's a good sword," Aegon said, handing it over.

Jon measured the blade, stood up, tried a few strokes and passes at a safe distance from Aegon. "It's heavier than it looks. Must be the pretty colour that made me think it was lighter. Here," he gave it back.

Suddenly, with the uneasy introduction behind them, no one could stop the waterfall of Jon's questions. Aegon could not speak fast enough to answer them all.

"Was there truly a man who had transformed into an Other and who did not melt into nothingness or these… these crystal snowflakes, when defeated, either by dragonglass or Valyrian steel?" Jon launched the first one.

"Yes," Aegon answered without thinking. "I had to do for the body myself. It was unspeakable."

"This is the Shadow Tower?" Jon looked around, half knowing, half guessing.

Aegon nodded briefly.

"The dragons?" Jon went on.

"The black one is gone, he flew East when you passed out, the green one-"

"-has woken up now, like myself," Jon completed knowingly.

As a confirmation, a shrill screech pierced the air of Shadow Tower. Beautifully scaled, leathery wings flapped right in front of the tiny, dirty window of the commander's solar; closed as tightly as possible to save some warmth in winter.

"Incredible," Aegon was marvelled at the dragon's apparition.

"Ghost? That's my wolf," Jon kept asking.

"Gone after-"

"-my mother's eagle," Jon concluded sadly, closing his eyes very briefly, holding onto the bed for balance.

"Yes," Aegon rattled back, "Stannis wrote-"

"-that he is king and that Ser Denys owes him fealty, forgetting that the Watch serves no king-" Jon guessed it, but not all.

Aegon intervened with the new information. "Stannis knew about Rhaegar's death and claimed to be his heir-"

"To be sure," Jon snorted and didn't let Aegon tell him the rest, about his late father being called the raper, and Jon a godless wight. "Doubtlessly he called himself Azor Ahai reborn before signing. Anything else?"

"And there is this. The raven came in this morning." Aegon reached into a special pouch between his armour and his tunic and handed a missive to Jon, sealed with the sun and spear in bright orange wax. "A letter, from the Prince of Dorne by the looks of it. Addressed to… to King Rhaegar."

Jon opened it, read it, frowned deeply. "Mance?"

"Here somewhere. Always busy."

"Call him, would you?"

"Yes, Your Grace," Aegon bowed in submission. Aegon and Jon would not be friends like their fathers. It would be easier this way.

"Don't call me that," Jon protested vehemently, unexpectedly.

"Then? It is proper. It is who you are," Aegon replied with more coldness than he intended.

"It is who he was," Jon said quietly, miserably, pointing at the beautifully shaped letters addressed to his father. His entire being seemed to shrink and shrivel from the sadness of the memory.

"And he would wish you to be that, after him," Aegon… almost cried. Rhaegar had been unique.

"Mance, if it please you. Will you find him for me?"

"Yes, gladly, Your Gr… Jon." On a whim, Aegon dared call the king by his name. "Or am I presuming now? Forgive me if I do."

"No… Aegon," Jon returned the courtesy, "I'd never thought I'd have… an ally… no, a friend with that name," he ended with determination.

"I'd never thought you'd consider being a friend of mine," Aegon reacted, surprised, "not since I learned of... Of our real parentage."

"You were right," Jon said, "I haven't expected it from myself."

Aegon laughed. "Well said," he retorted. "Mance will be here in no time," he promised.

By the time Aegon returned with the wildling, he had nearly forgotten everything about his troubled love life from giddiness about the unlikely and extremely pleasing possibility of having Jon as a friend. He didn't leave the room, but he positioned himself next to the closed door, as Jon's guard. Kingsguard, like my father, keeping the king's secrets. The quiet sound of two deep, manly voices slowly drifted his way. Aegon did not want to listen, but the gods did not make him deaf. He could still hear them.

"Prince Doran Martell," Jon said slowly, stressing every word, "is asking of my father to send you to the Iron Islands, to meet with Lord Rodrik Harlaw in his seat called the Ten Towers on the Island of Harlaw. This iron lord will have something of importance for the war of winter, or so the prince tells my father… A lost heirloom… of the House Targaryen. Would you go? And be back as soon as possible? I would have you here with me for what is to come. I know I can't command you in this, but it is my wish."

"A large group of my people will leave on a ship soon," Mance said, "To go to these islands. I could join them if that is your wish. And I will be back. For you and for myself. Where else would I go in winter? Forgive me but I… I have never been to Dorne. Why would they ask for me?" the wildling sounded exceptionally insecure and out of his depth in the last portion of his speech.

"I don't know and they don't say," Jon replied. "But here it says Mance Rayder, and if that's not enough they call you the King-beyond-the-Wall. Prince Doran's envoy shall talk to no other, they say. Harlaw… it should be good for your people. My father's… Lord Stark's ward, Theon, said that they sow over there… He meant that unlike the rest of the ironborn who only rob, the men from Harlaw grow food… We should… I should… I ought to… If there is an heirloom, Princess Daenerys should have it. She'll know what to do."

"What will you do?" Mance asked of Jon as of a very old friend.

Jon walked to a low, broad chest. His sword was laid on top of it, next to his father's harp. He took the high harp clumsily between his hands, as a man who had never held a music instrument. The strings he touched by chance emitted a weak, dissonant harmony of sound.

"I'm going to see my mother," Jon announced very, very quietly. "For a visit long due."

"Then I shall see you when I return," Mance said warmly. "I will be on my way now, to see if that ship can be ready to set sail sooner rather than later." The wildling left without more ado, never bending the knee.

Jon turned to Aegon, as if he had just remembered his existence. "I hope," he said, "I hope we will continue our discussions when I come back here. Keep your eyes open and-"

"May I…," Aegon stuttered, remembering Jeyne's plea concerning Jon. "Please may I present someone to you before you go? Just for a moment if you can spare it. It is important to her. She would like a word with you in private."

"She?" Jon asked, bemused. "Fine. Bring the lady."

Aegon found Jeyne in the little room she shared with Val and ushered her back to the commander's solar without a word.

"Lady Jeyne Heddle, Your Grace," he announced, stepped out and closed the door behind him.

Yet, despite beginning to loathe himself with great intensity, Aegon could not bring himself to leave fully. He stayed at the door, listening, praying to the Seven as Septa Lemore had taught him; to the gods Queen Lyanna probably did not believe in. He prayed that the content of the conversation between Jon and Jeyne would be something he could live with and that Jeyne still loved him.

His lady's voice was so soft that it almost broke Aegon's heart.

"Jon," she addressed the young king gently. "You were dead. Weren't you?"

Silence reigned, long and threatening. Aegon could almost hear the snow, falling softly in the courtyard of the castle.

"I think so," Jon's honest, resigned voice finally confirmed Jeyne's preposterous claim, to Aegon's utmost surprise. The magnitude of Jon's and Jeyne's exchange preserved Aegon's heart in one piece, but it challenged his soul. Could it be that Stannis did not lie?

"But you are not dead any more," Jeyne affirmed calmly.

Stannis didn't tell all the truth, did he? Aegon crawled closer to the door to hear better.

"I think I'm alive now." Jon sounded less assured about his second confession. "But I don't know it."

"I know," Jeyne affirmed.

"Do you?" Jon asked avidly. "How?"

"Don't you sense it? Look at me freely. Don't be afraid of it. Tell me who I am, what I am," his love asked of his king.

"You are… Jeyne," Jon said with difficulty, as if after some hard thinking. "You were dead as well, but you are not anymore."

"And when you saw the wights who fought with your father in the battle in which he died, didn't you know what they were? And that their allegiance was not due to the Great Other?"

"Yes," Jon answered without hesitation. "I sensed it all, without really knowing."

"This is how I know about you," Jeyne said. "We are the same. We are the only ones who… who came back to the life of the body and the senses after being dead for it. Except that you… you are stronger than me. Or maybe you were dead for a shorter time. I can't tell that."

"I was dead for half a day, maybe a day, I think," Jon whispered. "I don't remember exactly. I was in my wolf and my brothers carried my lifeless body away."

"How did you come back?"

"I don't know," Jon said with painful honesty. "I don't think I'll ever know. My dragon cured my wounds. But before that I… I bled out in the snow. Much like my father. I could not have been alive when the dragon found me. I remember clearly being in my wolf when the dragon came for us both. A green shade in the sky."

"I never lost any blood," Jeyne spoke of herself now. "I was hanged. I lost all air in my lungs. I stopped breathing, my heart stopped beating… UntiI I got a breath of life back… From Lady Catelyn Stark who was also undead at the time. Two halves of a life, or two halves of a death have made me whole. Or as whole as I can be."

"I see," Jon said with cold curiosity. "What do you want with me?"

"My pardons, Your Grace," Jeyne said as a proper lady, "I don't know you at all, but you are so far the only one, the only one like me. Please may I ask you something, please… There is no one else who can answer me."

"Go ahead," Jon said very quietly. "What I just told you, no one else knows. Why wouldn't I answer one more question?"

"It is improper for a lady, but I haven't really been one before, I ran an inn and now… I… Never mind."

"Go on, ask," Jon encouraged her with that half-friendly, half-mocking manner of his Aegon began to appreciate. "I'm used to all kinds of questions."

You would be, wouldn't you? Aegon thought, remembering his daily troubles. Being Lord Commander of the Night's Watch...

"It's just that… My skin feels so cold to touch most of the time," Jeyne complained with passion. "And I don't mind the winter cold, not at all. I am not as other warm-blooded women. Yet I want to… I want to, but I think I can't… Or rather, I don't know if I can…"

"Do what?"

"Bed a man," Jeyne's barely audible voice thrummed in Aegon's ears.

"I've never had any problem with that," Jon blurted. "Bedding a woman I mean. Despite that yes, I am cold as you say."

"And you didn't… harm her?" Jeyne's voice was even more silent now. "Made her as you are? Cold? Cruel? Insensitive?"

"No, not at all," Jon replied. "I didn't even think about it in advance. I didn't think about anything. And we did it….-"

"Many times?" Jeyne inquired hopefully.

Jon must have nodded, but Aegon could not see it.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Jeyne's voice was effusively happy and she may have kissed Jon noisily on his cheek. Soon she came running out of the solar, leaving Aegon barely enough time to hide in the shadows of the dark corridor. If she caught him eavesdropping she'd never marry him. Maybe she would tell Val to kill him or worse.

Jon is special, like Jeyne. Aegon belatedly realised that his misplaced jealousy had made him learn a secret he would otherwise not be privy to. He stepped out of the shadow where he had been hiding and froze.

Jon stood tall at the open solar door; his gaze was ice, accusing. In his right hand he held the sword that burned when it killed the white walker his father had become. It looked dull in colour now, but it was still long and sharp.

"You've been listening on me," Jon said darkly, "so much for our friendship."

"I have and I'm ashamed of it," Aegon said, going on one knee. On a second thought, he prostrated himself further and bared his neck to Jon, as a man sentenced to death on the headsman's block. "Here, Your Grace," he said very calmly. "The penalty for treason in the Seven Kingdoms is death."

"No," Jon refused sternly, putting his sword away. "I can't kill you for overhearing the truth. That is no crime."

Aegon knelt properly, drew Dawn and placed it at Jon's feet. "Then I swear myself and my sword to you. Should you want my service or refuse it forever, I swear that I shall keep this secret of yours and any other. As my father, Ser Arthur Dayne, had done for your father as the Member of his Kingsguard. May the Seven strike me dead if I break this vow."

Jon looked… perplexed by Aegon's oath. "Something you invented?" he asked. "It sounds almost as solemn as the vows I took when I was.." he looked left and right to see if anyone else was lurking in the corridor. "Before I died," he said gravely.

Aegon pushed him back into the solar, closed the door behind them, before anyone else came across and heard Jon.

"But I would still like to know why you listened," Jon inquired cautiously as though he didn't want to offend Aegon by further suspicion.

"Why did I listen?" Aegon offered, feeling better than ever... "I was jealous of you. I wish you to never know the feeling."

"Her… you…"

"I do hope that I am the man she wants to bed," Aegon said, "and not anyone else."

"One way to find out," Jon grinned and tapped Aegon on his left shoulder as a friend; his anger and doubts seemingly set aside.

Aegon blushed. "I guess so," he said, trying not to betray his embarrassing lack of any experience in the matter.

"I accept both your friendship and your service," Jon continued seriously. "Help Ser Denys Mallister hold the Wall in place until I return. I should not be long. But now, I must see my mother."

Determined, Rhaegar's son picked up his sword and his father's harp and stormed in the direction of the courtyard. Soon, Aegon heard another strident cry of the dragon and knew for certain that Jon had left. He did not dare look for Jeyne immediately, lest she realised he had been eavesdropping. Nervously, he left all his armour behind. I should not need it for… Unable to think through what he was about to do, and restless as seven hells, he caught up with Mance first, on his way to Westwatch.

"Leaving already, are you?" Aegon yelled after the wildling, gathering forces to ask what he really needed to know.

"Yes," Mance was never one for waiting. "The sooner I go, the sooner I'll be back." He kept walking.

"Wait!" Aegon pleaded.

"What's wrong with you?" Mance asked, stopped. "You are red as Bowen Marsh."

Aegon did not know Marsh, but it was past time he asked someone, and preferably a man grown… what he could never ask Lord Connington who didn't notice women, nor Duck, obsessed with his knighthood, nor Septa Lemore for being a lady…

"I want to steal a woman," he said. That was how the wildlings called it. "I…"

"You've never done it before," the King-beyond-the-Wall who could be his father if he had Aegon at a very young age understood him instantly. "You have only kissed your lady."

"Yes."

"Don't worry overmuch, Aegon," Mance said heartily, "Just do what she lets you do, and stop when she doesn't. Don't push too hard, especially not in the beginning, and you should be fine. I wish I had followed that counsel myself." With that, he gave Aegon a wink and was on his way.

Aegon returned to Jeyne's and Val's room at night, only to find it empty. Having nowhere else to go, he returned to his borrowed solar. The Shadow Tower was quiet after the evening meal, served amidst unearthly cold. Aegon missed it, but he felt no hunger, not for food, in any case. Most castle dwellers rested next to fires after supper. Later, there would be still some work done on the defences during night because the days were too short.

Jeyne was in Aegon's bed, black hair spilling over his hard straw mattress. Her gown was on the floor; a sea of abandoned dark velvet. Insensitive to cold, she didn't bother to cover herself. Aegon was… he felt able to perform. To see if he was a man in this, once and for all.

"There is no need to marry me if you want to have me," she said. "You all call me a lady, but I was not born one. I'm not a maid, but I'm no whore either. I gave my maidenhead to a young man for wanting it, and not for coin. That was before I met you and-"

Aegon did not care for explanations and found for the first time in his short life that women sometimes needed too many words to convey a very simple meaning. "I would want to marry you anyway," he said, "and I… I've never kissed any other girl but you and much less gone this far as I've already told you. Nor do I want to, with anyone else."

He didn't wait for her reaction. He kissed her, kissed her, kissed her. Rolled with her over the bed, wriggled out of the wools and furs he wore.

"How?" he asked timidly, touching a large, firm breast, blushing. She'd never allowed him that before.

"Mostly the girl lays down, I guess," Jeyne said against his lips, warm and pliable. "I've done this only once."

"Don't," Aegon said, inspired. "I lay down. Lets leave what is mostly done in bed for the next time."

She was very uncertain as she climbed on him. "I don't know about this."

"Then we don't. Kiss me," Aegon demanded.

They became entangled in bed and in each other, touched freely, kissed some more. Aegon felt himself… stronger than her. He lay decisively on his back and pulled her onto himself just there, just where he needed her now, trying to do this, not quite knowing how.

She sighed heavily when he managed to enter her, and he instantly wanted to do what he only did in his sleep and in his hand so far. Luckily, she stilled, adjusting herself to him. Slowly, she rocked against him, exhaled, sighed again. His hands caught her waist, her behind, guided her where he wanted her, directed instinctively the speed of her movement. Her face above him was terribly beautiful. He would never forget the expression she wore.

"Do I feel cold?" she asked sweetly.

"Cold?" Aegon gasped back at her, incredulous. He grasped her hips firmly and made her go faster. "You've never felt warmer."

The world was a whirlwind of heat when Aegon's body began betraying him. Of all places, it had to be on the Wall, in winter, that he had come to know the fire burning inside any man.

"I'll never be cold again," he said playfully when they were quite done, reassured of his prowess and frightfully lazy. He suspected he would oversleep tomorrow's rationing of food. "And the first thing I'll do tomorrow is look for a septon or a tree. I am marrying you."

"Yes," Jeyne said, catching her breath. "Yes, you are."

Xxxxxxx

Xxxxxxx

POV order

38 Aegon, 39 Jon, 40 Jaime , 41 Sandor, 42 Gendry, 43 Sansa