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Chapter Text

Ned Stark stared out at the horizon, and with considerable effort, kept the unease in his heart from showing itself on his face.

Beside him, his son and heir stood on the wall of Winterfell, having not quite mastered the art of controlling his expression to the same extent as Ned.

“What has you so worried, Father?” Robb Stark asked. “Are the ravens from the Wall really so dire?”

Ned glanced at his son. Beyond Robb, he could see several of his lords, having already assembled after Ned called his banners. Karstark, Glover, Dustin, and Umber had already arrived; the Mormonts and several others had sent ravens to inform him that they were on their way. But one raven in particular had arrived with a particularly important message.

Ned sighed. “They are,” he said. “There’s a King-Beyond-The-Wall, according to the Lord Commander. And he’s marching on the Wall as we speak. There’s no way the Night’s Watch can hold him back.”

Another man, having been standing not far behind Ned and his son, stepped up and scoffed loudly. “Bah! So old Jeor’s pissin’ his pants again,” Greatjon Umber declared. “Surely yeh don’t need to call every bloody man in the North for a ratty band of wildlings! It’s damn near winter already!”

Ned shot Lord Umber a warning look. “According to the Lord Commander, that “ratty band of wildings” is a hundred thousand strong,” he said. 

That made the rest of the lords, who had all been doing a rather poor job of pretending not to eavesdrop, fall completely and utterly silent. Even Greatjon Umber couldn’t quite keep his bluster intact. He made a damn good effort, though.

“He’s bloody lyin’ then,” the giant of a man declared. “There ain’t a hundred thousand wildlings in the world!”

Ned looked the Greatjon in the eye. “Jeor Mormont is many things,” he allowed, “But I do not think a liar is one of them. And besides, even if the number is exaggerated, I will not allow the wildlings to overcome the Wall. Especially not on the brink of winter.”

Judging by the way the lords nodded to themselves and met Ned’s eyes, they seemed to think that reasonable. But when Robb spoke again, Ned knew he voiced thoughts every one of them was having.

“If Lord Mormont isn’t lying,” he said, “Then we still have an enormous problem. Even if we called up every man of fighting age in the whole North, we’d still be outnumbered four to one.”

The Greatjon growled. “And we can’t even do that,” he added. “It’s damn near winter. If we call men away from the harvest now, half the North starves to death even if we win.”

That made the lords grow grim. Ned knew that the force they would send to the Wall would number fifteen thousand at best. Perhaps closer to twenty thousand, if he felt like risking famine. Ned would take the men of the North in a fight at almost any odds, particularly against half-savage wildlings with bronze and stone weapons and no cohesion whatsoever. But no man relished the idea of a fight that lopsided. 

“I am aware of all of this,” Ned said. “And I think it prudent to inform you that, when I sent the ravens calling the banners, I sent an additional one to the King, informing him of the situation, and asking for any assistance he might be able to spare.”

That got the attention of Ned’s bannermen. And not in a good way.

The Greatjon spat over the wall. “You called on fookin’ King Rhaegar?” he growled. “The man’s a no-good, pansy-ass—”

A heated glare from Ned silenced the Greatjon. “I’ll not have you speak ill of my good-brother,” Ned said, though he had plenty of ill to speak himself. He knew to pick his battles.

The Greatjon’s jaw tightened. He held his peace, but Lord Karstark spoke up instead.

“The King may have declared forgiveness for the rebellion, Lord Stark,” Rickard Karstark said, “but I can’t imagine that he would be at all inclined to send us any aid.”

Ned remained silent. While it was true that Rhaegar had formally pardoned all those who had risen in revolt against his father Aerys—after successfully coordinating that very rebellion with Ned, Jon Arryn, and Robert Baratheon through the supposed kidnapping of Ned’s sister, the now-Queen Lyanna—one didn’t play-act a war without a few battles. Men had died in those battles. And, understandably, their lords, families, and kingdoms held grudges about that. Even after the Parley on the Trident, the event that had seen the Royal host supposedly sent to crush the rebellion join with the Stark-Tully-Arryn-Baratheon forces instead and march on King’s Landing to depose King Aerys, many in the Reach, Crownlands, and Dorne were left bitter and angry about the whole false-war. Indeed, many in the North, and elsewhere, were left quite sore about the whole thing, having been left out of the loop of much of it. Ned knew his bannermen remained loyal, but he had breached their trust, and trust was a thing that healed slow in the North. Even now, King Rhaegar’s name was not a popular one north of Moat Cailin, and even Queen Lyanna had been known to be mistrusted.

“I thought the same,” Ned admitted, “But I felt I had to ask, if it meant even one Northern man might be saved. I did not receive an answer back, so I thought it had been ignored.”

The lords seemed mollified by that, or at least unsurprised. Which was when Ned felt it was time to speak again.

“That was,” he amended, “Until just over a week ago, when a raven arrived from King’s Landing, shortly followed by another from White Harbor.”

A ripple of confusion spread through the lords. Ned saw Robb staring at him in shock.

Ned produced the parchment with the very letter he’d spoken of, having been awaiting the proper time to bring it up. He passed it to Robb, who, eyebrows knit in confusion, began to read it aloud.

“To Lord Stark, Warden of the North,” Robb read, almost reflexively giving the words the slightest hint of foppish arrogance, as befitted the North’s opinion of Targaryens. “I have received your message regarding the gathering of hostile forces north of the Wall. Your reputation for honesty, honor, and truthfulness is well known across the Seven Kingdoms, and I regard your report of their numbers and the direness of the situation with as strong a belief as if I had seen it with my own eyes. Accordingly, I have assembled as large and well-equipped a force as I could conceivably call up without delaying their dispatch to reinforce you beyond a reasonable time.”

A shocked murmur, half genuine and half disbelieving, rippled through the lords. 

“Bloody hell,” the Greatjon muttered. “He actually listened? Maybe that fookin’ king is less useless than he looks, after all.”

Lord Karstark didn’t look convinced. “Unless he just sent us two thousand green boys led by some arrogant Southron knight,” he countered. “Then he could claim that he helped us, without having to actually do anything.”

A round of discontented mutters spread at that. All the lords could believe that. Even Ned might’ve, if he hadn’t read the letter.

A bout of shocked coughing erupted from Robb’s chest. It seemed he’d been reading ahead in the letter.

The lords all returned their attention to Robb. At a gesture from Ned, his son continued to read. “This force numbers approximately twenty thousand, primarily from the Crownlands, with significant portions of the remainder hailing from the Riverlands and the Vale, the latter of whom I called specifically for their experience fighting with savage clansmen,” Robb read. 

That made the previous exclamations of surprise by Ned’s bannermen turn into a single rolling shout. At the stroke of a pen, they’d suddenly found their forces more than doubled. 

“As it would be grave indeed to inflict upon you twenty thousand additional mouths to feed shortly before winter,” Robb continued, nearly having to shout to be heard, “I have additionally arranged for the establishment of supply lines and provisions from the Reach for the duration of the campaign. Any excess food should be considered a gift from the King, and is to be distributed at your discretion among the North. It is my hope that this will alleviate some of the famine risks among your people.”

The shouting had fallen mostly silent by now. The lords just stared at each other, at Robb, and at Ned.

Finally, the Greatjon spoke. He demanded, “Let me get this straight. You send him one letter, and King Rhaegar drops everything to send twenty thousand men to the arse end of the world, and we don’t even have to feed ‘em? The fuck is in it for him?”

Ned shrugged. “I have no idea,” he admitted readily. “But if he insists on listening to us, I’m not about to question it too much.”

The Greatjon snorted in agreement. “Aye, seems wise,” he said. “So, when’s this royal army arrivin’ then?”

“And who’s leading it?” Lord Karstark added. 

Ned allowed the slightest smile to creep onto his face. “Those two questions are answered by the other raven I received,” he replied. “The one from White Harbor. Evidently, the Manderlys welcomed the advance elements of the force King Rhaegar sent approximately a week ago. That included their commander—who had to be welcomed in a manner befitting his station, of course.”

The Greatjon’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a week’s ride from White Harbor to here,” he said slowly.

Ned raised an eyebrow. Far off, there was the slightest sound of rumbling. Like the tramp of thousands of feet.

“Yes,” he said, finally allowing himself to smile. It wasn’t often that he got to do that in front of his bannermen, but he thought they would allow it, just this once. “I suppose it is.”

The thunderous sound grew louder. And then Robb cried out.

The lords whipped their heads to the horizon, and the low rise in the distance that marked where the road to White Harbor vanished from sight Sunlight glinted off metal, and they finally realized what they were looking at.

It was the army King Rhaegar had promised them. Twenty thousand men, answering the North’s call for aid. They marched in steady rows, sunlight glinting off of weapons and armor, a forest of banners heralding the Houses that had come at the King’s command. Ned saw dozens, and recognized many; he saw Vale houses, Riverlands houses, and Crownlands houses, all as Rhaegar’s letter had promised. 

But the most recognizable banner of all was the one flying at the head of the army. A three-headed red dragon on a black field. The symbol of House Targaryen. And beside it, flying lower and smaller, was a variation of the banner he knew only from the letters informing him to look for it—the sort of personal banner that denoted a specific member of the royal family. In this version, the dragon had only a single head, and was a stark, brilliant white against the black background. The man beneath the banner was unmistakable; his long black hair and longer Northern face were as Stark in looks as Ned himself. At his side rode a blond Kingsguard in brilliant white, marking him as the Targaryen commander. And there was only one male Targaryen who looked like that. The second son of King Rhaegar, known to the realms as The Black Prince. Sometimes they didn’t even mean it as an insult.

Robb glanced at his father. “The King sent Jon?” he asked, sounding awed and disbelieving at the same time. Ned couldn’t blame him. It had been years since Jon had come to visit the North; Rhaegar liked to keep his youngest child close, for all that he was eighteen and a man grown now. “How the hell did Jon manage that?”

Ned smiled at his son. “They’ll be here soon enough,” he assured Robb. “And then you can ask him yourself.”

Although he’d only ever seen it a handful of times before in his life, watching the towers of Winterfell come into view over the hill felt like coming home for Jon.

Perhaps it was the Stark in him; for all that he was Jon Targaryen, second son of King Rhaegar, named for the Hand of the King and his father’s closest friend, Jon Connington, his mother had been quite insistent in ensuring that he didn’t lose touch with his Northern roots, either. It had been because of her that he had even spent some time at Winterfell, years ago, when he was just a boy. It had barely been a few months, but he had fond memories of that time, and of the cousins who had, ever since, been sending him fond, sometimes teasing letters as a true family should.

Beyond that, though, there was just something that felt right when Jon was in the North. King’s Landing and him had a complicated relationship; it was home, had been home all his life…but the Red Keep did not provide for a happy childhood. Between the circumstances of his birth and the war that had accompanied it, he’d grown up with a shadow over his head all his life, and he knew it. And that was saying nothing of how every single courtier, whenever they saw him, recalled the last time a King had had two trueborn heirs, and two Queens. 

Viserys I. Father of Aegon and Rhaenyra. 

Not an example to emulate, that.

Jon was abruptly stirred from his thoughts by the sound of clanking armor as a man in brilliant Kingsguard plate rode up beside him.

“Done daydreaming, my Prince?” asked Jaime Lannister, his easy, smarmy smile as dashing as ever, even well past thirty summers. He’d been Jon’s assigned Kingsguard all his life; Jon had never quite been sure whether that had been intended as a punishment or a reward for Jaime’s actions in stopping Aerys’s mad plan to burn King’s Landing with wildfire as Rhaegar and the rebel armies took the city, and he’d never asked. But Jaime didn’t seem to mind; indeed, Jon couldn’t have asked for a better guard, or a better mentor.

Even if he could’ve done without a little bit of the teasing.

“Aye, I’m done,” Jon sighed. “How are the men doing?”

The question was aimed not just at Jaime, but at the small group of men who rode alongside Jon as the vanguard of the army began moving down the hill, on the long, gradual slope towards Winterfell. After all, for all that Jon had been named as the commander of the army sent to aid the Warden of the North—an honor he’d neither asked for nor expected, not that anyone in King’s Landing believed him—he’d been sent with…well, minders.

Technically, they were his subordinate commanders—a trio of men whose forces comprised the bulk of those under his command—but Jon knew that in reality, Rhaegar had had no intention of sending twenty thousand men off to war commanded by a green boy with no experience. As a result, his three primary commanders were all men more than capable of leading the army themselves, should he prove incapable of doing so.

“They’re holding up as well as can be expected, Your Grace,” said Brynden Tully, his gray, weathered face showing no hint of his true thoughts. “But a week’s march through the North in autumn is no small thing either.”

The man beside the Blackfish, nearly as gray and weathered, harrumphed in agreement. “They’ve come through it alright, though,” Bronze Yohn Royce declared, his rune-covered, battered bronze armor making him look like a figure out of ancient legend. “Even the Crownlanders handled it better than I expected.”

The final man of the trio, the least experienced commander by far, yet the one that Jon knew was probably the most trustworthy, scrunched his face in mild irritation. “What’re you implying, Lord Royce?” demanded Ser Alliser Thorne.

Before Lord Royce could respond, sending the three men into one of the fractious, constant arguments Jon had been forced to deal with ever since they’d all come together in Gulltown on their way to White Harbor, Jon cleared his throat, and all three men fell silent.

For Ser Thorne, Jon knew, that silence was due to genuine loyalty; for all that the man could be brash, arrogant, and grating, he had been loyal to the Targaryens all his life, and that had earned him something that was very rare in King’s Landing: trust. Rhaegar trusted him, to an extent, anyway, and while Jon had many of his own problems with his royal father, he knew that Thorne’s loyalty extended to all the Targaryens—including him. Other than Jaime, Ser Thorne was one of the few men in the whole army Jon fully trusted.

On the other hand, Jon had more mixed feelings about Ser Brynden and Lord Royce. Both men had steadfast reputations for honor and reliability, and both had ultimately sided with Rhaegar during the False Rebellion—albeit unwittingly. However, they were both older, highly experienced commanders with little tolerance for foolishness, and Jon could tell they misliked being, in their eyes, glorified nursemaids shepherding a green second son through his father’s attempt to get him out of the capital and away from the eyes of the court.

Still, he knew they would do their duty, and that was all he could ask. Even if Jon could’ve done with a few less shouting matches between Ser Brynden and Ser Alliser.

“My Lords,” Jon said gruffly, drawing on years of training and practice—both drilled into him no matter how hard he’d tried to wriggle out of it—on courtly etiquette. “I am sure Lord Royce meant no offense to our Crownlander troops. I am glad to hear that the men are doing well. However, you’re correct, Ser Brynden—a weeklong march throuh the North is no pleasant stroll. I suggest that instead of sitting here, we get to Winter Town as soon as practicable, so that the men can encamp and warm up, and we can enjoy the hospitality of my uncle and his family.”

The three commanders glanced askance at one another, and finding that none of them seemed keen to continue their back-and-forth, nodded their consent. “Aye, Your Grace,” Ser Brynden said. “I’ll get them moving again.”

With a wave, Jon dismissed the Blackfish, and the man turned to ride down the line of soldiers—many of whom had, as soldiers were wont to do, had set down their equipment for a surreptitious break from their week of marching along the cold, muddy roads of the North. As he went, the Blackfish started to bellow at them to get up and keep moving—which, after a moment’s grumbling, they did.

Ser Alliser and Lord Royce similarly departed, and soon Jon was left alone with Jaime again, watching as the troops— his troops—marched past, many of them trying to pretend they weren’t openly gawping at the sight of a Prince of the Blood. Even after weeks of sailing and a week on the march, it seemed that the novelty of getting to actually see a Targaryen hadn’t quite worn off for some of the men-at-arms from the Riverlands or Vale. Jon did his best to ignore the part of him that insisted on reminding him that his dark hair and eyes meant he didn’t truly look like a Targaryen. His uncle Viserys had done enough of that in their younger days, before he’d died of a pox.

“That was well done, my Prince,” Jaime finally said. “I thought they were about to start up again.”

Jon sighed. “They would’ve, too,” he muttered. “I swear, they don’t even argue about useful things, like tactics. They just try to piss each other off.”

Jaime snorted. “Men do that, Your Grace,” he said, sounding amused. “My brother considers himself a master of the art.”

“We should’ve brought him along, then,” Jon said. “He could give the three of them lessons.”

Jaime laughed, and they once again set off towards Winterfell, making remarkably good time, given the lateness of the season and the number of men marching along the muddy, trampled road.

In the end, it didn’t take more than an hour for Jon and the highest-ranking members of the army to ride through the open gates of Winterfell, escorted by men in Stark livery who had greeted them just outside the imposing walls of the massive castle.

Jon was first through the gate, followed on one side by Jaime and on the other by the Blackfish; Jon had assured the man that he’d get a chance to see his niece, Lady Catelyn, and the rest of his kin, which had made the cranky old soldier break into something almost like a smile for once.

He found House Stark assembled in the courtyard to greet him. Ned Stark, Warden of the North, stood with his wife, children, and bannermen, all wearing their finest clothing—with the exception of some of the lords, who seemed to have only recently arrived, and hadn’t had time to change.

Perhaps another royal would’ve been irritated by the less-than-perfect reception, but Jon had inherited too much of his mother’s Northern practicality for that—and besides, he was a second son, and one who half the realm still called a bastard behind his back. Arrogance may have been a Targaryen trait, but Jon supposed that his relative lack of it was just another reminder that he wasn’t a particularly good Targaryen.

Jon dismounted his horse, doing his best to appear regal and stately—something he’d never quite managed as well as his father or brother—as his legs screamed in protest after hours in the saddle. 

As soon as the herald had announced his presence—a rather silly thing to do, in Jon’s eyes, since the whole castle was already kneeling to him—Jon motioned for them to rise, already bracing for what he knew was coming.

Half a second later, three blurs broke from the stately line of Starks and slammed into Jon with the force of bolts shot from the ballistae that adorned the towers of the Red Keep. Even braced for it, Jon grunted as Arya, Bran, and Rickon tackled him, shouting “Jon! JON!” loudly enough that it almost drowned out Jaime’s snicker from behind him.

Jon couldn’t help the decidedly unprincely smile that filled his face as the youngest Stark children hugged him. “Hello, cousins,” he laughed. “Gods, you’ve grown, haven’t you?”

Arya made a face, but Bran had no such reservations. “Ser Rodrik says I’m finally big enough to train with the sword!” he declared eagerly. 

Jon chuckled. “Is that so?” he asked. “Perhaps I’ll ask Ser Jaime if he has any tricks to teach you.”

Still holding his post behind Jon, Jaime smiled indulgently. For all that the man could be insufferable at times, Jon knew that he hid a soft spot for children—even the children of Ned Stark, a man who, to put it mildly, had very little good to say about Jaime Lannister.

“If Your Grace wishes it, I will make young Bran into the finest swordsman in Westeros,” Jaime declared with a half-cocked smile. 

Bran looked at him with wide eyes. “Even better than Ser Barristan Selmy?” he asked in that innocent voice only a boy could pull off.

Jaime and Jon exchanged a look, and a chuckle. “Well, I can certainly try,” Jaime finally said. 

Jon chuckled again as Lady Catelyn finally managed to approach and wrangle her younger children back into line, scolding them for “being so disrespectful to the Prince!” Deciding not to make her job any harder, Jon turned his attention to the next Stark sibling.

“Lady Sansa,” he said politely, kissing the hand she offered. She was a little young for that greeting, but he could tell that she was slightly starstruck, having seemingly fallen even deeper into the world of fairytales and legends than she had been when he’d last seen her several years earlier.

Sansa looked to be torn between squealing and hugging him the way Arya and the others had, and trying to act as adult as possible as she said, “Your Grace. Welcome to Winterfell.”

Jon smiled. Briefly, he wondered if Sansa Stark was the only person in Westeros who looked at him and saw a Prince right out of legend, rather than the black sheep of King Rhaegar’s brood, an afterthought at best and an embarrassment at worst.

Then, he reached Robb and his uncle, and the time for reconnecting with kin was over. 

“Lord Stark,” Jon said, not quite managing to keep the hint of fondness out of his voice as he clasped his uncle’s forearm, then Robb’s. “It’s good to see you again.”

Ned Stark, his facial features so eerily similar to Jon’s own, was equally unable to maintain his grave, businesslike facade. “Likewise, Your Grace,” he said warmly. “I merely wish it was under better circumstances.”

Robb echoed the sentiment. “Aye,” he said. “I’d have loved to catch up, Jon, but duty comes first.”

Jon looked at his cousin. They were of an age, and when Jon had spent time at Winterfell years earlier, their exploits had become legend in the castle—the kind of legends that set servants’ tongues to wagging and Lady Catelyn into a fury. 

Jon sighed. He and Robb were boys no longer; they couldn’t sneak off to Winter Town’s brothel, attempting to talk each other into a night with Ros with increasingly outlandish bragging and encouragement. They were young men now, each with responsibilities…though Robb arguably had more, and more real power, despite Jon being a Prince. After all, Robb was heir to the Warden of the North, with an entire kingdom as his inheritance, while Jon was the spare to his brother Aegon; barring the unthinkable, the most Jon would inherit was Summerhall, if the reconstruction efforts started by Rhaegar were ever completed. Jon had his doubts on that one.

But this was no time for such thoughts. There was an army of wildlings bearing down on the North, and Jon had been given the responsibility to stop it.

“To duty, then,” he agreed.

Duty. Jon wondered if his uncle, his face worn and lined by past wars, knew anything but duty.

Ygritte awoke, as she did most nights, to the sound of screams.

It wasn’t morning. They never came in the morning. So long as the sun was up, they were safe—all the Free Folk, all her people. But when the sun went down…that was when the dead crept in.

It didn’t matter what the Free Folk did. Some of them tried to erect barricades, tried to build a new fort every night as they crept south towards the wall, their pace as slow as the glaciers now that they had assembled a hundred thousand men, women, and children in a single ponderous horde. Others posted guards, put men standing shoulder-to-shoulder all around the sleeping forms at the center. Others ringed their camps with fire, tried to keep it burning all night to keep the dead out.

It didn’t work. Nothing worked. They always came. They always got through.

Ygritte was up and out of her tent before she was even truly awake, daggers—one good steel, taken off a Night’s Watchman she’d killed before she was four and ten, and the other barely-serviceable bronze—already out and glinting in the firelight. The first thing she truly saw was glowing blue eyes.

A wight lunged out of the treeline, bones clacking past each other as it swung a rusted axe at her. 

Ygritte was moving long before the axe fell. She ducked up and under the wight’s swing, daggers flashing as she drove them into the pits of the thing’s bony shoulders and heaved. Bone splintered, rotten, icy flesh tore, and with a pop, both of the wight’s arms tore free of their sockets. The axe blade dropped, and the wight was left literally disarmed. 

That didn’t stop it, of course. You couldn’t kill a wight like that—you didn’t even stop both bits of it from trying to attack you. But it did buy her a few moments as the wight staggered back, off-balance. And that let her race to the nearest bonfire, grab a burning brand, and whirl around to thrust it into the wight’s chest.

The dead man burned. More than that—he went up like a torch, far faster than flesh and bone should have burned. It was as if he was made of pine tar; in the span of seconds, there was nothing left of the wight but a pile of ash.

Ygritte didn’t bother celebrating. In the distance, she heard bellows of pain, more screams, and a single, piercing roar. Tormund Giantsbane, with a voice meant to carry across the chaos of a battle or a raid, was shouting, “FREE FOLK! TO ME!”

Ygritte dropped the guttering brand. It was about burned out anyway. She took off running, knowing that if she didn’t, she would be dead in minutes—killed by the blue-eyed things lurking in the woods around her. And then she’d come for the Free Folk, too, her own eyes glowing.

“Gods,” she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind as she fought for her life. “I’m so fookin’ tired of this shite.”

Just a few more days. A few more days, and they’d reach the Wall. 

They just had to hold on.

Chapter Text

The customary welcome feast at Winterfell was, Jon supposed, not up to what a Prince might expect.

But then again, they were at war, and the North was not a place where waste and excess were tolerated, particularly on the eve of winter. The food was hearty, and it was nice to spend time with his kin, and that was all Jon had to say about it. 

At least the Northern lords didn’t seem to be in the mood to quarrel—which was unusual for them, Jon gathered. Indeed, they seemed more bemused than anything—as if they hadn’t quite decided how they felt about an army of twenty thousand men showing up unannounced to aid them. Jon supposed he couldn’t blame them for that.

Still, he was almost relieved when, the next morning, a war council was held in Lord Stark’s solar. At least here, there was less likelihood of getting covered in boiling soup.

When Jon entered, he found his uncle and cousin flanked by several of their bannermen; Jon recognized a handful of them by sight, mostly those he’d met during his time in Winterfell years ago. Most of the others, he knew by reputation, or at least recognized their houses. 

For his part, Jon brought Jaime along, as well as his three commanders. While there were a number of other lords and knights in his army who might theoretically have been invited, Lord Stark’s solar was only so large, and Jon figured that they didn’t need to all be crammed in there just for a simple discussion of what to do next.

Even then, there was a distinct lack of elbow room as Jon made his way to the table where Ned and Robb had laid out the most detailed maps of the Wall and the regions beyond ever created in Westeros.

Frankly, the maps weren’t very good. Everything south of the Wall, of course, was laid out in thorough detail, but everything beyond it was hazy, with locations poorly defined and even more poorly sketched. Still, no man there had ever actually been beyond the Wall, so it wasn’t surprising. The Night’s Watch might have better maps, Jon mused—if only in the minds and memories of their rangers. 

Ned noticed the look on Jon’s face as he studied the charts. “I apologize for the poor quality of our intelligence, Your Grace,” he said in a grave voice that would be hard to take seriously from any other man. 

Jon frowned. He knew full well that there would have been princes and Kings of his dynasty who would have been enraged by not receiving perfection from their bannermen. Indeed, a significant portion of the room—especially the Northerners—still seemed to be rather on edge around him, though they hid it as well as could be expected from such blunt, forthright men. 

Jon supposed he couldn’t blame them. King Aerys II wasn’t even two decades gone from Westeros…and the North remembered. 

So, with all the regal bearing he could muster—which was far less than his father or brother—he looked around the room, and told his uncle, “I can hardly fault you for it, Lord Stark. I dare say that these maps, incomplete as they are, are far better than any in the South.”

The Northerners did not stop giving him suspicious looks—Lords Umber and Karstark especially—but then, they would not have been Northerners if they were easily won over with a little flattery. 

Well, Jon wasn’t here to flatter them. He was here to defend them. And although he didn’t feel particularly incompetent, he was also fully aware that there were literally decades of military experience in this room, and exactly none of it was his own. Lord Royce and Ser Brynden alone had nearly a century’s worth of campaigning between them.

So, it seemed reasonable to make this a war council in a true sense. Jon turned to Lord Royce and the Blackfish, gesturing them to come join him at the table with Ned, Robb, and a few of the Northern lords.

“Let us begin. Lord Royce,” he said first. “I know none of us from the south have fought wildlings before, but you have some experience with the mountain clansmen of the Vale, yes?”

Bronze Yohn Royce scowled at the very name. “Aye,” he said. “Murderers, rapers, and savages all. Wild and aggressive, but ill-equipped and generally vulnerable in open battle with trained, cohesive troops.”

The enormous Greatjon Umber scowled and spat. “Aye, sounds an awful lot like wildlings to me,” he agreed; Jon recalled that the Umber lands were some of the closest to the Wall, and as a result they often suffered the worst from wildling raids. “They don’t generally move in raids bigger than a dozen or so normally, which makes ‘em too fast to catch half the time, but if you do catch ‘em, half the time they have flint or bronze weapons that can’t even scratch half-decent steel.”

Jon nodded thoughtfully. “We’re dealing with a little more than a raiding party here, Lord Umber,” he pointed out, “But they truly lack any battlefield organization?”

The Greatjon nodded, as did several of the other lords. “Oh, aye,” the Greatjon said. “Most of the ones I’ve fought had barely any strategy to speak of. They charge yeh howling and hollering, and try to kill yeh as messily as possible. Weather their first charge with a good shieldwall, and they start dyin’ quick.”

Jon could see Bronze Yohn and the Blackfish nodding steadily.

Ser Alliser, for his part, scoffed. “You’re telling me we came all this way because you Northerners couldn’t handle a few ratty savages with sharp rocks?”

The mood in the room darkened instantly. Always a proud lot, the Northern lords were not the type to sit quietly and be insulted, especially not by one of the lowest-ranking noblemen in the room. Jon heard mutters of anger, and more than one hand dropped to a sword or heavy knife. Bronze Yohn and the Blackfish tensed, Ser Alliser’s own hand went to his sword, and Jon felt, rather than saw, Ned Stark’s lips curve into a stern frown.

But it stopped there—and it stopped because Jon raised a hand, forestalling the eruption he could sense about to occur.

He turned his gaze onto Ser Alliser. For a moment, men held silent as dark Targaryen eyes stared inscrutably at the man.

“Ser Alliser,” Jon said in a voice like velvet over steel. “You insult our loyal allies. You insult my kin. You shame me and the King. You will not do so again.”

Ser Alliser’s expression shifted. He looked as though he’d swallowed a dead rat. But for all his bitterness, he was a loyal man, and so he nodded and said, “Yes, Your Grace. I apologize.”

Jon nodded, and the darkness passed from the room. Hands drifted from knives, and Jon caught Ned giving him an impressed, appreciative look.

Knowing that it would be best to remind the men of their shared objective, Jon bent back over the table.

“What other intelligence do we have on our foes, Lord Stark?” he asked. “My father told me that a force of wildlings was marching on the Wall, but not much beyond that.”

Ned Stark nodded. “The Lord Commander’s message was…short on details,” he said. “But he gave us numbers. According to him, the wildling army is over a hundred thousand strong.”

That made the mood in the room shift. Bronze Yohn, Ser Brynden, and Ser Alliser muttered quiet oaths of surprise and disbelief. The Northern lords already knew, of course, but hearing it said aloud made it no better.

Jon fought for control of his expression. He’d never quite mastered that—his father and sister could appear so serene, you couldn’t even tell when they were burning with rage. 

“I see,” he said slowly. He was tempted to try and make some joke to lighten the mood, but eventually decided that it would just come off as desperate. “What do we know of their leadership?”

A shadow passed over Ned Stark’s face. “Lord Commander Mormont did mention that the wildlings have named a man known as Mance Rayder King Beyond The Wall,” he replied. “Apparently Rayder is a Night’s Watch deserter.”

A dark mutter rippled through the Northmen at that. It seemed these men had a dim view of deserters.

Jon, though, had the same concern as Ser Brynden, who spoke it before Jon himself could. “So the man almost certainly knows every weak point in the Watch’s defenses,” the old soldier said.

The Greatjon scoffed. “Not like those weaknesses are any great secret,” he said. “The Watch is so bloody undermanned, they’d be lucky to scrape together a few hundred greybeards and green boys to defend Castle Black itself—and the Shadow Tower and Eastwatch-By-The-Sea are even worse off.”

Jon frowned. “Is the Watch truly in such dire straits?” he asked. 

Ned nodded slowly. “Aye,” he confirmed. “As noble and important a posting as it is, few men join willingly nowadays. What men there are primarily come from the realm’s dungeons and gallows. I’d be more concerned about them stabbing me in the back than our enemies in the front if we gave them blades.”

Bronze Yohn scowled. “All the same, we may have to,” he pointed out. “Thirty five thousand men against a hundred thousand is not a fight I relish the thought of.”

“Bah!” the Greatjon scoffed. “Sounds to me like you’re just pissin’ your britches.”

Recognizing that nothing of use was about to occur, Jon cleared his throat again. To his surprise, every lord, even the Northmen, fell silent immediately.

Feeling just a little bit unnerved by the rapt attention that men forty years his senior were giving him, Jon looked around the room, attempting to project a far more serene air than he felt.

“My lords,” he began, “From what I am hearing, it seems that our primary issue is our lack of solid intelligence on the movements of the wildlings. We barely know our enemy, and we certainly can’t predict what they might do or where we might have to face them. In fact, about all we do know is that there are a lot more of them than there are of us—and that the existing forces arrayed against them are undermanned, poorly equipped, and in no state to hold the wildlings back. I suggest that our first move should be to march for Castle Black to reinforce the Night’s Watch. If we can get there before the wildlings attack, the Wall itself will make their numbers far less of a pressing issue.”

There were nods all round. Jon pressed forward. “Well, Lord Stark,” he said, glancing at Ned. “Can you think of any objections?”

His uncle shook his head. “No, Your Grace,” he replied. “I believe that is an excellent plan.”

Jon nodded in satisfaction. “Very well,” he said. “Shall we discuss the particulars of our march, then?” 

With a firm direction chosen and an objective to pursue, the council settled into a more stable rhythm—which was good, because a growing unease was bubbling up in the back of Jon’s mind. 

It stayed with him for the rest of the meeting, steadily eating away at him.

Several hours later, Jon stepped through the door of the chambers the Starks had given him, fighting the urge to groan with exhaustion.

“By the Old Gods and the New,” he sighed, “Do they ever stop arguing?”

The war council had dragged longer than expected; even discussing something so simple as the logistics of grain transport for the marching armies was a constant exercise in managing tempers and egos, trying to keep the proud Northerners and arrogant Southerners from ending up at each other’s throats—to say nothing of what happened when inter-kingdom house grudges flared up and two burly Northern lords nearly came to blows over the ownership of a half-ruined holdfast along the supply route.

The clank of brilliant white armor filled the air, and Jon looked up just as Jaime Lannister stepped through the door, his white-clad shadow, always present.

“I would’ve thought you’d have learned by now, Your Grace,” he said, that famous Lannister smirk on his handsome face that had made more than one lady of the court bemoan the Kingsguard’s vows of chastity. “The answer is no. They never stop arguing.”

Jon ran a hand over his face. “I swear, I’ll have to spend more time trying to stop my own generals from killing each other than I do getting them to kill the enemy,” he hissed.

Jaime just chuckled again. “Welcome to leadership, Your Grace,” he said cheerily. “It never gets any easier.”

Jon looked up, his face suddenly much grimmer as a thought that had begun to form during the war council finally came together.

“Jaime,” he asked slowly, “Why am I here, exactly?”

Even from his flawless guard position by the door, Jaime Lannister looked at Jon with a knowing smile; the man had been Jon’s assigned Kingsguard for most of his life. He’d literally guarded Jon’s crib in the Red Keep, a hollow-eyed youth, his hands still stained with the Mad King’s blood, clinging to the duty that Rhaegar himself had given him. Jaime arguably knew Jon better than any other man alive, and though he hid it well beneath a mix of professionalism and smirking Lannister wit, Jon was fully aware of that fact. He had no secrets from Jaime Lannister. How could he?

“Are we talking in a literal sense here, Your Grace, or a spiritual sense?” he asked. “Because if it’s the former, I will have to call a maester for your concerning forgetfulness of the weeks of marching, and if it’s the latter, I suggest consulting a septon instead of myself. The only higher mystery I’m adept at solving is how to send people to the Seven Hells.”

Jon almost cracked a smile at that one. “I’m serious, Jaime,” he said. “Why did my father send me?”

Jaime’s face fell slightly. “Ah,” he said. “Well, I assumed that it was because he wished for the royal forces to have a member of the royal family along. So the lords didn’t squabble endlessly over who was really in charge, if nothing else.”

Jon shook his head. “Even if he did, why me?” he asked. “Why not Aegon? My brother’s on Dragonstone with naught to do. He’s bored stiff, I guarantee it.”

Jaime’s lips twitched. “I wouldn’t say he has naught to do, Your Grace,” he said lightheartedly. “He does have a wife, after all.”

Jon scowled reflexively. His brother Aegon had married Margaery Tyrell less than a year earlier, in a ceremony with enough pomp and fanfare to make a Lannister sick. Aegon, who’d always had a quite self-evident weakness for the fairer sex, had been thrilled with the match—and, rather more rarely for men such as him, he’d told Jon that he was equally thrilled to find out that beneath the lovely petals of the Rose of Highgarden was a woman with a razor-sharp mind. Margaery, in turn, seemed both not quite sure how to handle being married to a man who actually appreciated his wife being smarter than him, and very, very eager to seize the opportunity. For a political marriage, the two were disgustingly well-matched at times. Being around the two of them often made Jon want to retch.

“The point stands, Jaime,” he shot back. “My father told me that this campaign against the wildlings with several of the realm’s best military commanders was an excellent opportunity for me to “gain experience.”

Jaime nodded slowly. “Aye, and that seems reasonable to me,” he said. “All the education in the world doesn’t mean you’re not still green, Your Grace.”

Jon acknowledged the point with a shrug. “Yes, but so is Aegon,” he said. “This is the largest military campaign the Seven Kingdoms have seen since the False Rebellion, Jaime. Why am I the one who’s been sent to lead it, and not the man who will be the next king?”

Jaime’s expression soured slightly. They both knew the undercurrent of what Jon was saying.

For nearly a decade now, there had been a tension brewing in the Red Keep. Aegon, son of Elia Martell, was heir to the throne, but Elia Martell had returned to Dorne, her marriage annulled by the High Septon on grounds of infertility, and now Queen Lyanna Stark held sway over the Red Keep. And as Jon and Aegon grew up, the outgoing, charismatic, popular, classically Valyrian boy and his dark-haired, quiet, surly brother had always been a striking contrast with each other.

Some people in the Seven Kingdoms remembered the last time a new Queen had borne the King a son after the first Queen was out of the picture. Viserys II’s legacy loomed like a shadow over the Red Keep–and over Jon himself. That king’s decisions started a devastating civil war from which the Targaryen dynasty never truly recovered. And now the whole of the Seven Kingdoms seemed to be braced, wondering which boy would truly end up on the throne.

Jon hated it. He hated the scheming, he hated the suspicion, he hated the suggestion that he might become a kinslayer and a usurper. He didn’t want the throne; Aegon could have it, and Jon would support his brother in whatever way he could. But the people who had begun calling him “The Black Prince” had not been referring to the color of his hair.

Rather than offer Jon some kind of platitude, Jaime said something else. “Those Northern lords like you,” he told Jon.

Jon blinked. “Several of them looked like they wanted to stab me during the war council,” he said.

Jaime waved a hand dismissively. “They’re Northmen, they always look like that,” he replied. “But seriously. The Greatjon in particular seemed quite impressed with you—and I can’t blame him. That was an impressive thing you did today, Your Grace.”

Jon’s head snapped up. He and Jaime were close, but Jaime wasn’t the kind to flatter or fawn—he offered compliments sparingly, and only when they were earned. Perhaps it was Lannister arrogance, or maybe it was just him being an obsessive perfectionist, especially on the sparring ground.

Regardless, it only made Jon more uneasy. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

Jaime snorted. “I’ve seen men with ten times your experience not do half as good a job keeping a war council focused,” he told Jon. “You got all the men on the same page, identified what needed to be done, sought out input, and when that damned fool Thorne opened his mouth, you shut him down with a look and a word. That alone earned you some points with the Northerners. They won’t forget that you took their side—just like they won’t forget that, when they put out a call for aid, you came. They weren’t expecting that. But they’ll certainly remember it. Oh, and for all they dislike Rhaegar, you do have Stark blood–and you look as if you could be Eddard Stark’s own son. Whenever you do something they like, they’ll be able to tell themselves it’s your Stark blood–that you haven’t forgotten your “roots.”

Jon almost felt reassured. Almost. There was an undercurrent to Jaime’s words, after all. A warning, and a reminder. 

Jon didn’t say the words “So, they might back me if I claimed the throne,” but then, he didn’t need to. The treasonous thought entered his mind, and made him queasy.

“My father is no fool,” he said instead. “He has to have known this.”

Jaime shrugged. “Few in the South understand the North,” he said airily. “Myself included, of course. Don’t ask me why the proud, frostbitten fools like you, but they at least have the decency to be blunt about it. I wouldn’t underestimate the King, of course…but it’s possible he simply doesn’t grasp how loyal the North can be.”

That was certainly a possibility, Jon decided. He loved his father, and Rhaegar was a wise and effective King…but he had plenty of blind spots, and quite a few flaws. Perhaps Rhaegar simply hadn’t considered the optics of sending his second son to gain seasoning as a military commander instead of his heir. Hells, perhaps he’d seen it as a chance to get Jon out of the capital and into the backwards, frozen North for a while specifically so that he wouldn’t be able to build a power base.

Jon decided that that had to be what was happening. His father simply hadn’t thought this through completely. Jon would do as he was commanded, serve loyally, and clear all this up when he returned to King’s Landing.

He believed it. He had to. 

Because if he didn’t, if Rhaegar had been deliberate in sending him here…then his father had some kind of plan. And Jon was terrified to think of what it might be.

Ygritte’s boots crunched in the snow as she made her way through the Free Folk camp.

As usual, she was on edge; the wight attack the night before had left her uneasy and deprived of sleep, of course, but the majority of the feeling came from just how damn crowded the massive encampment was these days.

Ygritte, like most free folk, was used to living in a group no larger than fifty. She’d considered Tormund’s camp at Ruddy Hall to be about the upper limit of how big a place could get before she started feeling uncomfortable—and he’d had perhaps a thousand followers, before Mance came.

Now, even with many of the Ice River clans, the Thenns, and the Hornfoots keeping a frosty distance from the main camp, there were a hundred thousand Free Folk, all swarming around Mance like ants around their queen.

Ygritte hated it. But it was this or the dead, so she grit her teeth and bore the feeling of being suffocated by the sheer numbers around her.

She was so lost in her own frustration, she barely even noticed the flash of pale blonde hair in front of her until she damn near ran into it.

“Oh, good, there you are,” said a voice that Ygritte instantly recognized. It was Val, the sister of Dalla, Mance’s wife. If they’d been kneelers, that would make Val some kind of princess, Ygritte supposed. But among the Free Folk, Val’s status was supported only by her own—extremely impressive—skill with a spear. “Mance told me to find you.”

Ygritte’s gaze snapped to Val’s. The tall, gorgeous girl was wearing her textbook smirk—the one that was as irritating as it was impossible to read.

“Now what the fuck does Mance want me for?” Ygritte scoffed. “Ain’t he off doin’ King shite?”

Val shrugged. “Pretty sure his “King shite” is needin’ to talk to yeh,” she shot back. “C’mon, he’s just over there.”

She nodded back towards the center of the camp, and made as if to head that direction with Ygritte in tow. Ygritte didn’t move.

“I ain’t a dog Mance can call when he feels like it,” Ygritte said, arms crossed. 

Val sighed. “Don’t yeh ever think of makin’ it easy, just once?” she asked Ygritte.

Ygritte raised an eyebrow. “No,” she said.

For a moment, Val was unable to suppress a grin. She wrestled it back under control, though, and Ygritte knew why; it was hard to smile for long when every night brought horrors, and every day brought fewer of your friends still among the living than the day before.

Val stepped up to Ygritte. The blonde girl was a good head taller than Ygritte, who had always been short and stocky. Ygritte wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated, though.

“Yeh don’t gotta make it some big dramatic thing, Ygritte,” Val told her. “Mance needs to talk to yeh. Just talk to him.”

Ygritte raised an eyebrow. Finally, though, she sighed.

“Aye, fine,” she grumbled. “But if he tries to order me around, I’m leavin’.”

Val snorted. “It’s Mance,” she said. “He knows damn well that, crown or no, his orderin’ us to do something don’t mean a damn thing unless it was what we wanted to do in the first place.”

With that, Val and Ygritte set off through the camp.

It didn’t take long to find Mance Rayder, King Beyond The Wall. Ygritte and Val just followed the music.

Mance Rayder’s royal court—such as it was—was not some grand throne room, filled with advisors and courtiers and the like. Instead, Mance held “court” with a lute and a crowd of children listening, enraptured.

As they approached, Ygritte heard the dying strings of “Winter Roses,” and for a moment, she thought that this was what power looked like. Mance Rayder wore no crown, no insignia of any kind. He held a lute in his hands, instead of a sword. And yet, if you asked Ygritte—and she felt like being honest—Mance was more of a king than any Southron kneeler ever could be.

She could gripe and groan all she liked about being summoned, but if push came to shove, Ygritte knew that she’d follow Mance Rayder through hell itself. He’d earned that—earned the loyalty of all the Free Folk. Out of desperation, maybe, but the simple fact was, he was the only one with the will and the vision to try and save them all. The only one Ygritte had ever met, anyway.

The song ended just as Ygritte and Val entered the clearing between the pitched tents of the Free Folk where hundreds of men, women, and children had gathered to hear Mance play. They had stayed silent the whole time, basking in the music, and now that it had ended, they did not applaud; the Free Folk didn’t believe in such frivolous things. The children giggled and laughed happily, while men and women nodded to Mance as, at the slight nod he gave towards Ygritte and Val, they began to disperse again, recognizing that, as always, the time to get back to the business of surviving another day had come.

Mance did not rise as Ygritte and Val approached. He hummed quietly to himself, his lute at his side; he wore a dark cloak with red patches, and there was no outward indication of the fact that he ruled over a hundred thousand Free Folk from ninety feuding clans. And yet, as Ygritte stepped closer, she felt her back straighten, and her normal outspoken stubbornness hush itself down.

Mance did that to people somehow—made them sit down and listen. Whether with his music, or his words, when Mance Rayder spoke, people took notice. That was why he had become King Beyond The Wall. Not with strength, or even really with trickery. He’d done it by talking. And that, Ygritte had to admit, was something that she couldn’t get her head around.

Mance smiled at them as they sat down next to him. He hadn’t told them to, but they did so anyway.

“Ah, you found her,” he said to Val. “Thank you.”

Val snorted. “She ain’t hard to find,” she said. “A right bitch to talk into doin’ anything, though.”

Ygritte scowled, but Mance just chuckled. “Well, you managed eventually, I see,” he said. “Anyway, Ygritte, I was hoping to ask you something.”

Ygritte raised an eyebrow. “Shoot,” she said.

Mance nodded. Laying back on his hands, he said, “I want you to join one of the scouting parties scaling the Wall tomorrow.”

There was a moment of silence as Ygritte processed that. It…wasn’t what she’d been expecting. Honestly, she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that.

“Why?” she asked slowly.

Mance met her eyes. “You’ve scaled the Wall before,” he said. “And you're one of the better trackers we’ve got. Now that we’re close to the Wall, the crows’ll be on the lookout for us. I want to know what’s going on south of the Wall before we hit Castle Black.”

Ygritte nodded slowly. That all made sense, she thought…but she didn’t think it was the whole story.

“You’ve got thousands of good trackers who’ve scaled the Wall before,” she said bluntly. “Why’d you ask me?”

Mance was quiet for a long moment, idly strumming the strings of his lute. Beside Ygritte, Val seemed curious about the answer, too.

Finally, Mance sighed. “Suppose I owe you that,” he admitted, glancing around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard.

He leaned in close. “Once you’re over that wall, you’ll be safe,” he told Ygritte. “Safe from the dead, at least. There’s an awful lot of men—and women—among the Free Folk who’d realize that, and run south as fast as their legs could carry them, the rest of us be damned. We’d never see them again.”

Mance looked Ygritte in the eyes, and the deadly seriousness in his face stopped her heart cold. Mance was always laughing, always joking; he’d won over chieftains with smiles and humor, with songs and stories and endless joy. But now he was gravely honest, and it made Ygritte feel every word he spoke.

“I need you to go because I need to know that once those scouts are over the wall, they’ll come back,” he told Ygritte quietly. “And the only way I can be sure that they will is if they care. Care about more than just themselves, care about our people. Care about the Free Folk. And whatever else you are, Ygritte, I know you care. You’ll come back. You’ll climb that wall, find out what we need to know, and come back to save us all.”

Ygritte could only nod. Mance knew her too well—knew everyone too well.

“I’ll do it,” she said softly, meaning every word.

Mance smiled. “I’ll sing a song for you before you go,” he said cheerily. “You’ve got a long climb ahead of you.”

He picked up his lute, and Ygritte did not scoff. Perhaps she would tolerate Mance’s singing. Just this once.

Chapter Text

Ygritte stood atop the Wall, and felt the cold winds blow from the North.

She ignored them; she’d felt much colder winds before. Winds that came with the dead. Compared to those, the stiff, icy breeze at the top of the Wall was nothing.

She did step away from the edge, though; she had no desire to die today. 

Though the scouting parties had originally been due to climb the wall the day after Ygritte spoke with Mance, a blizzard had blown in that had delayed them by well over a week; they’d had only one attack from the wights in that time, which made Ygritte nervous. Between that and the unnatural blizzard…the Others were up to something.

But that didn’t matter. When the weather had finally cleared, she and her scouting party had set off, making for the Wall with crampons, ice picks, and all the rope required.

It had been a good climb; they’d only lost two to poorly placed pitons and patches of rotten ice that crumbled when you put your weight on them. Ygritte hadn’t known either of the men who’d fallen well enough to grieve them.

That left ten of them standing atop the wall, shaking out their climbing spikes and eating a meal of dried meat before the next, equally difficult climb back down. 

Just like the two dead men, Ygritte didn’t know 

most of them; while that normally would’ve made her uneasy enough to refuse to go on the mission, knowing that Mance had handpicked this group for their willingness to return to the Free Folk reassured her somewhat. Not enough to keep her hand off the hilt of her good knife, of course, but few things could have ever given Ygritte enough confidence to do that.

One of the few Ygritte did know was the man currently crouching by the southern side of the Wall, squinting into the distance. Longspear Ryk was from the same tribe as her originally; he was a hotheaded fool, but a trustworthy one, and had a damned good eye.

And he was frowning at something on the horizon.

“Ygritte?” he said uncertainly, extending a finger towards the south. “You seein’ that?”

Ygritte followed Ryk’s finger out to the horizon. She squinted, trying to make out what it was he saw.

When she saw it, she spat a curse so vile it made every member of the scouting party turn their heads towards her.

“What the hell’s got you all worked up, Ygritte?” one of the other spearwives called, sounding amused.

Ygritte stood, pointing out what she’d seen for the others, her mind already racing. Down below, the army continued marching, sunlight glinting off of steel armor and weapons.

Murmurs and exclamations rippled through the scouts, ranging from horrified to confused. 

“The hell is that?” one of them asked. “That’s gotta be ten or fifteen times more men than the crows have if they armed every green boy and greybeard!”

Ygritte’s eyes narrowed, even as her heart sank. 

“Aye,” she agreed. “Which means we gotta get down there now.”

That made every one of the scouts stare at her. None of them were cowards—Mance had made sure of that, and Ygritte trusted his judgement. But they were two short of a dozen, armed with rusted steel and barely-usable bronze and even a few flint axes, and the army coming over the horizon, the banners at its head pointing straight towards Castle Black, had to be thirty thousand castle-trained men at the least.

Longspear Ryk gave her an uneasy look. “The hell are we supposed to do against that, Ygritte?” he asked. “We’ve seen it coming. We need to get back to Mance, tell him about the army.”

Ygritte glared sharply at him. “And what the fuck are we gonna say?” she demanded. “There’s an army, aye, but we don’t know shite about it. How many, where they’re headed, and most of all who’s leadin’ it. Without any of that, we might as well be tellin’ Mance jack and shite.”

Ygritte glanced back down at the army, moving like a ponderous metallic slug so far below them, coming to doom her people to death, and then something far, far worse.

“Get your climbing gear back on,” she said, looking around at the others. “We’re going down there to finish the bloody job.”

Longspear Ryk stared at her like she was an Other, and Ygritte honestly couldn’t blame him. She was a spearwife of eight-and-ten namedays, from a tribe nobody cared about, with no deeds of legend to sing of. She was friendly with Val, aye, and Tormund Giantsbane named her one of his ablest, but she was still just Ygritte. She had no real authority to make any of these men and women follow her.

But that didn’t matter. Ygritte knew that almost all of command was acting like you were in charge—or at least like you knew what you were doing. That made people listen. Act with enough confidence, and men would follow in your footsteps.

Sure enough, nobody challenged her. The nine Free Folk glanced around, shrugged, and gathered their gear.

Ygritte spared one last glance for the army before preparing for the long, cold climb down, wondering just how many Free Folk would die when that mass of steel-clad men reached the Wall.

Old Gods help them all.

Jon laid back in his tent, listening to the cold winds blow, and thinking of just how far he was from the Red Keep at that moment.

They were camped in the New Gift, nearly forty thousand men all told between the Southrons and his uncle’s Northern bannermen; one more day of marching would see them at Castle Black, where ravens had surely informed the Lord Commander of their impending arrival. 

That, and the constant drain of managing egos and resolving conflicts between his lords, wasn’t what had Jon lying half-awake in his camp bed, though. Rather, he was continually reflecting on seeing the Wall. 

When Jon had come over the crest of that hill at the edge of the Umber lands and seen the Wall for the first time, he could barely comprehend what he was seeing.

When he’d read of the enormous wall of ice in maesters’ books, he’d read the numbers the learned men gave, of course—but he hadn’t understood what they meant. Jon had imagined something called “The Wall” to be on the scale of a wall, to be a divider, a barrier, a thing with limits and proportions that could be seen by mortal men. He expected it to mark the horizon, to divide the lands of the Seven Kingdoms from whatever lay beyond.

What a fool he was. The Wall didn’t mark the horizon. The Wall was the horizon. It stretched out of view to east and west, the dying embers of the evening seeming to set it ablaze with scattered red light. At seven hundred feet tall, it completely cut off a man’s view, seeming to mark the edge of the world itself. It defined the very landscape, made itself the looming, all-encompassing presence by which everything else was measured.

Jon liked to think he hadn’t made too great of a fool of himself, compared to some of the other Southrons. Many of the common soldiers had stumbled in their march, jaws slack and eyes wide, much to the good-natured amusement of their Northern comrades. Ser Jaime, normally unflappable, had looked slightly awestruck. See Brynden and Lord Royce had both looked impressed. Jon had seen Ser Alliser look even grumpier than normal.

Regardless, though, they were here now, and Jon found himself apprehensive. Battle was coming, he knew that—but not yet. First there would be diplomacy—with the Lord Commander, with his own bannermen, and perhaps, if he could find a way, with this King-Beyond-The-Wall, too. Perhaps it was his father rubbing off on him—Rhaegar Targaryen had never drawn a sword without first attempting to find a peaceful resolution. Some men called that weakness. Those men were dead now, killed in the False Rebellion or in smaller, shorter uprisings in the first year or two after Rhaegar took the throne.

If Jon had his way, perhaps he could convince Mance Rayder to simply turn around and leave. There was no way even a hundred thousand Free Folk could force the gates of Castle Black, not when defended by forty thousand men. The Wall was the greatest force amplifier ever seen in the realms of men; atop its walls or within the single narrow passageway at Castle Black, only wide enough for three men to stand abreast, a single man could hold off hundreds. If Rayder tried to take the castle, it would be a slaughter—and for all that Jon knew his first duty was to the Seven Kingdoms, he did not want to slaughter tens of thousands. There were some Targaryens in his bloodline who would have been beside themselves with glee at that possibility. But not him.

In any case, such thoughts were for tomorrow. Now, Jon needed to get some sleep. A Prince always needed to look presentable, after all—or at least like he’d slept more than three hours the night before.

At last, he managed to close his eyes, huddled tightly under the thick furs that had been a gift from Sansa and Catelyn before leaving Winterfell two weeks before, trying to escape the agonizingly cold winds that sliced right through the fabric of the tent, and almost succeeding. Jon’s breathing deepened, and he finally began to drift off.

Naturally, that was when a panicked voice started to scream.

“INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS IN THE CAMP!”

Jon’s eyes snapped open instantly. It seemed he wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight, after all.

Ygritte crashed through the snow in blind terror, her knives glinting in her hands as men emerged all around her like angry ants when their nest was kicked.

It had all been going so well at first. Ygritte and the other scouts had made it down the south side of the Wall in record time, disregarding the usual slow, steady descent in favor of getting to the ground as quickly as possible, before the army marching right past them was close enough to spot them silhouetted against the pale blue ice. It was a small miracle that they’d reached the ground without losing anyone else; Ygritte supposed that the Old Gods had truly been listening to her halfhearted prayer.

If only they’d kept listening. It had nearly been dark by the time they reached the bottom of the Wall, and they’d elected to wait until the army was encamped for the night before slipping in to observe more closely. Ygritte had thought it a pragmatic, cautious approach, especially with how the Free Folk had looped around so that they were approaching from the south, rather than from the north where a raid might have been expected to come from.

Perhaps it had been. But though this force clearly believed it was in friendly territory—the fact that there was no real attempt to keep the camp organized or battle-ready beyond that organization required for sanitary and logistical purposes was proof enough of that—they hadn’t become so lazy that they didn’t put out sentries. Men moved in pairs around the camp’s perimeter, rotated frequently enough that they never had the chance to grow bored or develop frostbite in the freezing cold. Clearly, whoever was organizing this knew their stuff.

Which had proved to be exactly the problem. Wanting to avoid killing a sentry—less out of a desire to prevent bloodshed and more out of not wanting to have to risk hiding a body where it might be discovered—Ygritte and the other Free Folk had opted for stealth, memorizing the sentries’ patterns and then slipping through a gap in their net, long years of practice hunting and raiding serving them well.

It had been a good plan, Ygritte thought. Right up until some bloody piss-drunk soldier came blundering right into them, looking for a place to piss without alerting his sergeant. He’d stared dumbly at the fur-clad, wild-eyed Free Folk hidden in a dip in the snowy earth for a full five seconds before turning and sprinting for the tents, howling at the top of his lungs about “WILDLINGS IN THE BLOODY CAMP!”

Longspear Ryk had put an arrow through the drunkard’s throat before he’d gotten twenty paces, but it had been too late. Men had come boiling out of tents and shelters, half-dresses and half-armored, clutching weapons in sleep-numb hands—but there were far too many of them to fight. 

Ygritte and the others had run—not in the direction they’d come from, but north, towards the Wall. Which meant sprinting through the entirety of the camp as men formed ranks and tried to cut them off.

Somehow, all ten of the Free Folk stayed together in their mad, panicked flight; perhaps it was sheer luck, or perhaps those behind had simply followed those in front out of pure animal instinct, but either way, when they finally turned past a block of tents to find a wall of spears leveled at them, Ygritte didn’t have to say a word for every one of the Free Folk to instantly form a circle, their own spears pointed outwards with Ryk and their other expert bowman both standing with arrows drawn in the center.

It was a foolish stand, Ygritte knew that from the start; they were surrounded, and the men around them were better armed and armored. But they were soft, weak kneelers, and even if they took her down eventually, Ygritte had every intention of dragging a few dozen of them into the grave with her before they managed it.

The man standing at the head of the line of spears before them did not order his troops to swarm them, however. Instead, he looked them over carefully, his emerald green gaze cutting and inescapable.

Ygritte studied him right back. The man wore a gorgeous set of plate armor the color of snow, a pure white cloak hanging from his back. He was blonde, and devilishly handsome, with a grace and lightness to his every movement that instantly put Ygritte on edge, because she recognized it as the casual lethality of a master warrior.

She’d seen knights before—the crows had a few. They were pompous, arrogant fools who died just as easily as other kneelers. But this man…he was different. Ygritte remembered the first time she’d seen the Lord O’ Bones, and the chill that had whispered its way down her spine as something in her instincts told her she was in the presence of the most dangerous man she’d ever seen.

She was feeling that same chill now. Stronger than she’d felt it with the Lord O’ Bones.

“So, you’re the savage, feral wildlings I’ve heard so much about, then?” the man asked, sounding amused. “I have to admit, I thought you’d be…hairier.”

Ygritte scowled. “Ain’t gotta be hairy to gut yeh from balls to brains, kneeler cunt,” she spat.

The man raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got the manners, at least,” he observed. “Now, I’m sure my Prince would love to know who thought they could sneak into his camp one day from the Wall, so, I offer you the chance to surrender peacefully. On my word of honor, you will not be harmed.”

Ygritte scoffed. “Others take yer honor, kneeler,” she snarled. 

The man shrugged. “I suppose that’s as much of an answer as I could expect,” he said philosophically. Then, he drew his sword, and moved.

When Jaime Lannister, the man knighted by Ser Arthur Dayne himself, struck the tight knot of Free Folk, it was like a cleaver striking meat. Ryk and the other archer loosed their arrows, but one sailed wide and the other glanced harmlessly off the knight’s pauldron.

When the glittering arc of that castle-forged sword struck the first spearwife, it went through her like she wasn’t even there. She dropped wordlessly, carved nearly in two, as Lannister lashed out at the Free Folk on either side, sending them reeling as well.

Ygritte didn’t see the rest of the fight, because she lunged for the knight’s back, twin daggers gleaming, thinking that she had an opening—and then Lannister whirled faster than she’d ever seen any man move before, and brained her on the temple with the pommel of his sword.

Ygritte hit the ground, limp and boneless, and knew that it was over. She heard the screams of pain as the knight cut down the rest of her scouting party, followed into the fray by a seemingly endless tide of soldiers stabbing with spears and hacking with swords.

The last thing she saw before everything went dark was Longspear Ryk’s head, separated from his body, landing on the snow in front of her, his features forever frozen in his final terrified scream.

Chapter Text

Just over two hours after being roused from his bed, Jon sighed deeply, and finally accepted that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night.

Sitting in his tent, hastily dressed in order to appear at least somewhat presentable, he gave the soldier standing before him another once-over.

The man was a Northerner, a sergeant sworn to House Cerwyn, and the officer who had been in charge of the men on sentry duty that night. Like most Northmen, he was big and burly, with a thick beard and bushy eyebrows.

Jon had to admit, for a man who had been summoned before a Prince of the Blood to account for his failures, the sergeant seemed remarkably stoic. Jon had no particular interest in torturing or executing the man for his sentries’ failure to catch a small group of wildlings, but his family’s reputation—his grandfather’s in particular—had reduced more than one man in a similar situation to witless blubbering.

But not this man. His movements were stiff and his eyes dark, yes—but Jon recognized it as the self-directed anger of a man who knew the sum of his mistake, and had no intention of ever repeating it.

Still, Jon did need to know exactly what had happened. So with a sigh, he nodded to the man, and said, “I apologize for making you repeat yourself, ser, but give me the report again. How, exactly, did the wildlings breach the camp?”

The sergeant’s jaw tightened. “I can’t say for sure, Yer Grace,” he said, his Northern accent thick in every syllable. “None of my boys were killed, so near as I can tell, the bastards found a gap between patrols, and slipped through. It didn’t help that they came from the south—we were focused mostly on the northern side of the camp.”

Jon nodded again. That was all sensible, and in all honesty, he’d never even considered the possibility that the wildlings might already have small parties of infiltrators south of the wall. That possibility was…extremely concerning. Especially considering the fact that Castle Black and the other Watch strongholds had no defenses at all from the south—a decision made deliberately thousands of years ago.

Beside him, looking equally rumpled and sleep-deprived, Robb Stark stirred in his seat. 

“Thank you, ser,” he told the Cerwyn man, sounding every inch his father’s son. “We won’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you have duties of your own to attend to.”

The sergeant snorted. “Aye, my lord,” he said darkly, a gleam in his eye that suggested that his duties involved quite a bit of yelling at hapless soldiers. He bowed, and disappeared from the tent, the chill air seeping in for a second as the flap shivered in the wind.

When he was gone, another presence made itself known, white plate armor clanking as Jaime Lannister seemed to detach himself from the shadows at Jon’s shoulder. There was still blood on his sword, and after a glance around the room as if it might be hiding several assassins, Jaime finally took a seat on another camp stool, took out a cloth, and began to clean his blade.

“So,” Jon began. “A party of less than a dozen wildings sneak into our camp in the middle of the night. What was their objective?”

Robb and Jaime glanced at each other. It was Jaime who spoke first.

“They came quite close to your own tent, Your Grace,” Jon’s Kingsguard pointed out. “The most logical conclusion is that they were here to kill you.”

Jon’s frown deepened. “Perhaps,” he conceded, “But I can see several issues with that conclusion. For one thing, surely if this was a planned assassination, they would’ve sent a better-equipped force. Most of the wildlings were armed with stone or bronze tools.”

Robb hummed thoughtfully. “And also, how would they have known where you were?” he pointed out. “No Northman would ever work with the wildlings, and they’re the only ones who could’ve been here long enough to arrange anything with them. Hells, would the wildlings even recognize a Targaryen banner?”

Jon inclined his head towards his cousin, recognizing the point. Jaime, for his part, didn’t seem convinced by the idea…but then, Jon supposed that it was a Kingsguard’s job to protect their charge, and that sometimes meant seeing assassins in every shadow.

“I do wish you would’ve left more of them alive, Jaime,” he said. “It would’ve been nice to have more people to interrogate.”

Jaime shrugged apologetically. “Alas, Your Grace,” he said with just a hint of that Lannister smirk, “I was a little preoccupied at the time. That being said, we did get one.”

That made all three men glance over at the corner of the tent, where a limp, tightly bound form is curled up, a mass of curly red hair the only thing identifying it as a person.

The woman Jaime had captured eventually needs to be moved to a better location, Jon knew that full well; in the chaos, though, the most convenient place to stash her for now was in his tent, which was private and secure enough anyway. As a result, though, he had a wildling in his tent, and he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that.

Frankly, as the first wildling Jon has ever actually laid eyes on, this woman—a girl, really, since she couldn’t be much older than him—isn’t what he expected. Jon’s heard enough tales of the strange, unearthly things that lurk beyond the Wall that his expectation of wildlings was a bunch of hulking, animalistic brutes, savage and feral.

This girl…isn’t. Oh, she’s clad in skins and furs, to be sure, her weapons crude and her body and face clearly hardened by a brutal life. But even then…she’s really quite pretty. Not beautiful; her nose is puglike and her face is scarred, to say nothing of the dark bruise blossoming at her temple where Jaime had knocked her out—but still striking.

Jaime had told Jon that this woman had appeared to be some kind of leader for the wildlings that had snuck into the camp. If anyone had the answers Jon needed, it would be her.

He looked up again, his eyes landing on Robb.

“See about finding somewhere proper to hold the prisoner,” he said. “And let me know when she wakes up. I’m sure we’ll have questions for her.”

Robb nodded, rising from his seat. “Aye, cousin,” he said. “And try to get some sleep.”

Jon sighed, rubbing his forehead. “You sound like my mother,” he grumbled.

Robb’s lips cracked into a smile. “I’ve met Aunt Lyanna,” he said. “That’s a compliment.”

With that, he left the tent, leaving Jon smiling, if only faintly.

He still wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night, he suspected.

Ygritte awoke to the feeling of chains on her wrists and the sight of a man looming over her.

That was a surprise; Ygritte hadn’t expected to ever wake again. Still, she was quick to size up the situation.

She was in a tent of some kind; maybe a converted storehouse, as she could see piles of crates and boxes in the corners, while she was chained to an iron stake driven into the ground at the center. 

There wasn’t just one man in the tent with her, she now realized as the blurriness in her vision slowly cleared, her temple pounding and her head still swimming. There were three; the blonde, armored man who’d destroyed her scouting party, a young  man with dark reddish hair and stubble on his chin, and the man she’d first spotted.

Ygritte forced herself to stop swaying, and get a proper look at the third man. He was on the shorter side, wearing clothing so fine that it made Ygritte sick. His eyes were an odd, shimmering gray, and he had long, curly locks of black hair.

Still woozy, Ygritte couldn’t stop herself from saying the first thing that burst into her addled mind. 

“Well fook me,” she groaned. “Now ain’t you the prettiest fookin’ man I ever saw.”

There was a beat of silence, as the three men—kneelers all, Ygritte could tell just from the look of them—blinked and glanced at one another. The blonde one let out a suspiciously well-timed cough.

Then, at last, the events of the botched scouting mission came back to Ygritte, and she let out a soft, pained groan. Not necessarily for her fellow Free Folk—Longspear Ryk had been a friend, yes, but Ygritte had long years of practice at losing those she cared about, and Ryk had known the risks. No, she knew that Ryk had been the lucky one. At least he’d died quickly. That was far preferable to what she suspected her fate would be.

“I swear on a heart tree, if yeh pull your cock out I’ll bloody bite it off,” she growled.

That made the pretty man stare at her blankly for a moment. “What are you implyin—” he began, only for his eyes to widen slightly. “Ah. I see.”

The man shifted again, and Ygritte saw that he had a sword at his hip—a sword that was likely the finest weapon Ygritte had ever laid eyes on. She got the distinct impression that if this went badly enough, it would be the last weapon she ever laid eyes on, too.

The dark-haired man met Ygritte’s gaze, and she almost found herself impressed by what she saw. Aye, this one was young, and untested—but not soft. Not truly. Or at least, no softer than all the other kneelers.

“It seems you are somewhat mistaken,” the young man said. “I have no such…intentions towards you, wildling.”

Well, that was a relief. Assuming that Ygritte believed the kneeler. Which she didn’t.

Ygritte raised an eyebrow. “Do you, now?” she asked mockingly. “Then I suppose this is all a big misunderstanding, and you’ll cut me free and send me on my merry way.”

The man remained remarkably cool, all things considered. “We will have to see,” he said cryptically. “There is a path for you that sees you out of those chains, you know.”

Ygritte’s eyes narrowed. So, was he the type that liked his women at least pretending to be willing, then? “And what might that path be?” she asked, fully prepared to try and make good on her threat.

In response, the man sat down on one of the crates, and looked her dead in the eye, those eerie gray pupils—the ones that looked like how the Starks were said to look—boring straight into her.

“If you tell me why you and nine other wildlings snuck into my camp in the middle of the night, who sent you, and why they’re marching on the Wall just before winter,” he said, “I will instruct my men to march you through the tunnel at Castle Black, cut your bindings, and let you go.”

Ygritte almost laughed. Oh, she was sure that the kneelers would march her out of this tent—but the only thing they’d cut would be her throat. Kneelers didn’t give mercy to Free Folk. Old Gods knew that the Free Folk didn’t give mercy to kneelers, either.

But on the other hand, Ygritte didn’t see much reason to lie, either. If this army really was marching for Castle Black, then she was almost certain that the Free Folk were lost. Aye, there were a hundred thousand of them, with mammoths and giants and wargs and all the last of the True North’s wild strength…but there were tens of thousands of men with castle-forged steel here, cowering behind the Wall. There’d be a hundred thousand corpses for the Others within a week.

Ygritte was dead. And her people would be soon, too. So what did it matter if she said a few words to a pretty kneeler? Not everything—Ygritte was more than spiteful enough to stay quiet purely to annoy the kneelers—but some of it, at least, felt pointless to deny.

So Ygritte snorted. “It ain’t no great secret,” she said, scowling. “We…were scouts. Crossed the Wall just north of here to keep an eye on the main road headin’ to Castle Black. We saw the army coming and decided to check it out…and got a little too close for comfort.”

The blonde man spoke for the first time. “You’re telling me that you crossed the Wall?” he asked, sounding surprised. “How? I thought the damned thing was impossible to climb.”

Ygritte sneered at him. “Impossible for kneelers, maybe,” she scoffed. “But free people don’t mind a bit of climbin’.”

The three men glanced at each other, and Ygritte saw something that might have been respect in the blonde knight’s eyes when he turned back to her. She couldn’t care less.

“You didn’t answer my other question,” the dark-haired man noted. 

Ygritte bared her teeth. “And I ain’t gonna,” she said. “Do whatever yeh want to me. It won’t matter. The King-Beyond-The-Wall’s comin’ for yeh, kneeler bastard.”

That made those gray eyes darken. It seemed Ygritte had said something that struck a nerve. The pretty kneeler didn’t speak. The blonde knight took a step forward, hand falling to the hilt of his sword.

“You will not speak that way of your betters, wildling,” he said. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even a threat. It was a promise, delivered cool and cold like bare steel.

Ygritte’s lips curled. She spat on the ground. “Fookin kneelers,” she laughed, entirely sure that she was about to die. “You ain’t any better than me. You’re all a bunch of up-jumped bastard cunts, and I only wish I’d get to watch as yeh get what’s comin’ to yeh.”

The blonde man’s hand stayed on his sword—until the pretty one stepped forward again, reaching for the knight’s pommel and easing his hand away from it.

“Easy, Ser Jaime,” he said calmly. 

The knight—Ser Jaime, Ygritte now knew—glanced uncertainly at the younger man, but sighed. “Very well, Your Grace,” he said.

Ygritte blinked. Her eyes slowly narrowed. “Yer Grace?” she said. “The fuck kind of kneeler shite is that?”

That made the pretty man glance at her in surprise. “You truly have no idea?” he asked. “Wait. Do you not know who I am?”

Ygritte glared at him. “Yer the kneeler cunt who captured me and who’s prettier than I bloody am,” she snapped. “Don’t much give a fuck about any fancy title you got. Probably some stupid Lord of something or other yeh got from yer daddy.”

That almost seemed to make the pretty man smile. It was a pained, wry sort of grin, the kind of thing that suggested he found the whole thing darkly amusing for some reason Ygritte couldn’t understand.

“Something like that,” he said cryptically.

The redheaded man started to speak. He had a Northern accent, and disdain was plain on his face with every syllable. “Watch your words, wildling,” he growled. “You speak to Jon T-”

The pretty one—Jon, apparently—raised a hand, glancing back at his companion, and the Northman stopped speaking. He looked confused, but said nothing as Jon turned back to Ygritte.

“Are you truly not going to answer my questions?” he asked pointedly.

Ygritte snorted. “No,” she said. “I’m done talkin’ to yeh, kneeler. Kill me and be done with it.”

For a moment, there was silence. Ygritte kept her gaze on Jon. Refusing to flinch. Refusing to let the fear worming its way through her gut show.

Jon held her gaze easily. A kneeler he was, but he had guts, Ygritte had to admit. And finally, he shook his head.

“I think not,” he said. “Robb, might you find men to guard her while at Castle Black? We might end up having additional questions for her.”

Robb, the last man of the three to be named, frowned thoughtfully. “I can try,” he said, “But I wouldn’t want to assign Northmen to guard her, and I don’t know the Southrons well enough to know who to trust. And a woman at Castle Black will need a guard who cannot be bribed or talked into…looking the other way.”

Ygritte shuddered. They knew the story of Danny Flint north of the Wall, too. And the stories of Free Folk women captured by the crows—and unlike Danny Flint, those stories were much more recent, and much, much more numerous.

Jon stroked his chin. There was a darkness in his eyes, a grim look that suggested exactly what he thought of the possibility. “Aye,” he agreed. “In that case…Ser Jaime, might I ask you to do it?”

That made both Robb and Jaime stare at Jon, while Ygritte, more than a little confused as to why the other two men were so shocked, watched on in sullen silence.

“Your Grace,” Jaime said, “I have been charged to protect you, not some half-mad savage.”

Jon seemed undeterred. “You are charged with carrying out my orders,” he corrected Jaime. “And I believe your skills will be best put to use here, for the time being. Your honor is unimpeachable, and I trust that coming face to face with the White Lion will be enough to give any man with ill intent pause.”

Jaime looked as if he wished to protest more, but he said nothing. Instead, he nodded stiffly, said, “As your wish, Your Grace,” and bowed.

With that, Jon and Robb left the tent, leaving Ygritte alone with the man who’d killed her comrades and made her a prisoner of a pretty kneeler.

Fucking wonderful.