"JON!"

"Goodbye, father."

Jon knew Winterfell's catacombs better than anyone. During the war, he ordered every inch of the castle be fortified and utilized to its fullest extent for the Other's attack, and that included the crypts. With the threat of the Others necromancy a constant threat, Jon had ordered his ancestors tombs opened and the remains cremated. The act had filled him with shame and disgust, and the crypts smelled like the Army of the Dead had marched through afterwards, but it had to be done. He had often made regular visits to the statues of Lyanna and Eddard Stark as well to pay his respects. Or to apologize. Or rage and scream, cry, and beg as to know what in the name of the gods had they done to deserve this fate?

…But, then again, none of that had even happened, had it? At least, not yet. He was in the past! His family was alive and breathing and whole before his very eyes! Rickon was alive and Bran walked again. Sansa, Arya, Robb, Lord and Lady Stark, and a hundred other faces he could barely remember were alive and breathing! So why was he running? Why flee when everything he had lost had been returned?

And yet he ran. Ran through the crypts and catacombs, up into the courtyard, through the gates, and out into the night. No one could stop him; he was too fast, and the night was his ally. He did not stop running until his home was just a dark shape with the flickers of candles, hearths, and torches off in the distance. He loped over the moors and hills, through copses and fields, until the sound of rushing water reached his ears, and he came to a jarring stop and collapsed to his knees at the edge of the White Knife. His breath exploded from his throat in hoarse and ragged pants, and his chest felt like it was going to explode. No matter how hard he inhaled, he felt unable to get air into his lungs. Ironically, it was not because he had just quite literally run all the way from Winterfell to the White Knife. Hells, he wasn't so much as winded! No, this was from panic; sheer, mind numbing panic that made his mind grow hazy and his throat tighten as the weight of his actions fell upon him.

Oh gods, what had he done!? Why did he say those things!? Why had he shown…that to lord Stark!?

Jon knelt there in the damp mud and looked out over the White Knife. During the war…his war…all bodies of water in the North had been frozen solid with the sea being the sole exception, although even that had begun to freeze towards the end. Watching the steady current of the Knife, the first river he had seen in years that was unfrozen, helped calm his mind enough to think more clearly.

Oh, Jon knew exactly why he had run. He fled because Theon's sword had frozen and shattered like glass against his skin, because he could see within the darkness of the crypts as clear as day, because his mere proximity to an open flame caused it to flicker and die, because the heat of fire made his skin itch and crawl with the cold bringing relief, because every time he saw his reflection he looked less and less a boy with each passing day, because when Jon looked around at the people he'd lost that were now burning with life, something dark and cold that had been growing inside him since the moment he'd returned whispered, "Kill them!"

That, more than anything, had scared him enough to get himself away from the people he cared about before he hurt them.

Even if he wanted to return, what then would he do? Face the uncle he had called father? The siblings that were his cousins? See the faces of men and women that he remembered to be dead? How could he face Sansa, innocent and unmarred, still so naïve with songs and stories of knights and ladies dancing in her head, knowing of the countless horrors that had been inflicted upon her? How could he look at Arya and not see the Bloody Wolf and her List of Names? How could he see Bran and not the Three-Eyed-Raven? How could he look to baby Rickon and not see Ramsay Bolton's arrow in his back? How could he look at Theon, young, smug and arrogant, and not feel the same mix of rage and pity? How could he begin to explain the fate that befalls their family? Of Robb and Lady Stark's assassination? Of Lord Stark's execution? How would he even make them believe him? Furthermore, how could he begin to explain what had happened to him?

The answer was a simple one; he could not tell them anything without sounding madder than he already felt. He could not tell them about the War of the Five Kings, or the second War for the Dawn that had quickly been renamed the War of Ice and Fire. Nothing he could do or say would make them believe him.

Anger sparked in his gut and Jon's fingers dug into the mud while his teeth clenched. Why should he bother? No one ever seemed to believe him, anyway! No one ever listened, either! He had tried to convince the Watch to get the Wildings past the Wall! He tried to warn the Realm about the Others! He tried to convince the Northern Lords that dragonfire was needed to destroy the Enemy! He tried to convince Daenerys that the Night King was more important than claiming the Iron Throne! He tried to sway Sansa against spreading the truth of his birth! He tried, and he tried, and he tried, but they just wouldn't LISTEN! And look where it got them all! They all ended up DEAD! Jon's fist struck the earth and he beat at the wet ground again and again, pounding his frustrations and rage into the mud while picturing a dozen faces beneath his fist; Ramsay, Ser Alliser, the Night King, Daenerys, Melisandre, Euron, Cersei, himself-

Something slammed into the back of his head with enough force to send him face first into the mud. He lay there for a moment, stunned at the fact there was no pain more than anything, but then hands grabbed at his cloak and hair, and a raspy voice hissed, "Get his neck up!" And Jon realized that he was being attacked just as a dirk was stabbed into his bared neck.

The point froze and crumbled when it pressed into his flesh, and that same raspy voice let out a noise of shock and confusion. Jon, however, was furious with himself. He had been snuck up on from behind; lost in his own rage and had not paid attention to his surroundings like a fucking green boy. Sloppy. So, so sloppy! And careless! And stupid! A snarl exploded from his lips and he began to flail and struggle against what felt like two men pressing down on his back. A third voice, this one deeper and rougher, growled "Move!" before Jon received another blow to the head. His face smacked into the soggy, upturned dirt and it smeared into his teeth, eyes, and nose. When he tried to pick his head up, another blow came.

"Why isn't he dead yet? Kill this cunt!" Yelled the man beating him. More dirks were pulled and jabbed into his flesh, but almost instantly broke apart upon contact. Magic that was ancient, freezing, and dark suffused his skin and froze the metal straight to the core.

"Kill him! Fucking kill him!" The man was beginning to sound hysterical.

Jon did not know who was attacking him or why, nor did he care. All he did care about was the mounting fury filling his body with each blow struck. Animals! They were all a bunch of fucking animals, every single one of them! That's all mankind was at the end of the day, just another animal! Just another sack of meat and bones! Jon's fingers pierced the earth and he pushed up against his attackers. They tried kicking and hitting him to keep him down, but it did nothing, and Jon felt nothing but the hatred for these animals…no, no, mankind was worse than animals! Mankind killed, raped, enslaved, pillaged, and burned! Mankind was cruel, thoughtless, greedy, and selfish! At times they fought and warred with each other for the simplest and petty reasons while seeking new ways to kill and hurt in times of peace! At times all they seemed to do was destroy! Mankind was the reason the Others existed in the first place! Hells, mankind was not all that different from the Others; killing all that was alive and good while leaving nothing behind!

As rage and loathing filled his heart, Jon's eyes blazed Other blue.

His attackers suddenly yelped in surprise and pain at the sheer cold that exploded from their victim's body and stung their skin. The temperature plummeted, ice crackled across the riverbank, and the air around them steamed into a white mist that chilled the breath in their lungs. With a roar, Jon surged up with a burst of strength that threw them off him and sent them sprawling. He whirled to face the curs who attacked him from behind and saw three dirty men in roughspun clothes and piecemeal armor. Bandits most likely. One clutched a small bow, the other a club, and the last was empty handed and looked to be shitting himself in terror at the sight of Jon looming over him with eyes like frozen stars, white mist swirling about his knees, and patches of frost blooming along his heavy cloak.

The man screamed.

Jon's mind was lost in a haze as he watched them pick themselves up and bolt. He hated bandits; scavengers picking on the weak that were too lazy, stupid, or bloodthirsty to live a productive life and decided to take what they wanted from those who needed it most! During the war of Ice and Fire, Westeros became flush with roaming packs of bandits taking food, weapons, women, and even gold despite the fact money was worthless at that point. Most had come from everywhere below the Riverlands and some were remnants of Daenerys' Dothraki that had formed into a small khal. The Stormlands and Crownlands were being raided by slavers from the East while the Westerlands and Reach were under constant reave by the Ironborn. Dorne had stayed silent and the Vale was fighting off Melisandre and her army of Red Hand while everything above the Neck belonged to the Others. With the Kingdoms collapsing, the dregs of society formed up into large groups that preyed upon the survivors fleeing the chaos, be they smallfolk or highborn, and roamed across the kingdoms in search of plunder. Jon made sure any caught practicing banditry were made an example of. The less mouths to feed the better.

In short, he despised the type of men fleeing from him like frightened dogs with their tails between their legs. Jon's lip curled as his rage intensified. Wastes of space, all of them! The next thing Jon knew, he was chasing them with bloodlust in his heart while his thoughts were awash in a mantra of, "Kill kill kill kill!"

Jon caught up to them in moments and tackled the one with no weapon to the ground.

"Mercy!" The man cried as Jon flipped him over onto his back, "Mercy!"

Jon had none. His fist came down like a battering ram and crushed the man's throat in a single blow. Blood spurted from his lips and splattered Jon's face. The man's death rattle had not finished leaving his lungs before Jon was up and after the others. The one with the bow saw him coming out of the corner of his eye and squealed for help. None came. Just Jon snatching him by the back of his collar and yanking him towards him so he could snap his neck with a harsh twist. The last one stopped and turned to fight. His eyes were wild, and he screamed for Jon to stay back while swinging the club in his direction. Jon did not. He stalked forward, grabbed the swinging club with one hand and his victim's throat in the other. Even though he was taller and broader than him, Jon lifted the man off his feet and squeezed the life out of his attacker until his struggling weakened, his face purpled, and finally his heart ceased to beat. Jon dropped the corpse as a dark sense of satisfaction swept through him. The North was better off without such scum. Jon's eyes traveled over the three cooling bodies and narrowed. He was not done yet, though. All he needed to do now was sink his magic into their corpses, bid them to rise-

The dark instinct was so foreign and alien to him that the shock of it snapped him out of his fugue.

As the bloodlust faded, the realization of just what he had been about to do hit Jon like a thunderbolt and he reeled in horror, stumbling away from the corpses. His hand flew to his mouth and he wanted to be sick, wanted to vomit out the poison creeping into his mind like ice over a lake.

Jon was not afraid of killing. He did not regret killing these men and would have done it again in a heartbeat. The war had stripped him of everything; his honor, his duty, his love, his friends, his morals…it took everything away with every wave of ice and fire that crashed into him until nothing was left but a warrior's skill and a killer's instinct.

What he was afraid of, was becoming one of them.

Fear filled his heart, and he began to panic. No, no, no, no, no! He was Jon Snow, not a White Walker! He had breath in his lungs and his heart still beat! He killed wights, not created them! The rage, that poisonous, deadly rage he felt had bordered on an overwhelming hatred; hatred the Others felt for the living.

But there was yet another darkness threatening to consume him.

Behind the Others freezing hatred, in the part of Jon's mind where all his failures, pain, grief, and loss had been locked away, lived a hungry void that screamed and raged and burned!

It was madness.

Targaryen madness.

It was a madness that had been born from the first events of the War. Jon had thought he escaped his family's curse, but it had just needed the right sequence of events to manifest in the form of an obsession that revolved around the destruction of the Others and protecting House Stark, and when his aunt had threatened both with her own growing madness and desire for the throne, Jon had snapped and exploded like a cask of Cersei's wildfire. Eventually, the fog of that bloodthirsty darkness clouding his mind faded, but it had never truly left.

And that, most of all, terrified him.

Utterly sickened at himself and his traitorous mind, Jon Snow turned and fled into the night.

After that night, he had just wandered the Stark lands while avoiding anyone and everything; lost in a haze. His wanderings soon turned to avoidance of any men in Stark livery when he noticed an increase in patrols. They were out in force and searching for him most likely. The question was, did Lord Stark wish to bring him home to explain himself or bring him back in chains to lock him away? Call him paranoid, but it was how Jon had survived. He desperately wished to hope Lord Stark would not do such a thing, but Jon would not give him the chance. He had stopped taking chances long ago.

When he had told Lord Stark that he was going to stop the coming wars, he had meant every word but lacked an actual plan. He had a loose idea of what he wanted to do; kill Cersei and Joffrey the moment they stepped foot above the Neck and then go after the Night King. All he had to do was wait. Jon Arryn had yet to die, and Jon gave it a month before Lord Stark received the raven. So, while he waited for the whore queen and her incestuous sprog to arrive, he found a place to hide.

Jon called it Tumbledown Tower. He did not know if it had a proper name, but it was a rather fitting title given the state of the old watchtower. The stones forming it had fallen from their places and it was overgrown with moss and ivy. The stairs were gone, although the vault still stood. What he did know was that it had been abandoned for a long time, was hidden within the wolfswood, and there were no villages nearby, which made it an ideal place to stay for when he needed a place to regroup and collect himself.

Tonight, the sky was moonless with the stars in abundance overhead. His hands, colder than the Wall itself, froze and stuck to the stonework to help him climb the inner wall of the tower up to the loft. The stairs had rotted away and there was no ladder, so Jon had been forced to improvise. From there, he hauled himself up and carefully walked towards a gaping hole that had once been an arrow-slit to stare out into the night. At first Jon saw nothing but the shadows of treetops stretching out into the dark, but when he focused inward, deeper, and allowed the blizzard of cold and dark power raging within his heart to fill him, the night could hold no secrets.

His vision became awash in a blue tint, and every shadow yielded under his gaze. He saw the heartbeats of animals in the surrounding wood; saw the flame of their life-force and fought back the twisted urge to extinguish it all. Jon narrowed his eyes, and the horizon jumped towards him. He looked beyond the forest and saw the many flames of the North's hearts and hearths alike. If he looked west, he could see the outline of Deepwood Motte through the wolfswood. To the south was Winterfell, Crofters Village, Castle Cerwyn, and Torren's Square if he looked hard enough. North showed him the Northern Mountains, Breakstone Hill, the Long Lake, and the Wall. Eastward lay the White Knife, the Lonely Hills, and the Dreadfort. From his decrepit little tower, Jon could see the North's keeps and castles as if they were just on the horizon with every single village and hovel in between. He saw the roaming guardsmen, caravans, traders, and travelers that braved the road at night. The light of their beating hearts and the warmth of their souls flashed bright like sunlight shining on Winterfell's glass garden. Jon idly wondered if being the Three-Eyed-Raven was like this; to see past the mortal coil and far into the beyond.

All because of the pact he had made with the Night King, the product of their final meeting; their deal.

His sword was clutched tightly in his hands and he winced from the burns scored across his arms. He had lost Longclaw long ago and a simple rusty sword was clutched in his shaking fists. Behind Jon, Bran lay against a tree with his pantlegs burnt away and the flesh below his knees charred red and black. The Red Priests would soon be at their heels. Jon had pulled Bran from Melisandre's pyre before it had consumed him whole, and the two had flown away on a warged Drogon into the woods. When Jon landed and started treating their wounds, the air grew colder and white mist crept over the area. Before he knew it, the horned visage of Jon's nemesis was at the edge of the clearing. Jon had not seen the last White Walker since Winterfell when the frozen fiend overwhelmed the castle's crumbling defenses with what remained of his Army of the Dead.

Bran's old and depthless eyes stared into the endless blue of the Enemy who silently watched them from a stone's throw away.

"He wants to make a deal." Bran said listlessly, "The past in exchange for the future."

Jon's fear and fury were briefly overtaken by confusion when his words registered, "What?"

Bran turned those dark eyes on him, "I called him here. The Others are at a stalemate, but the Red God must not win, Aegon. Westeros will burn. Invaders come from across the Narrow Sea. More of R'hllor's faithful are coming by ship with help from the Slave Cities. They will invade, burn, and take everything they can. More will come and more will die. We have lost."

"Bran, this is madness!" He had shouted at his little brother (cousin, a part of him hissed) and he jabbed a finger at the silent, unmoving demon across from them, watching them with unblinking blue orbs, "He is the Enemy! Kill him!"

Drogon loomed behind them, eerily still with the occasional twitch against Bran's control. However, neither the Night King nor the dragon moved to attack.

Jon lunged at him, then. Not at Bran, not at the little boy he remembered who had dreamed of becoming a knight, but at the Three-Eyed-Raven; this empty, emotionless thing that had overtaken his brother. He hauled him up by his shirt and screamed in his face, "We have not lost! We cannot give up! Everyone who died-"

"-Is dead." Bran cut him off in that dead tone of voice, "We must think of the future."

Jon struck him across the face.

Bran's head whipped to the side; his expression unchanged, and Jon stared at him with his lips pulled back in a snarl. When Bran turned to look at him again, Jon spat out, "Everyone who died for us, you would spit on their sacrifices!? Sansa and Arya, our sisters, our FAMILY, died because of HIM!" Jon roared and glared with all his hatred at the Night King. The horned demon had still not moved and just continued to stare.

"I'm ending this!" He hissed and dropped the greenseer in his grip. Bran hit the snow-covered ground without a sound, and Jon yelled up to the last of his aunt's children, "Drogon!" He pointed at the Night King, "Dracarys!"

The dragon did nothing.

"Dracarys!" Jon screamed himself hoarse in desperation, rage, and grief, "DRACARYS!"

Drogon did not move.

Slowly, Jon turned to look at Bran, the only one who controlled the dragon.

Bran stared right back, and Jon felt something inside him break.

Jon said to him, "If you truly were a Stark, you would kill him...and end this." In a voice that was small, empty, and broken to his own ears.

An almost apologetic smile tinged Bran's lips when he said, "But I'm not a Stark. I am the Three-Eyed-Raven."

Jon just stared at the Three-Eyed-Raven as that cold, emotionless voice broke his heart further and further into a thousand pieces until it was nothing but dust.

"R'hllor has named you his chosen, Aegon. You are the only one who can defeat the Night King. You and only you. Even if you die, R'hllor will bring you back again and again until you fulfill his prophecy of Azor Ahai. He has marked you, and his fire fills your heart. It is why you have stayed alive this long."

Bran went on to describe R'hllor as a god obsessed with two things. The first being light, fire, and shadow. The second was the Others. There was no Great Other, the evil god of cold and death R'hllor apparently fought against. There was only the Night King, who R'hllor saw as his archenemy, given their opposing natures. Bran told Jon that the Red God wished to rid all cold and darkness from the world, and by that, he meant ALL cold and darkness. From the blackness of night to the shade of a cloudy day. Everywhere that was remotely cold he wanted warmed with flame and fire. R'hllor hated all magic but his own and would burn away everything that was not of him. To do that, Bran had said, he must burn the entire world, and would use his priests and worshippers to do it.

In short, R'hllor was mad.

Bran looked to the Night King and said, "He knows this as well. He knows you are the Red God's Chosen set against him, but even if you succeed in your quest to slay him, the suffering will not end. R'hllor's crusade will not stop until all the world is conquered through ash and fire. The Long Night is the only thing standing in his way." Bran nodded his head towards the Night King, "He is offering to change your fates."

"In exchange for what?" Jon rasped. He felt cold, bleak, and empty in a way he never had before.

"Let him win. Willingly stand aside, stop fighting him, and let him win."

The bleakness turned to rage, but before Jon could snarl and spit that he would never stop, that as long as he drew breath, he would not rest until the Night King was defeated, Bran spoke again.

"If so, he would send you back. Back to the beginning, before this all began. A second chance at life. A chance to change the song of Ice and Fire. If you cease to be, here and now, the world may have a chance."

Jon glanced between Bran and the Night King, uncomprehending and unfeeling.

"What are you talking about?" Jon croaked.

"Even winter comes to an end. The War for the Dawn may happen again, with man united against the threat of the Others, but with the Red God's influence, the world will be divided. Better a world of ice, than a world of fire. At least I see a chance in that."

Jon felt sick.

"A chance? You'd let the Others win based on a chance?" He rasped.

Bran stared at him with those horribly empty eyes and said, "A chance is all we have left, Aegon."

Jon collapsed to his knees as the last bit of hope drained from his heart, along with what fight he had left in him. For a long moment he just kneeled there and let the snow melt and soak into his clothes, drowning in his hopelessness and wishing that the cold would just take him already. At least he would be at peace, then. For once in his life, Jon Snow truly longed for death.

So, in a small, croaking voice, he asked the question.

"What must I do?"

"R'hllor's fire burns in your heart. It is how the Red God marks your fate and keeps you alive. The Night King needs to take that Fire to sever your fate, and in turn, he will give you Ice."

Jon did not even begin to understand the terms, nor did he care. He felt cold. So, so cold in a way that had nothing to do with the falling snow.

The Night King took a step towards him. Then another, and another. Jon did not look up. He felt empty. Empty, empty, he was so empty and alone and cold inside that it hurt. He had no hope left. No family. Nothing.

The next thing Jon knew, he was staring into the endless blue of the Night King's eyes as the creature kneeled in front of him. Jon stared right back. He was not afraid of those eyes, not anymore. He'd cut down so many with the same eyes that he'd lost count.

"I hate you!" Jon snarled instead.

The Night King said nothing, instead he reached out and placed his hands on either side of Jon's head. His fingertips felt like it was made of solid ice, and the sharp nails pressing against Jon's skin were so cold they burned.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Bran's head loll back and his eyes roll over white.

The burning cold suddenly intensified to the point where it whited out all other sensation. Jon threw back his head and screamed as his life seemed to flash before his eyes. The Night King was screaming too, a sound like the sky was tearing open, and Jon was so cold.

Cold, cold, cold, coldcoldcoldcoldCOLD…

Cold.

Ice. Frost. Snow.

Crystallizing. Preserving. Entombing.

Forever cold.

It was perfection.

It was purpose.

Ice and cold wiping out the destructive, burning heat that inhabited the world.

With each flame snuffed, cold could rise in place.

The storm will rage, the snow will fall, and warmth will freeze over and become eternal.

It was perfection.

It was purpose.

Cold.

Ice. Frost. Snow.

Crystallizing. Preserving. Entombing.

Forever cold.

On and on it went in a never-ending cycle; a mantra that burrowed deep and carved itself into his mind until they were all he could think. Winter was here, yet winter was burning! The cold was was filling his veins, his heart, his mind, his very soul! Ice crackled, fires burned, wolves howled, dragons roared, ravens cawed, and voices screamed. Oh, the screams! Jon was screaming! The Night King was screaming! It seemed like the whole world was screaming as flashes of memory began to flare to life before his eyes.

"First lesson, stick them with the pointy end."

"It was always my color."

"The next time we meet, we'll talk about your mother."

"Sometimes there is no happy choice, only one less grievous than the others."

"You know nothing, Jon Snow."

"Kill the boy, and let the man be born-"

"FOR THE WATCH!"

"If I fall...don't bring me back."

"Let's do this the old way. You and me."

"THE KING IN THE NORTH! THE KING IN THE NORTH!"

"I wish you good fortune in the wars to come, Your Grace."

"Not Dany. How about my Queen?"

He was tied to a tree with a gag in his mouth as the Child of the Forest approached with the black stone in her hand. He screamed and writhed, trying to beg for mercy, to cry for help. Something! Anything! The tip of the stone pressed against his chest and went in through his ribs, through his heart, through his SOUL! It burned with hatred. Burned with malice. Burned with an icy disgust and evil that just felt WRONG! WRONGWRONGWRONGWRONGWRONG!HEWASSOCOLDCOLDCOLDCOLD...

The voice cut through it all.

It was the Night King speaking in a voice that was so quiet, haunting, and hoarse; a voice no man was ever meant to hear.

"The...pack...survives."

And Jon's world exploded.

Jon had…returned, for lack of a word, staggering into Winterfell's great hall with all the injuries he had sustained throughout life open and bleeding. Bran had been right when he said the Night King needed Fire in exchange for Ice. Whatever power R'hllor had over him had been frozen over and replaced by the icy power of the Night King. That ice had not melted when he awoke in Winterfell. It clung to him like frost and spread throughout him until he was as cold as the White Walkers themselves, but his heart and mind was still sound; still his. From there…well, it mattered not. He had made his choices, and Westeros would be better off at the end of it.

A few minutes passed before Jon closed his eyes and cut off the power with a long breath. No sign of any Stark patrols roamed close to his tower. Good. He didn't want to risk anyone seeing what he was about to do. He stood there for a moment longer before turning away and walked towards the opening in the floor and jumped.

His sight was not the only change the power granted him. He perceived the world differently as well. Some things moved faster, others slower, and some things he just knew were there even if he could not see them. Pain had dulled to the point he barely felt anything. He was faster, stronger, and tough as the ice on the Wall. Nothing seemed to harm him, although he suspected Valyrian steel and dragonglass would do the trick. Sleep had become an option for him, and he felt no hunger, thirst, or cold. The cold had become his ally; it was his cloak, his guard, and his weapon all at once. And that was exactly what this power was; a weapon, one he planned to use.

His landing kicked up a cloud of leaves and dust, and when he rose, he turned his head South.

Jon doubted Lord Stark would heed any of the warnings he had given him. King Robert would most likely still come to Winterfell with his golden queen and her golden bastards, as well as her golden brother come to think of it. The Kingslayer would be striding into Winterfell, and not the Last Lion Jon thought of when he heard the name Jamie Lannister. This would be the man who crippled Bran and set him on the path to become the Three-Eyed-Raven. No, there was no Ser Goldenhand the Just in this life.

First, he had to ensure the downfall of House Stark never began, then it was off to the Land of Always Winter, and after that? Jon was done with Westeros! Hells, maybe he'd get lucky and finally die for good this time!

But if he wanted to do all of that, he'd need a sword.

Jon's lifted his hands outward in front of his face and let the cold power of the Others fill him once more. The temperature around him plummeted as Jon took that frigid power and focused it into his hands. It became so cold within the tower that some of the stones cracked and split like eggs as the water inside them flash froze.

It had taken a few days to harness it, but Jon had finally figured out how the Others made their weapons. The infamous white mist of the Others coalesced around his fingers and palms and billowed out into the shape he desired. The cold inside his heart guided his instincts, and Jon poured all his rage, all his focus and determination, all his hatred into the action. The mist solidified and began to lengthen and harden into solid ice. When it was finally done, a light dusting of snow surrounded Tumbledown Tower, and Jon held the weapon he had created into the air for inspection.

He had modeled it after Longclaw. Jon had wielded that blade for so long, he could recall every inch of that sword from tip to pommel. The shape, length, width, how it felt in his hands when he swung; he knew every detail of the weapon gifted to him by Jeor Mormont. Except the blade he now bore was not made of Valaryian steel nor bore a wolf's head pommel. A bastard sword in length and design, yes, but that was where the similarities with the ancestral sword of House Mormont ended. The Other blade he held in his hand was razor thin, completely clear, and made of solid ice. In place of smoky ripples in steel, a layer of frost and uneven bumps lined the length of the weapon. There was no cross guard to protect his fingers, as there was no need for one; any steel that hit his fingers would shatter. The pommel, if one could call it such, was just a lump of frosty ice. All in all, the weapon was crude, inelegant, and primitive, but Jon knew that it would shatter steel like glass and cut through ringmail like a hot knife through butter.

It was all he needed to protect his family, and speaking of threats…

Jon's eyes burned blue as he turned north towards the Dreadfort. King Robert had yet to arrive, but that did not mean Jon would be standing around in the snow. No, there were threats he could deal with in the meantime that were much, much closer.

Winter was coming for House Bolton, and Jon would bring the storm.