A few of the pale people screamed, but Ghost did not hear them. His little cousins answered his cry of rage and pain, taking up the call. He needed to run, to run far away. He'd leaped up to howl at the half-moon, but now he threw himself into a sprint, racing towards the walls, to the fallen tree that his brother used to climb before he died beyond the ice cliff. He felt his sister, somewhere in the world, and she picked up the call, her pack of cousins joining in to tear against the sky. He missed her, he missed their dead siblings.

He climbed the flimsy, rotting trunk and pushed through the branches to the top of the stone wall. He leaped down into the snow, the sunlight not touching the cold of the night through the clouds. He burst into a full-tilt run, something he hadn't done since he'd been a pup. Now he needed to; he needed to run away from the stone hills, from the humans who hurt him, from something he couldn't quite place. He reached the tree line of the forest where his cousins hunted, dodged trunks and shrubs, running and running into the distance, away, just away. His cousins followed him, asking for a hunt, for a good howl, for some time. He ran on, refusing to answer their yips and barks of pleasure until they left him to his sprint. He needed to get far, far away. The snow fell lightly, but it did not touch his skin, only his fur before it fell away behind him, leaving a trail of fallen ice to whisper of his passing.

When he felt he had left the people far enough behind, he paused at the top of a rise, out in the open again. There was a frozen lake, another set of stone hills in the distance, all covered with flurries. Ghost saw a white rabbit run across the frozen surface but he did not give chase. He could not find the will or the want. I'm coming, brother, his sister called. You need me. I'm coming home.

An owl dropped down and caught the rabbit, and Ghost's breath fogged the air. If he didn't feel such sharp pain, it might have been beautiful, he might have howled again, but this time for the pleasure of a good run, of a hunt well done, for the joy of the moon. Instead, he chose to run again, toward the sunrise place this time, diving through the drifts and shrubbery that stood against the white. Running would take away the pain.

The big road his siblings had walked before they were lost to him came upon him soon enough. He smelled horses, many horses, and leather like his man wore, the sharp tang of shiny sticks. Pale and dark men alike, barking at him, raising curved sticks or long wooden ones. A sky snake howled deep above him, so he looked up, just to see.

And then he was flying.

Ghost stayed on the ground and howled, but Rhaegal screeched in answer, and swooped higher in the frozen sky, rolled, frightened. His brother flew below with Mother on his back, but she was not Mother, he thought. She was Dany, beautiful, sweet Dany, the woman he wanted to hold every moment, the woman who was not a stranger, the woman who was family. She shouted something—settle, Rhaegal—and he tried, he tried to settle, for Mother.

Ghost howled again, and he ran away, ran alongside the horses, and he did not look up again. It hurt to look up, it hurt to fly. He was a wolf, not a sky snake, not a dragon. He was a wolf. He ran and ran, and the horses startled when he dodged through them, snorting and rearing, but he didn't mind, he didn't want a horse. He wanted dark and quiet. Peace. He knew where to go for that. It was a long run back.

He jumped atop the wall again, pushing hard off his back legs, and leaped over the pale people from atop it. They screamed and scattered again, but he stayed running, ignoring them, past the broken stone cave, down and down into the darkness. He knew where to go. He flew down the narrow cave past the stone men, the stone wolves, the shiny sticks. He knew how far to run, but he stopped short. The last stone man was not the one he wanted. It was the one before it.

The stone woman, with the feather in her hand, the flowers on her head. This was Mother. Not his wolf-mother, no. His woman mother, who he had not known until tonight. Ghost thought she smelled like all the stone people, but she was different. The only woman among the stone men, strong like his sisters' women. His man loved his women, cared for them, but he had not known that he loved this one until tonight. He held pain about this woman when he didn't know who she was. Now he knew, but he hurt more. Everything hurt.

Ghost whined, and he could not stop whining, looking at this woman. He wished she weren't stone. Mothers knew what to do. They growled at your brothers if they were mean to you, they helped you learn to hunt. His mother had died. Both had, woman and wolf. His cousins told stories though, and the cold lady had done what mothers do for his siblings' people.

The last stone man had been a father, but he wasn't Father. Fathers cared, fathers kept you in line, taught you the night howl. The man had done all that, but he was not Father. It was confusing and painful, and made Ghost whine louder. He missed him and wondered. Had the man the stone woman loved been a good man? Had he been a good father? Would he have been? He wished he knew, he wished he'd known them. He wished they were here. Mothers and fathers made the pain go away.

He wanted to be a good man. A good wolf. He had always tried to be a good wolf, like the stone man. The man in the strange chair, his brother's man, had said he was a sky snake. He hadn't wanted to be a sky snake, his man didn't want that. He wanted to be a wolf, just a white wolf with his grey wolf brothers and sisters.

Dany. The man could still hear, and he heard the white-haired woman's voice. She was angry, so angry, and scared. Why was she scared? The man wanted to protect her, to help her, but he hurt too bad. He wanted to be a wolf. Just a wolf.

Ghost howled, mourned, and listened to the way the stone cave howled back. It sounded like him, but long and sad and low. The stone woman stayed stone, and she stared down at him with sad eyes under the flowers in her hair. Ghost would protect this stone woman like the stone wolves protected their stone men. And when she needed it, he would protect the white-haired woman, too.

Drogon landed beyond the outer walls to the chorus of men marching—rather more like jogging—and let Dany down gently on his shoulder, grumbling and making quiet huffs with his nose. Rhaegal landed further off, eyes roaming, feet shuffling, having recovered from his mid-flight panic. Dany wished she could feel their thoughts, know what they were thinking. It would have helped when Rhaegal had suddenly screeched and swooped and rolled just as a white wolf—Ghost, she guessed—had joined and then burst through the ranks of her Dothraki, howling. She had to settle herself with knowing them by having raised them from when they were only the size of her arm. She scratched the spot just behind Drogon's jaw that itched him, and stroked the scales on Rhaegal's nose that made him rumble in pleasure. He seemed himself now, though he'd given her such a fright. She'd thought Viserion had come upon them, that the Night King had come to claim another, to destroy. Viserion had liked to feel her fingers on his cheeks, and had leaned into her hands so gently he might have had the weight of a cat. The memory made a shard of pain pierce her heart, so she turned away from it and walked toward the castle gates. Her children took off, calling their goodbyes and going to circle the gathering army in the twilight sky.

She was let in the gates without issue, and saw Jorah and Lord Royce—a man she had yet to meet—preparing to ride out to speak with her commanders. Her kos nodded to her and Kovarro approached. "Blood of my blood, what do you wish?"

"The men must be within the walls. It is not safe outside the stone hut."

Kovarro nodded and turned to instruct the kos who'd remained. It was then that she saw Tyrion, standing halfway across the yard, that expression on his face that did not bode well, his fists clenched at his sides, his jaw tight. When he met her gaze, she felt a stone drop through her stomach, and knew something had gone wrong, more than it already had. He made his way slowly toward her, and Dany's vision tunneled to only him, no matter the number of people who crossed between them. She knew it was Jon, knew that she'd somehow lost him, that the gods had heard her plea and laughed at it. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin.

"Your Grace," he began, his tone gentle.

"What's happened?"

"That's a rather interesting question."

"Tell me." She could not understand why he tried to delay the inevitable. Despite the surge of annoyance, she could not be mad at him for long. He'd given her the chance to come home, brought her to Westeros, to Jon. Everything else might be forgiven. She needed to show her strength here, though, and so she let the anger flare. He hesitated still, and so she asked the question she did not want the answer to, the one that was aching to come from her lips. "Where is Lord Snow?"

Tyrion swallowed hard. Dany felt the beginnings of a shake working into her stomach. "Where is Jon?"

"That is a question with a rather strange answer as well," the man said, delaying again. Dany only stared at him, fury and pain clouding her vision. It was enough to make the Imp let the answer loose. "His chambers, my queen. I can take you there."

He started to walk, his short pace slow due to the snow. Dany did not urge him on, though worry was eating at her heart, and pain and fire. Regardless of whether she survived the winter, she would bring fire and blood to the gods. They had so often toyed with her.

They were halfway across the courtyard when Kovarro caught them up, his jaw tight with being left behind. "Blood of my blood, you cannot be unprotected here. The pale men are spiders who will stab you in the heart if they have the chance."

"Stay with me," she said, nodding. Without Jon, she was in a pit of snakes who held no allegiances except to Sansa Stark, a woman she had not the chance to know yet. Kovarro kept her pace, her only bloodrider left, the only family she had left if Jon were gone. There were others who may hold her cause now, but should the winds change, only Kovarro was sworn to her until her death.

They reached Jon's chambers, and Tyrion knocked on the rough-hewn door, but Dany pushed past him and entered without waiting for the door to open. She found Jon laid out on the bed, eyes wide and white, his breaths shallow. Alive, her internal voice breathed. Still alive. Brandon Stark sat by the window in his wheeled chair, looking out, and Samwell Tarly stood poised to open the door, but it was not his eyes that she sought.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked of Sansa Stark, who had risen from Jon's side, his hand still gripped in hers, her eyes worried.

"You-your grace," Tarly said. "He-he's—"

"Tell me," she spat at him, and then pulling in her calm, she turned back to Sansa, and said in a hoarse half-whisper. "Tell me."

"He's with Ghost," Bran said in that terrible voice. "In the crypts."

"He's right here!" She gestured to his figure laid out, his hair strewn about, his skin pale and his eyes unseeing. "How can he be in the crypts? He's not—he's not dead."

It came out more like a question though she could see his chest moving. Sansa, still standing, broke in. "He's alive."

"Your Grace," Tarly said, stronger this time. "Jon… he's a warg, Your Grace. Bran says he's gone into Ghost."

"What in seven hells is a warg? Is he safe?" Her voice was dangerously close to cracking, and she saw that Sansa could tell, but she held the woman's gaze regardless. She would understand best, surely. She had lost too many people not to feel Dany's pain.

"A warg is a child's tale," Tyrion said, "of men who can change skins, and join with the mind of animals."

"It is not a child's tale, no more than a dragon is," Samwell argued back, and Dany found a glimmer of respect in her sorrow and rage and confusion. "He has warged, and Bran has seen him go to the crypts wearing Ghost's form."

"The crypts. Show me." When no one moved, Dany half-growled in fury. "Show me!"

"Yes, Your Grace," said Samwell, and he moved toward the door. Dany moved at his side, Kovarro following, hardly seeing the faces of the people they passed. The man led them towards the flame of the weirwood, where Dany had placed all her future hopes, but stopped short near a destroyed tower. "Down through here, Your Grace."

Dany stared down the dark steps, down and down. It was like trying to see through pitch. The oblivion called to her, but she did not move. "Lead on."

"Your Grace, Ghost is not tame."

"Then get me a torch," Dany said, aware she was crazed with worry. "I will find him."

"Are—"

"We need him. I'm bringing him back. A torch."

The man ran off, and Dany could not tear her eyes away from the darkness. She would not lose him. She could not. She needed him. Damn the war, damn the throne if he was gone. The world need not live if he were dead.

"Khaleesi?"

"Jon Snow is a skin-changer. His second skin, his wolf, is down in the place where they bury their dead. Down in the dark."

"You are…"

"I'm going to bring him back," she said, quietly.

"It is not safe."

She did not deny it, and did not have to when Samwell came back, carrying a torch in either hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he handed her one and started down ahead of her.

"He's my best friend, Your Grace. Perhaps Ghost will recognize me." She only nodded once and compared him to the image of his father and brother, the men too proud to kneel. They were night and day, and she found that spark of respect growing larger for this guardian than the contempt she held for the soldiers.

"Thank you, Sam," she said at last, and then let Kovarro follow him into the darkness before she took a breath and began the descent. Down they went, level after level, and the darkness, the endless descent had Dany recalling the warlocks' tower. She did not have Drogon on her shoulder to defend her now, and part of her wished she did.

"I think the newer statues are on this level," Sam whispered, though there was no one but the dead to hear. Dany wasn't listening. She strained. She could hear something coming from outside their circle of light. She hushed him gently, and both of the men held their breath as she leaned forward, taking cautious steps. Kovarro caught her arm and walked a step before of her, his arakh poised ahead of them. She did not begrudge him that. The wolf that had run through the marching army had been as large as a horse.

There was a quiet whine coming from the shadows, and they moved toward it. She only glanced at the stone men and their rusting swords. The direwolves at their feet were massive carved beasts, and Dany had to look away from them. The torchlight warped their features so they looked more like the gargoyles of Dragonstone, warning her back. She did not turn, only powered onward, trying to see beyond the protective glow of the flame and the shadow of Kovarro's shoulder. The whine grew steadily louder, and Dany hesitated, stopping to look about momentarily. "Rickard Stark," she murmured to Sam, asking a question.

"Jon's grandfather. Forgive me, Your Grace, but your father… well, he burned him alive before the Trident."

"And Brandon. He was the one who strangled himself the same day?"

"Yes; Jon's uncle." Dany filed this away, knowing well now that her father truly had been mad. Dany felt the cruelty when she looked at the stone-carved faces of men he'd tortured. She'd burned men, burned Sam's family. He would not know, or he would not be here now. Unless it was a plot to get her alone. He had failed there, with Kovarro poised to protect her.

They took another couple steps forward, and the light fell upon a woman, the first Dany had seen among the carvings. She was beautiful, a feather resting in her palm, a stone crown of roses in her hair. She carried no sword, but she had her own direwolf by her ankles. Ghost.

His red eyes turned on her, the whining increased in pitch for just a moment. Dany's heart froze. He was as big as a stallion; if she had to guess, she'd say the wolf would measure 16 hands easily, and he seemed to possess more fur than any bear. This could not be her Jon, here in this body. "Jon?"

The whine deepened to a rumbling growl as Kovarro lifted his arakh higher, tried to push Dany back. "Blood of my blood—"

"No." Dany refused to be turned away. If this was Jon, her Jon, he'd not hurt her, he'd never. "Jon, come back. We need you." She paused, unsure whether she should release her vulnerability in front of a near stranger, no matter how close he had been to Jon. She decided against it. "Who is she?"

"Well…" Sam said, hesitant. "Lyanna Stark, Your Grace."

Dany stared beyond the massive white wolf to the woman her brother had loved. The she-wolf, Barristan had called her once. The woman a war was fought over. Dany could see her beauty even through the aged stone. The artisan had carved her with sad eyes. She looked like Jon.

Dany did not turn her gaze back to Ghost as she asked, "Why her, Jon?" The near-constant growl dropped into a whine, and she saw him look up at her out of the corner of her eye.

"I could tell Your Grace—"

Sam's offer was cut off by a snarl, and Dany jumped in her skin while Kovarro tried to push her back again. She turned back to the creature. He was staring at Sam, who shook in the space next to her. "No, that will be fine Sam. You can leave us."

"Your Grace, are you sure?"

"Yes, Sam. Thank you. He'll not attack me. He would not." Dany was not so sure now, but she had to hope. She repeated the same to Kovarro, and though he tried to argue, she only insisted, allowing that he could stay close enough to hear her call. The bloodrider backed away with Sam, and she braced herself for the loss of the extra light. When it had faded to halfway down the passage, she tore her eyes away from Jon's eyes in Ghost's face and set her torch in a sconce next to Lyanna Stark. She stayed quiet until the growl faded and silence fell around them like a blanket, except for their breathing.

"She's beautiful. I can see why Rhaegar fell in love with her." Dany spoke to the cold, still air. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "If he hadn't though, perhaps we would have never come to this. I would have grown up in the Red Keep with a mad father, the kingdoms would have gone to Rhaegar, your father would be alive." Ghost whined, and Dany looked at him again. "Or maybe things would have come to this either way. One girl fractured the entire peace. Something else might have."

"I would have married Viserys like you said. He might have been kind. Losing everything ruined him, and he went mad, too." Dany paused, moved closer to the she-wolf's likeness, reached out to stroke the feather she held cupped in her palm. Who had left it? Who came to visit this woman aside from the wolf at her feet? "I wonder every day if I've gone mad, and no one will tell me. You said I have not, but I feel mad. I'm talking to a wolf."

Dany ached. Jon was gone, there was only Ghost, but she poured her heart out anyway. "Was it the news of the Night King that drove you mad? Of Viserion? You seemed well enough when I left. What sent you so far from yourself that you ended up here, in the dark?"

She let the silence hang, waiting for a response she knew she couldn't expect.

"The Unsullied and Dothraki will burn now. I brought them here, across the water, and they're going to burn and die. I did that to them. Everyone will die because we tried to bring proof south of the Wall. Because we tried to get a madwoman's help. Because I didn't trust you." Her throat was sore from tears she held back. And then she realized it did not matter if she held them back. There was no one here to see, no one but her and a white wolf. She let the first fall, for Jon, for the child he did not know he'd made within her. He had to come back. He had to. A second and third fell for her people, waiting above to die in flames, and for what? A throne possessed by a madwoman? A world that might fall to darkness?

"People will think I've gone mad. They will be looking for us, and Tyrion will need to tell them that I'm in the crypts, talking to a wolf that may or may not have your thoughts." Dany shuddered against the cold and let silence fall as she looked at the woman. She took another step forward, reached for the stone face, her fingertips hovering above the smooth surface, never touching.

"You look like her." Looking at Lyanna's face made her wonder whether their children would have her own features or Jon's. She hoped their looks would mingle. The blood of Valyria mixed with the blood of the First Men, the Andals; true children of Westeros. She hoped they would grow up knowing their parents, as she had not.

"I need you, Jon. I am strong for them because I have to be. But I'm stronger with you. I don't need to pretend that I'm unworried or fearless when there is everything to fear. I can be afraid and strong with you. I can be the dragon and the woman all at once." The cold was seeping into her now, and Dany was shivering. She had not been so cold on Drogon, but he radiated heat.

"I need you. I don't know if you can hear me. If I'm honest, I hope you cannot, because I have never needed anyone. Only myself," she said in a whisper, sinking to the floor to rest her legs. "I'm the last dragon, I have to be able to survive alone."

Ghost heaved himself up, and Dany froze in terror. He towered over her where she sat, as tall as she had been standing, perhaps taller. She was afraid; she could admit it to the silence. He was a mythic beast, she reminded herself, and she was as close to alone as she could be. He came nearer, and sniffed at her hair, brushing her cheek with his whiskers as he did so, before curling his body around hers, lying so that his head was in her lap. He was large enough that his tail nearly touched his nose though he was curled around her back. Dany sat still, not wanting to break the moment, and Ghost let out a sigh and a whine. He seemed so like a lost dog, that Dany reached and scratched behind his ears, and was rewarded with a contented rumble. His fur was the color of her hair in the torchlight. Silver and gold spun together. He was a beautiful creature. She felt him falling into comfort, thought he might be sleeping when he fell silent again.

Dany held him there for a long time, wondering whether Jon was still warged into this form. She could not tell, nor could she hardly believe it. Sam had seemed so certain, as had Bran, and though her dragons were real enough, she did not think skin-changing possible. Brandon's talent for foresight reminded her of her own family's dragon dreams, but she'd never heard of Targaryen who could ride the mind of a beast.

"You are not the last dragon," Jon said behind her. Dany jumped, disturbing Ghost, who lifted his head to look at his master. He'd proven her wrong then since he had obviously heard her. From her lips, through Ghost's ears.

"Yes, I am," she said, staring up at Lyanna. The girl her brother died for. "The rest died with my brothers. I am it. You know that."

"I knew that," he said, still behind her. Dany just shook her head and changed the subject. It hurt too much to think of her family.

"You left me."

"Yes, my queen. But you found me."

"Here, in front of your aunt's bones, disguised as a wolf," she said, almost bitter. She was happy he was back, but it felt like betrayal that he had left at all.

"Not my aunt." He stepped into the torchlight, his eyes locked on the statue. He raised a hand to stroke the stone cheek as Dany has been unable to make herself. She saw the set of his shoulders; he was hurting, partly curled around his chest, but she had seen no new wound when he had been lying still on his bed.

"But your father was a Stark," she said. "She was his sister."

"My father was not a Stark," he said, so quiet she could barely hear him.

"Jon, what do you mean?"

"Did you ever hear how she died? Lyanna?" He still had not looked at her. Dany grew confused at the change of subject, but put it down to him being recently joined with a wolf. He was bound to act strangely.

"No. I never thought to ask. How did she die?"

"Giving birth to Rhaegar's son after the Trident."

"A son?" Dany's world swirled for the second time in too short a span. "Did he survive?"

"Yes. Lyanna's brother—Eddard—found her before she died and promised to take the baby for her."

"Where is he? Is he still alive?" Dany was thinking only of the baby, though he would not be a baby anymore. He was her nephew, and a man grown by now, just her age.

"Yes," Jon said, his voice raspy. "He's alive."

"Where is he? Jon?"

"Here."

"At Winterfell? Take me to him."

"Dany." Jon looked at her then, his eyes wrought with pain. She watched his face, and tried to understand why he was delaying her from her family. I am not the last. She stopped, and searched his face again, her heart in her throat. Her eyes jumped to Lyanna's face and back. They looked so alike.

'My father was not a Stark,' he'd said.

'Not my aunt,' he'd said.

A son, a man grown by now.

'Here.'

"Jon?" she asked, not wanting to think it before he confirmed it.

"She named me Aegon," he whispered, his voice tortured. "She named me with her last words, and made her brother take me and hide me away. What better way to hide a boy than to give him a bastard's name?"

Dany shook her head in disbelief. "No. How…" she said, though she knew it made sense, even if she didn't know how he'd learned it. Rhaegar had loved Lyanna, kept her to himself for nearly a year. Of course, she could have had a baby then, while Rhaegar fought the war. "Why would he hide you? You were the rightful heir." Are the rightful heir.

Jon shook his head. "He had won the war for Robert, and Robert would have killed me. Like he killed Rhaegar, like he killed Elia and her children."

"Like he tried to kill me," she whispered. Jon—Aegon—just nodded, staring at her with a broken look.

"What does this mean?" she asked. "You're—you're my nephew. You're the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms."

"No. No. I don't want them. I've never wanted them." Some part of Dany rebuilt itself. She hadn't even known that part of her had cracked. The look in Jon's—Aegon's—eyes was enough to tear the rest of her asunder. Why was he so sad again? She'd seen him happy and now she could not see him otherwise.

"J—Aegon—"

"No… please. I'm not him. I've never been him. I'm just Jon."

"Jon," she agreed. "You are still you. Your parents do not make you who you are. I am an example of that, if anyone is."

"My entire life has been a lie, Dany, all of it. Before it even started—all lies. Rickard and Brandon died thinking Lyanna had been kidnapped and raped by your brother—"

"No, he loved her—"

"I know that. I know. Now." Jon looked back to his mother's statue. "It was what we were all taught. Lyanna, taken by force, the spark of Robert's Rebellion, Rickard and Brandon's death the kindling, your father calling for my fath—my uncle's head the final fuel. And it was all a lie." He looked down to Lyanna's outstretched palm, lifted a hand to trace over the delicate curve of her fingers. "They married, you know, beneath a weirwood."

"How…"

"Bran, he saw them."

"Like he saw…" She had to pause, swallow the lump in her throat. "Viserion, and Eastwatch?"

"Yes. I don't expect you to believe—"

"I do. I believe you. If you believe it, I will," she said. He nodded, still looking at his mother. Gods, his mother. It was all he'd ever wished for, and he looked so hurt, so broken.

"All lies," he murmured.

"Not all," she said, lifting herself from the floor. He looked towards her, not quite meeting her eyes. Ghost shifted beside her, and Dany slipped a hand into his fur for the warmth, for the support. "It cannot be all lies. Your uncle, he loved you like a son, that was not a lie."

"He made the lies I lived. He let me think I was a bastard, let me wonder who I was, where I came from. He let me join the Watch, give up all claim to a name, a family, a future, to protect his lies."

"Jon…"

"No, Dany, I cannot forgive that. He let me live that way."

"Yes, he did," she said, and stepped toward him. "He lied, yes. But you know as well as I do that he did it for a reason. The Usurper, his dogs, they would have hunted you to the end of the world to make sure you did not survive. You know they would. They did, for me, and they almost succeeded. You have more right to the throne than I; they would have never let you survive, no matter who your mother was. He lied to let you live."

Jon stayed silent for a minute, seeming to inspect her hem. She didn't reach for him, not just yet, knowing he needed to put himself back together as well. "Robert was supposed to have loved her," he finally whispered. "Wouldn't he have wanted to protect her children?"

"Do you think he loved her? Because you know as well as I that he would not have protected you."

"No," Jon said. "If he did, she'd never have run off. Father—Eddard—he mentioned once, when he thought Robb and I could not hear, that she didn't think he'd stay faithful and that she couldn't love a man like that. He said Arya is like her, often. I can see her saying just the same. I think Robert only wanted to have her, not to love her."

Dany let the thought hang a moment. "Rhaegar gave her a crown of winter roses at Harrenhal."

"Yes."

"Like the one she wears, even now?" Dany asked, softly. She moved in by his side, took his hand in both of her own. "Eddard had the statue made, I assume."

"Yes," Jon whispered, looking up at the woman, every inch of him sad.

"That is one truth, then," she said. "Your uncle had her laid to rest as she ought to be; a princess, crowned in her winter roses from the man she loved, here among family that loved her." When Jon said nothing, she continued. "And he raised you with his children, raised you as his son. He taught you things you might have learned in the Red Keep, had things been different. He kept you safe. He kept you alive. I am grateful to him for that."

"I should be," Jon said. "I cannot feel that now. But you are right, he did tell a truth here, with her roses."

"She looks so like you," Dany murmured. "She's so beautiful."

"Like you."

She leaned her cheek against his cloak, said nothing for a long moment. Ghost sighed behind them. "Was it the lies that sent you into Ghost?"

"I'm not sure. I felt like I was losing myself."

"And now?"

"I'm still unsure."

"You are still Jon Snow, you will always be Jon Snow. You are more than your name or your parents," she said. "You are the North. 'Wild and beautiful and terrible and wonderful. Summer snows and wolf howls.' Isn't that what you said? You are the man who rushed the Night King, who took a knife in the heart, who woke again from death. You are still you."

He looked down at her then, but she did not take her eyes off the woman who'd brought him into the world. Her brother's wife and love. Married beneath a weirwood. "I love you, Dany."

"I love you," she said back, as he turned her, wrapped his arms around her waist, rested his forehead against hers. She settled her fingers in the warm fur of his cloak, shivered slightly at the stir of his breath against her cheek. She still felt carefree in his arms, and they had all the cares in the world.

"I will get you a crown of winter roses," he murmured, nudging her nose with his own.

"Would you start a war for me as well?" she said, warming to the affection, when she'd been so angry and scared at the thought of losing him.

"I already have, my queen. You were not so happy with me then."

"Yes, well, we must not make all of our elders' mistakes," she teased back.

"You're right. I will marry you beneath a weirwood," he said. "But I'll be there for our children."

The promise made her shiver in pleasure. To hear him sound so like himself again was all she had needed to forgive him for leaving. Her Jon, a dragon and a wolf all at once. She had love, she had family, and she had more growing inside her.

"Jon?" she said, before he could capture her lips.

"Dany." His lips were hovering, just there, so she felt the brush of them when he said her name.

"Our children… I have news." She trailed her hands down his chest, found his arms, followed them down until she could guide his hands to rest on her stomach. It took a moment for him to react, and when he did, he pulled back, his fingers tightening in the fabric of her skirts.

"You're sure?" he asked, low, his dark eyes searching hers in the dim torchlight.

"I cannot say absolutely," she murmured. "It's not so certain yet. I've… I've missed my moon's blood, which is the first sign, but some children do not stay rooted. I can feel it within my bones, however; the fullness, the heaviness. I know I'll start to get ill in the mornings," she continued, rambling because he had not yet spoken. "And as you're with me for most of them, you'd discover me sooner or later—"

"Dany," Jon whispered, and she shut her mouth forcibly, hoping that he was happy with her news, when he'd had so much go wrong this night. "You're sure?"

"Yes," she said on a sigh of breath she did not know she held. The waiting, the silence was drawing her heart into a tangled web, but she held firm. He had wanted this, in the Dragon's Pit, she reminded herself. He had wanted her, wanted to give her children. He would want this one, even knowing what he knew now, surely.

"You are so beautiful," he finally said. "So wonderful." His grip on her hips tightened then loosened self-consciously, but he pulled her closer, raised a hand to her chin to tilt her head back, to brush his lips over hers, over her cheeks, her forehead. She felt a flutter below her heart whenever he did that, kissed her just to kiss her, seeking nothing in return for the brush of her skin against his. She felt it more now, felt the lump of emotion rising in her throat.

"Our children will grow up knowing us," he murmured. "They'll have a family."

She nodded when she could not find the words, let him cradle her face between the tips of his fingers, his fingers delicate against her jawline. His kisses were featherlight, hesitant, but she didn't mind the gentleness when they must both feel so raw.

"I need you, too," he said after a long moment of just their breaths mingling and Ghost's quiet sighs. She tightened her grip on the fur at his collar, rose onto her toes and let her mouth hover over his.

"Good."

He laughed, one sharp bark before she kissed him, hard, uncaring that they might yet be watched. He pulled her closer, and that felt wonderful, to feel his hands upon her back, to weave her fingers in the hair curling about his collar. When he disentangled them, reminding her that they needed to go back, she only smiled as he set her fingers in the crook of his elbow and lifted the torch aloft. This was where she belonged, she knew. A dragon with a dragon, no longer a Targaryen alone in the world. This was home.