Chapter Fifty-Seven: What Is Dead May Never Die

Winterfell

Jon

Ruin.

A bloody, miserable ruin.

Grey stone walls that had once stood so high had crumbled into rock and dust. The towers – both broken and whole – were gone. Melted, eviscerated, missing. The stables had burned, and the trenches, and the castle walls, and everything that stood in the yard where Jon had once learned to use a sword, while bore a name and called for a father, and neither were his own.

Most of the castle that had not burned was hidden by snow. A few structures yet stood, but buried. Mounds as high as the broken tower had been swept against the few standing walls, pushing towards the center of the keep. Their rooms were safe, it seemed, even if little else had been spared. They would need to remove the snow, somehow, but they would have weeks until his sis… cousins arrived, and he would rather work with his hands than think on his name, his titles, his birth. He would rather do many things than that.

Gods of his f- mother, he would rather fight the Battle of Winterfell all over again, if it meant leaving those thoughts for another day.

The idea struck him, suddenly, and he looked to the godswood, where Lord Stark used to sit and clean Ice after every execution, where Lord Stark had taught him to keep to the old gods, to worship as he pleased, for Northmen needed no septs or septons, and Jon was of the North. Lies. All lies that his false father had spun, like a venomous arachnid toying with its prey.

But the godswood was gone, and Lord Stark could never again sharpen a sword that was split. Arya carried one half and had died with the blade on her belt, and the other was lost.

My fault, he thought madly. He could not say why.

The tree was gone. Rubble and ash stood in place of white wood and dark leaves that had once been as red as pooling blood. This place, where his brother-cousin had fallen, where Lord Stark's ward had given his life, where Alys Karstark had offered herself for the North… there was nothing left of it. Nothing at all, but crumbled walls and snow.

Rhaegal set himself down atop the rubble, his massive claws sinking deep into the snow. Here, it had gathered most, as if the Night King had meant to bury the heart tree after he'd already burned it to ash. Ten thousand years, this weirwood had stood tall and strong, guiding a thousand Starks and a hundred bastard sons. Now, because of Jon's failures, it was lost. Lost with the rest of the castle. Lost with the rest of the boy.

Even the black pool, where he and Robb bathed as boys, was gone. There, not even rubble remained. In all the clearing, there was not a hint of it. None at all.

The only thing he could say that lifted his spirit was that most of the fallen had left this place, so far as he could tell through the tracks in the snow. They would not have wight bodies to burn, nor reanimated corpses to carry. That labor had been done in King's Landing, and would need doing all across the Neck and Riverlands. Here, the only corpses were those wights killed in the battle, and there were few enough of those.

Most that he could see had been frozen into the landscape. Corpses reaching, falling, dead. He would need to burn them free, and then burn them again. There were too many to bury.

Bran's body would be among the missing too, most like. He had seen wights crawling, dragging themselves along by their elbows even with their legs twisted or gone. He, Theon, and Alys all. They would be gone.

And more. Tormund, Edd, Sam, Davos, all of them. People he had known and loved, and now they were dust. Corpses in King's Landing. Corpses burned or fallen; it mattered little. Either Dany had done the deed or Arya had. Jon had been of no use at all.

He heard her calling his name, but not a single mention slipped past his ears. He climbed down from the dragon's back, each step as slow as any he had ever taken. He fell to his knees atop the place where once stood the heart tree and buried his hand in the snows.

Eight, mayhaps nine, years had passed since he had learned of the threat beyond the Wall. In all that time, he had never had a plan for after. Never dared think of a future when the Walker threat was done. Never pictured Winterfell in ruins, the godswood lost, and his family destroyed. Never pictured he would be given a name, only to lose it within a sennight.

He had never dreamed of victory. If he had, he would never have thought that it could taste so bitter.

"Old gods," he whispered into the winter winds. "Show me the way. Show me what to do."

All around, the castle was lined by ice, but it had not taken hold here. Here only the snow remained, larger than when he had been a boy, but so familiar it almost made him sick. And in this winter hell, the gods did not answer. The gods did not live.

Dany made her way to him, and her presence was more welcome than he had expected. His anger, thank the fallen gods, did not extend to his aunt. Only to his uncle.

Lord Stark, he thought, pain aching deep in his chest. Why?

He had never told them stories of Jon's mother, nor of the woman she had been. He did not speak of Rhaegar Targaryen, nor the Dornish, nor even Ser Arthur Dayne. Jon had lived six and ten years in Winterfell, and his false father had never breathed a word of any of them. No hints, no signs, nor hopes.

For years, I was son of a washerwoman, or some southron innkeep you took to your bed. For years, I was mocked and hated and jeered at.

It seemed Dany knew him better than he knew himself, for her next words shook him to the core. "The usurper would have killed you."

Was I speaking aloud? He could not say. Instead, he swallowed hard, and said, "He could have told me. I was a six and ten. A man grown."

"If you had misspoken once, you would have been killed. I hid my name too for a time. It was wise." It seemed to pain her to speak well of Ned Stark.

"I was going to the Wall. Men of the watch, we swear to wear no crowns, win no glory. I wouldn't have…"

"It worked well then, I see. There was no crown on your head when we met." She smiled a little. "Your Night's Watch surely take their words at their value and no further." She did not say the rest, but he heard it all the same. Words are wind.

"That was different," Jon said, but the humor was eating at him too. It faded quickly. "No one could have known what would happen. No one could have predicted the Walkers."

"Your father did," Dany said. She could not have known how much it hurt to hear those words and think of Rhaegar, enemy to House Stark. "Howland Reed said it was prophecy."

"Howland Reed was wrong." He rose. His fingers brushed over the place where the heart tree had once stood, and he felt nothing of what he had when he was a boy. No winds whistled through the leaves any longer. No sharp scent of pine needles in the air, nor hot stew on the fire. No cry of a boy caught in the branches of the tree, shrieking as he leapt from branch to branch, while the babe laughed and the boy's mother scolded him. "All prophecy is."

"The War ended," she said.

"Aye, and Rhaegar was the Last Hero, was he? It was Arya. Not Rhaegar, not Stannis, not me, not you. Show me any red woman that prophesized that, and I will take their word for truth." He ground his teeth like Stannis had done a thousand times before. "Words are wind." And there was none left here.

"And yet it led us both here." Behind her, Rhaegal set his head in the snows and breathed a puff of smoke. The field of snow turned a misted grey, near as dark as the ashes that had rained over King's Landing, but light enough that some white still showed. "You slayed a dragon," she reminded him, though he knew it must have hurt her too. He grabbed her hand, and her fingers squeezed his. "We never would have won that battle with Viserion against us."

"He wasn't Viserion," Jon said, softly. "No more than Sam was Sam when he… fell. No more than Bran would have been Bran."

"He wasn't, but he was." Pain streaked across her face. He pulled her closer. "I needed to ride Drogon to set off the wildfire. Tyrion needed to make his plans. Stannis…"

He took a breath, hung his head. "Stannis needed to save the Wall. Had the free folk torn it down too soon…"

"And your father needed you. To kill Viserion. To rally the kingdoms."

"To hold him off." He did not need to say who he meant. Even now, the Night King's specter hung over them both Hung over them all. Dead, but not gone. Stopped, but still haunting.

"To rebuild," she said, startling him. "Both of us." She smiled. "All of us. The war does not end when the enemy surrenders. The people need us."

"Aye, and we'll rule them well. They'll farm the lands, give us their crops, and we'll send their men to the Wall for looking at the children of some lord." He clenched his fists. A thousand stories came to mind. Dareon, Pyp, Grenn. Good men who'd been cursed by lords and ladies for crimes they hadn't done. Doomed to live out their days on the Wall. Long days. Few days. "And their sons can be the same, and their sons after them. Their daughters can be sold." He thought of Sansa, cold and afraid and angry. He thought of Arya, who might have been sold the same if they'd caught her. "Their sons can war for naught." He thought of Robb and Bran and Rickon. Dead and dead and dead. "Their bastards can win no crowns. And none of them have any say."

Dany was staring at him. "What does this have to do with-"

He didn't let her finish. He didn't like hearing it aloud. "It doesn't. None of it does." He ran his fingers through his hair and groaned when they caught in his curls. "We were supposed to live our lives. In peace."

"This doesn't change that."

"I'm a Targaryen."

"Am I not? Is the name some stain I should know?"

"You don't understand." You know nothing, cried a voice he had not heard in years. A vice gripped around his heart and squeezed.

"No," she said, frowning. Not of anger, though. That had faded.

"All I ever wanted was to be a Stark, and I thought-" I could be the Stark in Winterfell. Just once. Just me. While Sansa and Arya went riding, while Bran flew to the Reeds, I could have been the Stark. "They named me, Dany! They called me Stark! I had the name, I'd finally earned it, and they-" He swallowed. "He's not even my father. All my life was lies. And my sisters – they aren't even my sisters – they don't know. No one knows but us. Us and Howland Reed. Gods, we could have married…"

Her hand, which had been reaching for his back, stilled just beyond his reach. "Why does this change anything?"

"We're kin," he said. "Blood. You're my-"

"Aunt."

"Aye, my aunt."

"Our ancestors wed sister to brother. The Starks wed cousin to cousin, if Viserys told it true. Is aunt to nephew so terrible?"

It wasn't, and he knew that as well as she, but the point still stung. Alone, it might have been enough to ignore, but with all that was running through his head, it was impossible.

She took him by the hands and pulled him close. Her forehead fell to his own, and then he was staring into her eyes. Purple. Purple like the ancestors that had come before her. Purple like Aerys and Aegon and Aemon and Rhaegar. Purple that might have killed him, if he'd been born with eyes like those. What would Lord Stark have said then? Would I be a Dayne or too much trouble to keep?

Had his eyes have been purple, he might have been raised as Dany was. On the run, living amongst horse lords and sellswords. He might never have known Robb, or Bran, or Rickon, or Sansa, or the girl he still thought of as his little sister. He might never have gone to the Wall and met Pyp, Grenn, Sam, Edd, the Old Bear, Bowen Marsh, Mance, or Ygritte. He would never have known the lessons they taught him. He would never have known of the White Walkers.

No, he would have. When it was too late.

Winterfell was gone, but his memories were not. He would never be Lord of Winterfell, nor King of the Seven Kingdoms, nor anything at all. A bastard, still, no matter who his father was.

My mother was a Stark. I am still their kin. I am still Jon Snow, at the very least.

He stared into Dany's eyes and took her by the lips. They were soft and supple, not nearly as chapped and bloody as his own. They parted for him, and he took her cue with pleasure.

When they broke apart, several long minutes later, he stared at her. He smiled. She smiled back, all teeth and swollen lips. No longer soft. It nearly made him laugh. "Thank you," he said, instead.

"Rebuild," she said. "And then you may thank me." She nodded to the keep, where he had played and lived as a bastard boy without a name.

This time, he did laugh. "Aye," he said. "Aye, I will." He grinned. "There are two types of kisses, you know."

It was her turn to laugh now, and that laugh could warm the hearts of many a bastard boy. But she was his, and he was hers. Names be damned, kin be damned. They had saved the whole of Westeros, the whole of the world. The gods owed them for once. They were all owed this.

#

Time passed quickly in the ruins of his home. Rhaegal had cleared much of the snow the day they arrived, and the rest of the work was simple from there. Tedious work, but simple. Carrying corpses to the pyre, building the pyre, stacking fallen bricks of stone, collecting books that had been fallen, and clearing books that had been burned. In the weeks that followed their arrival, much of the castle burned. Too much.

Curtains and table cloths, tables and clothes, broken chairs and tourney swords – all of it burned. The stench of death and the touch of fire had sunken too deeply into them, and Jon could not bear it any longer. Before long, he hardly smelled it at all, even as he carried rotted corpses all through the castle. Some were on sleds. Some they carried on their backs.

Most all they could save was made of stone and steel. They found dozens of swords to be delivered to the broken smithy, more statues than could be counted, and cracked stair after cracked stair. Once, in a corner under a mound of snow, they found a long blade of rippled red steel, capped with a pommel shaped into a golden lion's face with rubies in place of eyes. He knew the sword on sight and had hidden the sword in his chambers before he could stare too long. House Stark had no use for a sword painted in Lannister colors, and he hoped it never would again. He would keep it, though. Some hidden fear ordered it, and so he did.

Dany did not shy from the work anymore than he had. When he asked why, she told him they were kin and that was reason enough, but there was more she would not say, and he could not speak to it.

The fortnight passed, then the moon. All the while they fed on the few scattered rabbits that remained to be hunted, and Rhaegal left and returned with less food with each passing day. Jon did not know where he went, nor did he particularly mind. The beast was wild, and right to be. Ghost had been the same.

Ghost. That wound still burned, and he doubted it would ever heal. Even a dragon could not fill a hole so deep in his heart.

Dany filled the one beside it, though. Each night they laid together in the chambers he had held as a boy. They would move from them soon, he knew, but for now, he could just appreciate the ease of it. Each night he would stroke her hair, whisper words of love and beauty, and she would meet him every step. Each night they would lay back, tired, sweaty, and sated, and each morning they would begin anew. Never in the afternoons, for carrying bodies and burning the last belongings of lost men were not much in the way of exciting, but by night? It was another world.

Most of the castle remained the same as it had been when they arrived, but it was largely livable again. There was more to do – they hadn't the time nor the strength to rebuild it alone – but help was coming.

It was Dany who first noticed them one morn, from where she stood on the peak of the crumbled ramparts. Jon had been on the ground, catching the things she would throw to him and tossing it on the piles to be burned or saved.

"Jon!" she called, high and loud. They often called each other – the work was hard and taxing, and it was always good to have the reminder that another was there – but never so loud. Never so pleased.

He was studying a banner, one that was scuffed but not unsalvageable, when she called. He looked back at her, hopeful. "Is it-"

She nodded. He laughed and scrambled up the ladder to join her on the walls. And there, over the hills and the snow and through the thick frozen trees, he saw them. Banners. The direwolf, the lizard lion, and black lilies, frogs, spears, and even the black banner of the Targaryens. Some others – non-Northern and non-Targaryen – but no more that he knew. Jon had never bothered to learn the sigils below the Neck. They were not his people, and he had never thought himself to ever need the men of the south. He had been wrong. Terribly wrong.

And as the banners neared, he could see them all. A mass of black shadows against the pale white snow. More than could be counted by 50 men. No, 100. No, 200.

Few were on horseback, and he could pick out the ones that were by sight. They manned the front, leading their people forward. And there – at the very center and towards the head – one horse stopped. A single horse that stayed for longer than it ought, as the rest of the army came to an abrupt halt along with it. And then, like a bolt of lightning, the horse charged forward, through the snow and over the hills and across a land no different than it had been when Jon was a boy. Another – tall as a courser but broader by far – followed. Another horse charged after it, and another, and another, and soon the whole of the army was charging.

Jon grabbed Dany's hand and led her down the ladder steps and down to the grounds below. He ought to have gone through the gate, he knew, but there was a hole in the wall, and it was easier to make his way to that. By the time they made their way to the front of the castle, Dany was laughing and stumbling in the snow, and a grey sand steed was stood in front of the gates. Its rider was stood in the saddle, reaching out to touch the walls as the rest of the army stormed behind her.

The rider looked to him, the tears in her eyes building and shining a terrible blue. Though she stared long, she said nothing at all. As Gendry rode in behind her, and Howland and Meera Reed behind him, and a dozen guards and lords and knights, she dismounted with a move so practiced, she nearly looked a girl of nine again. It was only when she crossed beneath the gates and into the grounds of Winterfell that Arya fell to her knees, dropped her head into the snow, and sobbed. He blinked away the tears of his own and sat beside her. And there they sat until the army came.

#

He met with Sansa while Arya visited the crypts, her smith never far behind. They were a ruin, he knew and little had changed since the attacks. He and Dany had focused on building housing for them all, rather than the stones that housed only the Starks. The coffins had been broken to pieces, corpses of wights lined the grounds, and blood pooled beneath every unlit torch. And so they stayed. It was not a place he had seen fit to visit. No one he knew had remained there, after all.

"It looks better," Sansa said, gazing over the toppled walls and piles of ash and snow. "I remember-"

"Aye," Jon said. "We haven't stopped."

She looked to Dany then, something strange in her eyes that Jon could not truly fathom, but then she nodded and gave her thanks. Dany offered a grin of her own and told her none was needed. And that was their only exchange. Better than their last in Winterfell, but still poor. Someday he would ask, but not then.

The smallfolk had already begun to make their way into the castle grounds. There were thousands of them – no, far more. Too many for Winterfell to hold for long. Too many rooms were exposed to open air, and the stocks had more food than they ought to, what with winter's chill, but not enough to feed an army. They would need to send them off soon. To Cerwyn, Tumbledown Tower, Hornwood, and Torrhen's Square. There were too many places to be set to right and too little time with winter bearing down on them.

Still, he made no mention of any of it. He, Dany, and Sansa organized the people to the rooms that they could spare, and a few ambitious commoners did the same. He tried to remember their faces to fulfil the promise Sansa had made them, but he was already too tired. The day had barely begun, and it was already weighing on him, heavy as a stone.

"Does it scare you?" Sansa asked, after much of the masses had been resettled.

"What does?" he asked. He looked for Dany and found her atop the ramparts, gesturing away from the godswood, where Rhaegal lay sleeping.

"Being here again. After everything."

He flexed the fingers of his burned hand. They were caught within his glove, but he felt the skin pull all the same. "I don't think I've thought about it much."

"I could hardly stand it before. I always saw…"

"Ghosts."

She nodded. "In every hall, down every step. Every time we feasted in the great hall or argued in the godswood, I would see them."

"Father," Jon whispered. A lie. She did not catch it.

"My mother. Robb. Rickon."

"Maester Luwin. Ser Rodrick."

"Theon. Septa Mordane."

"Jory Cassel."

"Beth."

He looked to the tower, where once he had sought stories as a boy no older and no taller than Rickon. He closed his eyes, and whispered, "Old Nan."

"Jeyne."

And on they went, naming the names of all those who had come and gone. Lost to war, famine, or the mad bastard of Bolton. As new faces and new names came into their castle, they spoke the names of those who never would again. Bodies burned in King's Landing, corpses lost to time and war, futures left abandoned because Ned Stark had gone south.

"They would be proud," she said when it was done, or near enough to it that it made no matter.

"Aye," he said, touching his hand to stone. "There are Starks in Winterfell again."

"We'll honor them," Sansa said. "I'll prepare funerals."

"We've no bodies."

"We can build statues," she insisted. "And it won't just be for them. Everyone who died since Father took us south. Every Northerner."

He sighed, hung his head. "After we rebuild."

"After," she agreed.

They planned for a long while after, detailing the pyre and the crowd, the location and the statues. They planned to find the stonesmith for the statues, the cook for the long days to come, and the builder to set the smithy back to rights. They planned rations and housing, stables, and more. They offered Bran some frozen fruits when he landed at their feet and ignored the patches missing in his wings.

And when all talk and feeding was done, Jon left Sansa behind and made his way to the crypts to find where to place the statues they'd named and the swords they'd need craft. And there he found his sister, her wolf, and his friend, staring at the statues that had already been built, and the places where soon there would be more.

His false father's face was stern as ever, bearded thick, and holding a blade of pure iron, as long and thick as Ice. He wore a Stark cloak about his back, carved of stone and unpainted, yet clearly as grey and white as the rest of him would have been. A direwolf stood beside him, though Lord Stark had owned none in life. The statue beside him, though…

Grey Wind was as fierce in death as he was in life. He was tall as a horse, his snout long and sharp, and his teeth bared into a snarl. Beside him, Robb's stone hand was nestled in his fur, holding him back as much as he was leading him. Robb looked much as Jon remembered him, with curled hair, stubble grazing his cheeks, and a face so youthful, Jon mourned to see it. He was dressed in armor, not the leathers and clothes of his father and, though his sword had not been Ice in life, it was the blade he bore in death. The crown was his though. It sat easily on his head, the way it had could have in life.

An unfinished Rickon stood beside him, the face half-carved but the rest hardly chiseled from the stone. Instead of Shaggydog at his feet, there sat a mound of rock. Instead of a sword in hand, there was jagged stone. The wights had taken the carver before his work was done, and he had never returned to finish. He had been one of the few to have known Rickon's face. None would now. None.

Nor would they carve Bran when all was said and done. In the dim light of this cavern, only Robb and Lord Stark would be the men they were. The rest would be shades of men, cloaked in shadow so that none might know that those faces had never lived at all. Their wolves fiction, their faces fiction, their swords fiction. All that might hold true were the names. And none would ever know.

Gendry was looking to Rickon, running a hand over the jagged work, and it took everything Jon had not to shout at him.

This was a Stark place, and Arya knew that as well as he did. For her to bring him there…

But I am not a Stark either, he thought. But he dismissed it as soon as it came. He was, wasn't he? His mother was a Stark. He belonged there as much as any. And if his sister had brought an outsider to the crypts for reason beyond war – well, his little sister was a woman grown. Lord Stark had taken Lady Catelyn to the crypts at least once that Jon could recall. It was not without precedence, even if the sight of it shook him to the core.

Yet he remembered Lord Stark speaking to Lady Catelyn when he had taken them all. Jon had hidden behind his mother's crypts – the thought made him smile now, if only to hide his grief – and Lord Stark had pretended not to notice, and listed the names of all those who had come before him, so that he, Robb, and Sansa might hear. Arya and Bran had been too young then, and Rickon not yet born, but Jon could remember it far too well.

Now though, the guest in the crypts was offered nothing. Jon could not say what she had done before, but now she merely stared at Robb's statue, both still as stone and just as wordless.

It was only when Jon stopped behind her that she spoke, startling Gendry so badly that he reached for his hammer. "I broke it," she said. She didn't take her eyes off of Robb.

"What?" Jon said, softly.

"Needle." The word seemed to pain her, though little else still did. "I broke it."

It was more than she'd spoken before, he realized, and her voice was stronger too. She was better in the North. They all were. Starks weren't meant for the south. Every one that had dared go had lost their lives and more. Sansa was the only exception, and she'd certainly lost her life.

He didn't know what to say to Arya, so he just put an arm on her shoulder and looked to Robb. "You know, last time I saw him was in Winterfell. The day I left. He told me we'd meet again, and I'd be all in black."

She did not move, nor did she speak, so Gendry did it for her. "Was his wolf that big too?"

Arya's shoulders tensed. Jon might not have noticed it had he not been holding her, but now that he had, he could feel the slightest hint of trembling beneath his hands.

He frowned, shook his head, and said nothing of it. Instead, he answered the smith. "Not when I knew him. Half the size. He might have grown though. Robb lived another year after…"

"Grey Wind," Arya said, suddenly. "Was he like us?"

"I don't know," Jon said, but he knew it to be a lie as well as she did. There were tales of Robb and his army of wargs, tales of Grey Wind leading battles on his own. Some claimed the wolf had sniffed out trails on his own, and Robb could ride him into battle and swallow men whole, or turn into the wolf himself. More like than not, at least one was true. More like, most.

He thought of the other tales though, and his resolve shattered. A wolf's head atop his brother's shoulders. Carved and tied like a stuck pig. If Robb had been like them, he would not have lasted long. A second life stolen.

When he looked to Arya, her face was steady, but her eyes seemed pained as ever. She was thinking just as he did, surely. She'd lived the same horror after all. Trapped in their wolves, unable to truly think or feel or know. They were the only ones who truly knew. Them and Bran.

Only… he'd never told her, had he? In all the time they'd been warring, they hadn't the chance to discuss it. Days had turned to fortnights to moons, but never once had it crossed his mind to mention his own brush with death.

He took his arm back and carefully unstrapped his cloak. As she looked to him in surprise, he stripped himself of his furs, his leathers, and the tunic beneath, until all that was left was skin and scar. Eight in all, each black as Daenerys' dragon and deep as the Blackwater. One at his throat, one at his heart, three at his ribs, and three at his gut. Any one could be a killing blow. The rest were guarantees.

The pain in her eyes grew as she took in the wounds. Behind her, Gendry did not react at all. He had seen them in the Eyrie, when Jon's clothes had burned away and only his leathers were left. He had known.

"How?" she asked.

"My men," Jon said. "I let the free folk through. They didn't like that much."

She was quiet for a while, and then… "How are you here?"

"Melisandre. She spoke some words over me, cut my hair, and I woke, the same as you."

Her hand went to her hair, fingers playing with the strands they'd cut when she'd been lain on the rocks. Most of it had grown back to what it had been on Dragonstone, but there were a few places where the knife had cut too deep. There the hair was still shorter, though it was better than the empty patches and bloody marks that had been before.

"The red woman?" Gendry said, suddenly. He'd stepped back from Rickon, and Jon found himself grateful.

"Aye. She was on the Wall for Stannis. He'd gone, but she stayed with Davos."

Arya still had not shifted her eyes from Robb. They were bluer than he remembered them, her eyes, and it made him more uncomfortable than it ought to have. It was only the crypts, though. The lighting was poor and the bright blaze of her curse stronger for it. Outside of the crypts, he would never have even noticed, he was sure. They always made him uneasy.

"Why?" she asked him.

He shrugged, reached for his leathers. Even in the depths of the crypts, so close to the hot springs he could see the smoke turning to water on the stone, it was too cold to go without. "I don't know. She never said. Stannis must have wanted her safe in case of attack. He was always-"

She shook her head. "Why bring you back?"

That cut deep. "I killed the dragon," he said.

"But only you?" There were tears in her eyes, he realized. Robb's own were unrelenting, unblinking.

He put his arm back around her shoulders and realized too late that it was too little. She was trembling like a leaf in the wind. He held her tight, careful to avoid the marks on her throat, her arm, her face, and let her cling to him. She didn't.

"They needed us," Jon whispered into her ear, just low enough that Gendry would not hear. "Both of us."

They stayed there in the crypts for the rest of the day and long into the night, telling stories of Robb, of her father, of Rickon, of Bran, and, though she never mentioned her lady mother, he knew the wound tore at her just as much. He tried to mention her himself, but Arya knew as well as Jon did how well he'd taken to Lady Catelyn.

They spoke of the others long into the night, answered Gendry's questions when they came, and told stories of nights in the crypts, of laughter and Sansa's singing and ghosts wandering the halls. They even spoke of Lyanna, and when Jon said it was said that she looked like her, Arya pointed at her face and said once, but no longer. Moons ago, that might have worried him. Now, after the news of his father, he had worried enough for a lifetime.

When they finally emerged, the sun was high in the sky and the men were hard at work. He found Dany and led her to bed, across the whole of the castle. She protested for a moment – something about meeting with one of the smiths – until she saw where he was leading her, and then his lips touched her own, and she didn't mind at all.

They could worry again in the morn. For now it was them. Always them.


A/N: We are officially back in Winterfell! And by back, I mean this is the first time we've actually seen Winterfell in Prince! We did it!

Fair warning, chapters are long and probably going to stay that way from here on out. I've got a lot of content to cover, and few POV characters left to do it with.

Another fair warning: that was not the extremely depressing scene I mentioned coming up for Arya, though there were elements of it that came into play. This was more about Robb, who deserved some degree of acknowledgement. Just felt Arya was the best vehicle to approach that message with, as Sansa and Jon would have confronted that statue before. Needed a new Stark perspective to really bring it out. That's part of the fun of this section of Prince, I think. With someone not having seen Winterfell since season one, I can more easily explore the differences in what was and is.

Anyway, controversial one next week as we return to Arya for a funeral chapter as they finally lay the ghosts of Winterfell to rest.