Jon rode south as though all the demons of the seven hells were at his heels.
Ride south to find your brother. Ride south to make peace. Ride south to gain strength. The conflict he had felt in his heart had all but vanished, lost somewhere amidst the mud and the snow and the rain. It did not matter why or how Robb had returned. Somehow he had, but all that mattered now was that he was riding to save his family, riding to make a peace that could save the world.
How many brothers had Jon buried? Robb, Bran, Rickon… and his sisters too. He had given them all up for loss, first when he took his oaths, again when he chose his oaths over his family… and yet again when one by one as they died or disappeared. So many, too many, but one by one they were returning with him. Can the dead come back to life? It seemed impossible and yet that is what was happening. Might he find Arya and Sansa too? He stared up at the stars above. Even those felt within his grasp now.
A score of riders rode with him, lightly armored men upon fast horses. They had changed out for fresh horses at every castle they passed, crossing from the Dreadfort to Cerwyn in but a handful of days. They dressed without sign or sigil, passing almost unnoticed to the south. Tonight would be the end of one of the longest rides. The days were coming shorter now, and autumn had nearly finished. Dark days were coming, where the ground grew hard and the sun set earlier and farmers prayed they had enough food to survive. They do not have enough, he reminded himself, and rode all the harder.
He could feel Ghost running in the snow not far away. The direwolf seemed to sense the urgency even more than Jon did, running hard and fast across a line more direct than any road. Gone was Ghost's usual caution and quiet. He ran openly now to the terror of many a family of shepherds. Is it my urgency that pushes him, or his urgency that pushes me? It did not matter. The sooner they made peace the sooner the North would be whole and the better they could prepare for the coming of the Others. Every day they saved would save a hundred lives.
Word came to him as he rode. Ravens sent to castles ahead of him on his ride to inform him of changes in the north. Mors besieged the Ironborn in Torrhen's Square. The Wall readied itself as best it could. Stannis secured a line of credit from the Iron Bank and was poised to buy grain for all winter if he had to. All good news, all good tidings, but it was not enough, never enough.
Finally, they came to the town he had remembered. The last true town of the north, Robb had called it, an age ago. They had ridden this far as boys on two separate occasions, and each time Jon had looked out from the inn and wondered what the South was like. He still did not know, he thought bitterly. He had never left the North. He had not needed to leave. All the rest of the world seemed more than happy to come to the North on his behalf.
His men took their horses to the livery and Jon set about finding something to eat. His whole body ached from the ride. He felt as though the saddle had worn his thighs straight through to the bone and a part of him ached thinking they had even further to ride tomorrow. The exertion was worth it though, he did not question it. They would take on fresh horses here if there were any to be had, and they would be on the causeway by daylight tomorrow.
With some sadness, he noted the state of the town. So far his ride had been through lands untouched by war, lands belonging to Stark and Manderly and Bolton. You might see the odd overturned cart or abandoned hut, but even such sites as that were rare. Here, though, the war had been felt. Ironborn from the west or Ramsay from the North? Jon could not say. Perhaps both of them had passed through here, but either way, the signs of strife were evident. Holes in the thatched roof of the inn, fences broken down, and not nearly enough wood stacked by the door. There was no going back to before the war.
Still, the windows were full of light and cheer, at least, and Jon felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him as he entered. Perhaps when I come back this way, Robb will be at my side… just like old times. It was a happy thought, if perhaps not a likely one. Some part of him still wondered at the report of Robb being alive… but he shoved such dark thoughts aside.
"Do you have food for a hungry traveler?" he asked, raising an eye at the old barkeep. It was the same man he had last seen three years ago. Jon wondered if the man would even recognize him now, with all his scars and his limp and the head of height he had put on since.
The barkeep eyed him suspiciously. "We've ale," he said, "We've bread and some cheese and eggs too. We had some chicken but the man at the back there is eating it."
Jon's eyes followed the barkeep's finger and he saw a mountain of a man sitting in the corner, armed and armored with mail over riding leathers. His back was turned away but Jon could see burn scars on the back of his neck. A deserter? Wherever he had come from, there was likely to be some news.
"Two ales for now," Jon said, putting his silver on the counter. The Barkeep's eyes widened in surprise. "I've a score of men coming in behind me and they're hungry."
He took the pair of mugs over to the man in the corner. The big man set down his chicken and turned to face him. He had half his face wrapped in cloth as though he'd been recently wounded which furthered Jon's idea that he was a deserter. He seemed almost familiar but then Jon was tired and had been meeting with living around veterans for years now.
"If you want any of my chicken, you can fuck off," the man said.
Jon raised an eyebrow and sat across from him. "It's news I want, not meat. You're traveling from the south, yes?" It seemed likely they would have seen him on the road before now if he had been traveling south.
"Maybe I am."
"Me and mine are headed that way," Jon said, "We'd welcome knowledge of any bandits or like on the road ahead. Thought I might offer you an ale for your thoughts."
"My thoughts are you should fuck off."
Jon raised an eyebrow. "I worried, seeing your scar, that you might have run into some trouble."
"I can tell you you're going to run into trouble if you keep yapping at me."
Jon stood up, leaving the ale, "Peace, friend, I want no trouble." The man must be a deserter, perhaps even an ironborn or a Bolton man. Either way, it was clear that the man had not recognized him, so any resemblance must be pure coincidence.
A sound came at the door and he turned, expecting to see his men entering…
...and he came face to face with a ghost.
Arya, his own Arya, nearly half a foot taller and covered in dirt and grime, but Arya all the same and behind her a stately…
"Arya? Sansa?" he could not believe it, he could not… For what seemed like an hour the three of them stood like that, facing each other, spellbound, as though a single movement would shatter the world and send them spiraling away from each other forever.
Then the moment passed and there was only motion. Running to each other, colliding, laughing crying. Jon felt sure he said things, but it was all nonsense, unintelligible. How, how, how? How had any of this come to be? How could they be here? They were trying to explain it to him, but he could barely make it out. It did not matter, he decided.
Eggs and toasted bread were a poor meal for a long-delayed reunion, but it tasted better than the richest meal Jon had enjoyed in his life. Arya grinned up at him, almost like she had all those years ago, only… no, there were lines now, scars where there had been none before. Sansa had some of that hardness to her as well, and Jon was sad to see it. He had never been as close with her as he had with Arya, but innocence had been the greatest casualty of this war. I must look like an old man to them, he thought with some amusement.
"How did you even make it North?" Jon asked, "Surely with only one sworn sword, the bandits must have-"
"Nymeria and Grey Wind protected us," Arya said, smiling slyly. "We've got them here with us, just as you have Ghost."
Jon shook his head. His thoughts went back to Qhorin's words North of the Wall. Skinchanger Qhorin had called him, and was Arya one too? Miles away, Ghost sniffed the air tentatively and smelled Grey Wind and Nymeria. Jon felt himself grinning despite it all, and Arya's smile widened in reply.
Across the table from them, Sandor grimaced and started another ale.
Sansa sighed. "It only follows you would have that same eerie sense Arya has. You two were always thick as thieves."
Jon sighed and shook his head. "Not like us, you mean."
Sansa adjusted her posture uncomfortably. "I was not kind to you," she admitted. "I don't think I understood what it was to be weak back then. I don't think I knew how to be compassionate. I-"
"You were a girl," Jon said. "A child. We all were. And I never appreciated how much good I had. Not until I thought I lost it all. When I grew up, I often thought I should have been happier if I had never known my trueborn family, if I had been raised with the Umbers or the Glovers. At times I would curse Lady Stark, or even father… But I think I understand now. Why he kept me close, I mean. He lost his whole family in the war, the old war, and-"
"Never again," Arya promised. "Never again."
Sansa and Jon both nodded in reply. He could feel their resolve, their determination, almost as though it was his own. He could feel their strength of purpose as intimately as he could feel his own thoughts, or Ghost's. The wolf dies but the pack lives is that not what his father had said? And all of them were alive now, all except Ned… and Lady Stark, he supposed.
Why did they not go to Robb? The thought had been a poison to his joy since he had first seen them in the tavern. Robb would have been the closer brother. Robb would have been the stronger brother.
"We do owe Sandor everything," Sansa stated, "He has kept both of us alive through some dire times. I would assume you can..."
"Anything he wants," Jon said, breaking from his reverie. "Within reason, of course."
All eyes turned to Sandor. The big man shifted uncomfortably and sighed. "Get me a tower in a place where I won't have any neighbors. I'll be fucked if I want anything more than to be left alone after all this."
Jon tried to laugh but the joy was not in him. Why had they not gone to Robb? At last, the pressure became too much, he could not bear it any longer, "Why me?" He said, the question popping out against his will. "Why come to me, when Robb was so near at hand?"
Sansa and Arya looked to each other, uncertain for a moment, and Jon felt lead fill his heart.
"Your brother's a cunt," Sandor said, blunter than either of the sisters. "Thoros brought him back with sorcery but he did a piss poor job of it. Your brother's a corpse filled with nothing but fumes of rage now, and you'd have better luck trying to shag a shadowcat than you would parlaying with that bastard. I'd be running North even if the fuck didn't want my head."
Jon's blood froze. What could have happened to his brother? Robb was not like that, Robb was…
He felt Sansa's hand upon him. "It's true," she said. "I saw him, I was face to face with him and he did not so much as recognize me. His face is red and puffy like… like a half-rotted corpse." She stopped and swallowed, her face flush with the horror of it all. "You cannot believe the horror of it, Jon. Arya said she had seen it before with-"
"Beric Dondarrion," Arya said "He wasn't as mean as this new Robb but he had just as poor a memory. He couldn't tell you the name of his mother, couldn't tell you what his betrothed looked like, or why he'd started fighting. They were using some kind of magic to keep him coming back to life."
"I saw it too," Sandor said, gruffly. He reached for ale and took a drink. "I cut that Beric nearly clean in two in a duel, then the Red Priest came over, said his words…" He took another heavy drink. "Whether it was war or sorcery that broke your precious brother, I can't say. It doesn't matter, I don't think. I've served enough shite kings for two lifetimes to know one when I see one. Your brother's mad, mad as a rabid dog."
And rabid dogs need to be put down. Jon grit his teeth. He wanted to be angry, wanted to rage, but what was he to say? Could he deny Arya, deny Sansa? But even if he could accept it, would his bannermen? "Half the north declared for him," he said, his voice suddenly small and hoarse.
"Half the North's declared for a corpse," Sandor replied.
"I don't recall asking you for your opinion, dog," Jon spat out.
"He's not lying," Arya said, her voice surprisingly hurt, as though it was her he had snapped at. "Do you always get mad at people who tell you the truth?"
Jon breathed in. The room was too warm, too thick with the smell of wood and ale. He wished he could walk about, but he had to manage himself. He had to be calm, had to show mastery over this. He was a lord of house Stark now, a man of importance. Robb is dead, Robb is dead. He closed his eyes and tried to master himself but could not. The world tilted and he clutched at the table. The weariness of his thousand-mile race across the north caught up to him all at once. What did this even mean? A part of him wanted to race south all the faster, to see if he could not reason with him, could not make him understand…
"Brother," Sansa pleaded. She never called me that before. "Please. I did not want to believe it either, but Arya persuaded me. The stories they tell of him, the way he looks at you… there's nothing there, Jon. Nothing at all."
"Jon," Arya said, her voice small. "I know it's hard, but… you know, I think I always knew he was gone."
I thought that too, he reminded himself. I thought that too, at the beginning. I always thought that. Even now, this news had not shaken him as much as Robb's death had the first time, as much as the news of Rickon and Bran, nor even… Gods, Ygritte. He hated that the pain of his dead lover's memory hurt most of all. Instinct. Suspicion. Despair. All useless. He had to focus on what he knew.
If Robb was dead, and this demon wearing his skin could not be reasoned with, then what was to be done about the North? What was to be done about Manderly and Mormont? No, he could not worry about that. Not yet. He needed… yes. He knew how he would handle this.
He breathed in, he breathed out, and he remained whole. He opened his eyes. Sansa, Arya, and Sandor all stared back at him. He smiled a little, despite it all.
"We need answers," Jon said simply. "And I know just where to get them."
