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  The sound of horns tore Jon Snow out of a dream that was not a dream. He gasped, sucking in air that tasted of hearth-smoke and snow, and nearly fell out of bed. Stone walls. Rough-hewn beams. A narrow window rimed with frost. Winterfell.

  For a long, disorienting moment, he didn’t understand how that was possible.

  His hands were young again. Scarless. No bark beneath the skin. No echo of roots listening back when he breathed. The ache in his bones; the old, patient ache that had lived with him for years as a Green Man was gone.

  And yet. He felt ancient. Not in the body. In the soul.

  Nearly three decades pressed down on him all at once: the Wall falling, Skagos choking on dead things dragged from the sea, the Hungry Tree’s ughter echoing through roots and ravens, the long grind of holding lines that should never have held.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed. They were steady. That almost scared him more. Outside, horns blew again joyful this time. Not a warning. “The king is coming,” someone shouted in the yard.

  Jon closed his eyes. Of course he was. The royal family’s arrival. The day everything first went wrong. The day Ned Stark chose duty over caution. The day his brother fell from a tower. The day the game began.

  He pressed his fingers to his temples. There was no Green answering him now. No roots whispering. No partition to hold. Just memory. And instinct. He would need to reconnect to the nd to once again regain his power.

  He had the knowledge, the memories of all the rituals the children made him go through and all the exercise and techniques he practiced. The only issue was the time it would take.

  He stood slowly, feeling… wrong. Like a sword reforged into a plowshare. Useful, perhaps. But missing weight where it mattered.

  His reflection in the polished steel basin stopped him short. Sixteen again. Dark hair falling into his eyes. Bastard’s face. Bastard’s name.

  But the eyes they were not a boy’s eyes anymore. “Third time,” he muttered. His voice cracked, then steadied. “Right. Let’s not waste it.”

  A knock came at the door. Familiar. Careful. “Jon?” Robb’s voice. Younger. Alive. “Father wants us in the yard. The king’s procession is almost here.”

  Jon’s chest tightened painfully. Robb. Smiling. Breathing. Not a memory. Not a corpse dragged from the snow or stabbed in the back.

  He opened the door. Robb Stark stood there, all wolfish grin and restless energy, already half-dressed for a spectacle. “You look like shit,” Robb said cheerfully. “Nervous?”

  Jon ughed once. It came out rougher than he expected. “Something like that.”

  They walked together through Winterfell’s halls. Jon let his fingers brush the stone as they passed, old habit half-expecting the castle to whisper back. It didn’t. But it felt right. Solid. Untouched.

  In the yard, banners snapped in the wind. Men-at-arms lined up, polished and proud. Bran darted between legs before being hauled back by an exasperated Rodrik Cassel. Arya bounced on her toes. Sansa watched the road south with shining eyes.

  Ned Stark stood at the front, face calm, unreadable, already carrying the weight of the crown that would one day crush him. All of them alive.

  Jon stood in the shadow, not with his family, the true children, his status as a bastard still stung but he kept it to himself. Outwardly he was the same quiet bastard. Inwardly, a man who knew how every road ahead ended if left untouched.

  The horns sounded again. The royal procession crested the hill.

  Jon Snow felt out of sorts, yes but also clear. Older men didn’t rush into battles. They prepared the board first.

  -

  The one person that Jon was worried about all else was Bran. He remembered his st life on how the Three-Eyed Raven which was a old god trapped here in the mortal pne wanted to use him.

  The memory of Bran’s fall came unbidden. Jon had known that moment would shape everything, even if the world had reset. He moved swiftly, leaping from battlement to battlement, boots finding purchase on cold stone. The commotion below drew his gaze. A shout, a child had climbed too high. Bran.

  “Bran!” Jon’s voice was sharp, cutting through the winter air. The boy was perched precariously on a parapet, almost to the window.

  “Jon,” he waved and his stomach did a flip flop as he hang dozens of feet in the air with only one hand.

  “Get down from there,” Jon commanded. “Don’t make me call your dy mother,” he added. Near to the top on the window he saw some movement but thought nothing of it.

  “You wouldn’t” the young boy said aghast.

  “I will, young man so you better get down from there!” Doing as told, Bran at the very least was a obedient child. High up above he heard the caw of a Raven which he knew it wasn’t a good sign.

  Later, in the quiet of the godswood after all the celebrations and hunting died down, Jon found his father, Ned Stark, sharpening his bde as he often did, the sound of steel on whetstone ringing in the pce. Jon approached, hesitant, yet determined.

  Ned looked up slowly, reading his son. “South?” His tone was careful, tinged with suspicion. “You have duties here, Jon. The Wall—”

  “The Wall can wait,” Jon interrupted softly. “Sansa, Arya, Bran… they’re young. They’ll need someone who knows them, someone who can protect them if danger comes. If I stay, I can watch them. But… if I go, I can help you manage things, serve the family, and keep an eye on the king’s court. Everyone knows shadows lurk in the royal court. I want to be where I can matter.”

  Ned’s brow furrowed. “You’re still a boy,” he said quietly.

  Jon met his father’s gaze. “I have seen much father. Let me come. Let me be useful.”

  There was a long silence and Ned might have seen the look in his eye. Finally, the Warden set down his whetstone. “Very well. But you’ll need to prove yourself. The South is not kind to bastards, Jon, and it does not forgive mistakes.”

  “I’ll do whatever is needed,” Jon said, nodding once.

  …

  Winterfell buzzed with activity. Horses were readied, banners hung, and the royal party’s trumpets sounded again in the courtyard. Jon stood among the riders, his eyes sweeping over the children he would leave behind for a time. Rickon did not look happy nearly everyone was leaving.

  Sansa hugged her dy mother goodbye, Arya had the eyes for her usual mischievous about her, Bran clutched his wolf’s pelt, a smile breaking for how eager he was for the trip to the capital.

  The caravan moved, the crunch of hooves on packed snow marking the start of Jon’s journey. The air was sharp and biting, the North fading slowly behind him as the road southward stretched into the horizon. He rode beside Ned, keeping his posture upright, his mind alert. Every shadow along the trees, every glint of the sun off metal, was noted. He was no longer a boy. He had seen the world break and rebuild itself, and he carried that knowledge like a bde.

  The journey continued for weeks, the roads winding through forests and along rivers, the air growing warmer as they approached the southern nds. Jon remained vigint, his eyes scanning for danger, his hand often resting near the hilt of his sword. Though he had no desire to fight unnecessarily, he knew the South had its own dangers; treachery, politics, and men who would see Starks as nothing but a tool or a target.

  Along the way, Jon observed. He watched the behavior of the royal family, the vilges they passed, the members of the court that came. Jon observed how alliances formed and dissolved with the smallest actions. Every detail was a lesson, every conversation a test.

  He kept his siblings out of trouble. He wondered what would have happened if he did not come at all. The prince was truly a little cruel bastard always with his half-burnt thug around. He could clearly see they had another mad man soon to be seated on the Iron Throne.

  At st, they reached the gates of King’s Landing. The Red Keep rose above them, a monument to power and ambition, its walls gleaming in the sunlight. The Red Keep dominated the skyline, its white walls glimmering in the sunlight, towers rising like the spires of gods’ temples, banners snapping sharply in the wind. Narrow streets crowded with merchants and townsfolk funneled the royal party toward the gates, the scent of sweat, spice, and tallow heavy in the air. Ships crowded the harbor, their sails billowing, while gulls wheeled overhead, screaming into the sunlight.

  Jon felt a cold shiver not from the weather, but from recognition. This city would demand everything from those who entered it. He dismounted, holding the reins with care, his gaze sweeping over the crowd gathered outside.

  Ned led them into the inner ward. Jon stayed close behind, watching how his father moved among the men of the South. There was authority in his posture, in the way he held his head, in the quiet tone of his voice when he addressed guards or stewards.

  At st, they reached the Tower of the Hand. The door was heavy, bckened wood bound with iron, and it creaked ominously as it swung open. Inside, the rooms smelled of old wood and candle smoke, of parchment and ink. Servants moved quickly to show them to their chambers, bowing low.

  In the following weeks, Jon shadowed his father at every turn. He met the key pyers in the court, from lords and dies to small council members. Jon began to understand King’s Landing as it truly was: a cess pit for vipers and snakes.

  Jon learned the key pyers slowly.

  There was the Small Council, worse of them all. Varys, the spider, always in shadow, speaking softly to men who thought themselves in charge. Jon watched, never daring to meet the eunuch’s pale eyes directly, but listening as alliances twisted like serpents in the grass. Then there was Petyr Baelish, whose smile was a bde in disguise. Every meeting Jon attended with Ned was a lesson in careful speech, in weighing words, in seeing who trembled beneath the masks of civility.

  Meanwhile, his siblings were finding their own paths. Sansa had been taken under the wing of the Queen, becoming one of the many dies-in-waiting she had. Arya, restless as ever, kept on getting into troubles until their lord father found an instructor for her, a water dancer from Braavos.

  Bran, ever wager to be a knight, had been sent to squire for Ser Barristan. Bran learned not only swordpy but honor and discipline, shadowing Barristan with eagerness and a strange, preternatural patience that belied his years. Jon knew this was a better path for him then the raven’s shadow.

  Jon, for his part, spent long hours in the Tower of the Hand’s study, in the council chamber, or trailing his father through the city. He learned to notice the little things: how the king’s counselors spoke, who bowed too eagerly, who did not bow at all. How the queen smiled in ways that betrayed irritation. How whispers could carry through corridors if one knew where to listen. Jon understood the court, its halls were traps, its courtiers sharper than any sword.

  He saw the King’s temper, quick and votile. Jon noted which lords flinched and which measured their words with precision. He observed the Queen, graceful yet calcuting, her gaze always appraising those around her. The city itself seemed alive with plots, and Jon moved through it as he might through a forest filled with unseen predators; alert, silent, and wary.

  The year passed in such a way Jon had become an invisible presence in the Red Keep. He learned names and faces, allegiances and grudges. He learned which courtiers could be swayed with kindness, which with threats, and which would betray in a heartbeat. He saw how power was less a matter of sword or strength than patience, timing, and the careful weighing of words.

  Abdirah