Jon Snow
Jon leaned against the tent pole and watched Loras work.
Loras had positioned himself between Sansa and Jeyne Poole like a man tending two fires at once, giving each enough warmth to keep them burning. He complimented Sansa's hair, asked Jeyne about her favorite tourneys, laughed at something Sansa said about roses. Sansa glowed. Jeyne looked ready to faint. Arya stood three paces away, arms crossed, staring at the sky with the expression of someone being slowly murdered by politeness.
Margaery appeared at Jon's elbow. She'd been speaking with one of her guards, and now she stood beside him with her hands folded, watching the same scene.
"Your sister is charming," she said.
"Which one?"
Margaery's eyes flickered to Arya, who was now examining a tent rope. "The one who curtsied."
"Sansa loves the South, and Septa Mordana's teaching are her favorites."
"It shows. She carries herself beautifully." Margaery paused. "Though I confess I find the other one more interesting."
Jon followed her gaze. Arya had abandoned the tent rope and was crouching to study a beetle crawling across a flagstone. Lady stood behind her, watching the beetle with the same grave attention, as though the direwolf considered it a threat that merited observation.
"Arya grows on you," Jon said.
"Like moss?"
"Like a wolf pup. Loud, messy, and impossible to get rid of once she's decided you belong to her." He shifted his weight off the crutches, letting his shoulders rest. "Are you enjoying King's Landing, my lady?"
Margaery tilted her head. "Margaery."
Jon was pleased to hear that. "Margaery. Are you enjoying the city?"
"Parts of it. The gardens are lovely. The Sept of Baelor takes your breath away at sunset, when the light comes through the crystal and the whole floor turns to colored glass." She smoothed a fold in her gown. "The smell, I could do without."
"You get used to it."
"Do you?"
"I haven't yet. But people keep telling me you do, so I'm holding out hope."
Margaery giggled, and her whole face looked even more beautiful, like a flower. "What about you? Is it very different from the North?"
"Everything is different from the North." Jon adjusted the crutch under his arm. "Winterfell sits on hot springs. The walls are warm even in the dead of winter. You can walk the glass gardens in a snowstorm and feel summer air on your face. The godswood has a heart tree older than the Conquest, and the pool beneath it steams all year round."
"It sounds beautiful."
"It does sound beautiful. Snow falls on black pines, and the whole world goes quiet, and you stand there in the cold and you feel like you're the only person alive."
Margaery studied him. Her brown eyes held an intelligence that reminded Jon of a maester measuring a patient. "You miss it."
"I'm sure everyone misses their home, is the one place where we feel we belong." Jon wasn't sure if Lady Margaery wanted to hear his philosophy, and he wanted to know more about her.
"Tell me about Highgarden," Jon said after a moment, because the silence was getting uncomfortable. "Is it really as green as the songs say?"
Margaery's face brightened. "Greener. The Mander runs right past the walls, and in spring the orchards bloom all at once. Apples, peaches, plums. The air smells sweet for weeks. My grandmother says it makes the men lazy and the women ambitious." She grinned. "She may be right about both."
"Your grandmother sounds like a wise woman."
"She would agree with you. Loudly. And then she'd tell you everything else you got wrong in the same breath."
Jon, Margaery, and the others explored more of the Tourney and the area around it, with Loras pointing at a group of horses of House Tyrell.
"I heard something interesting this morning. On the way to the grounds. The common people speak about you." Margaery commented with a smile.
Jon knew about that; it felt good to be talked to like that, but it was misplaced. "They speak about the melee."
"They speak about you. By name. The boy who blinded the Mountain. The smallfolk in the Street of Seeds were calling blessings on you. A fishwife at the gate told her daughter you were sent by the Warrior himself." Margaery spoke with almost admiration, but Jon was not sure if she really meant it, or maybe she was just too good at pretending; he liked to believe that she wasn't pretending. Not every highborn girl was like Cersei. "That sort of love is rare, Jon. Lords command loyalty. They buy it, or they inherit it. They seldom earn it."
"I was trying to survive," Jon said. "The Mountain came to kill me. I had a knife and nowhere left to fall. There was nothing heroic about it."
"The smallfolk disagree."
"The smallfolk want someone to cheer for. I was available."
Margaery regarded him for a long moment. "You really believe that."
Jon met her eyes. "I believe I got lucky. And I believe luck runs out."
They walked in silence for a few paces. Ahead of them, Loras was explaining to Sansa the difference between a destrier and a courser, gesturing at a tall grey stallion. Jeyne hovered at Sansa's shoulder, nodding at everything. Arya had wandered back from the blacksmith's wagon and was walking beside Lady, one hand resting on the direwolf's shoulder.
"Has your father looked into what happened? At the melee, I mean." Maegaery asked, sounding concerned. "The Mountain went straight for you. I watched from the stands. He carved through half the field to reach you. That sort of focus seemed... deliberate."
Jon kept his eyes forward. "My father spoke with the King and Lord Tywin Lannister afterward. There was a hearing in the throne room. I was unconscious for it, so I can only tell you what I've been told. The King ruled the matter settled. A melee is a melee."
"And Lord Tywin accepted that?"
"Lord Tywin accepted the King's judgment." Jon paused. "Whether he accepted the outcome is a different question."
Margaery let that sit for a moment. "But do you know why? Why the Mountain came for you specifically?"
Jon glanced at her. Her brown eyes held his with an openness that felt genuine. She wanted to know why Gregor Clegane, a weapon aimed by Lannister hands, had been pointed at the bastard son of the Hand of the King. She wanted to know if there was a larger shape behind the violence, a reason that mattered beyond tournament bloodlust. She was asking the right question.
Jon intended to give her the wrong answer.
"Have you ever seen the Mountain, my lady?"
"Margaery."
"Have you ever seen him, Margaery?"
"Once. At a distance. It's hard to miss him."
"He is a mad dog without a leash. Ask the smallfolk. They'll tell you the same stories they told me this morning. He burns farms. He kills livestock. He attacks anyone who crosses his path because violence is the only language he understands. He went after me because I was there, and I was young, and I looked like an easy kill."
Margaery tilted her head. The sunlight caught the golden rose above her ear. "In the melee, the Mountain walked past three Reach knights who were closer to him. He ignored a Stormlander who'd actually struck him across the back. He turned away from a Riverlander who was practically standing on his feet." She ticked these off with the same mild tone. "And he walked directly toward you. Across the entire field. As if you were the only man in it."
She was right. He knew she was right. The Mountain had been aimed, and the hand that aimed him wore gold rings and drank from crystal goblets. But Jon could feel the shape of the trap in Margaery's question. If he confirmed her suspicion, he confirmed that someone powerful wanted him dead, and Margaery Tyrell would want to know why. That question had an answer that ended with his head on a spike.
"Before we came to King's Landing, there was an incident on the road south. At the Trident." He said. "Prince Joffrey drew steel on a butcher's boy. My sister Arya was there. She tried to stop it. Her direwolf bit the prince." Jon paused. "When the matter came before the King, the Queen demanded punishment. She wanted the wolves killed, my sister punished. I stood up for Arya. I told the truth about what happened. The King believed me, and Joffrey was humiliated in front of the court."
Margaery's expression remained pleasant.
"The Queen took that poorly," Jon continued. "Very poorly. And the Mountain is, as everyone knows, a Lannister bannerman. A man who follows Lannister orders. If he thought that crippling the boy who embarrassed the Queen's son might earn him a favor from the crown..." Jon shrugged, and the motion pulled at his ribs. "Mad dogs are still dogs. They bite where their masters point."
Margaery held his gaze. She was searching his face.
Then she smiled, and the warmth in it felt real.
"You're very careful with your words, Jon Snow."
"I'm a bastard in King's Landing. Careful is how I've stayed alive."
"A bastard who blinded the Mountain, befriended my brother, and has the common people calling him a hero." She looked ahead at Loras and Sansa walking together, at Arya running her hand along Lady's fur. "You're quite a bit more than careful."
Jon was pleased to hear such a compliment from such a beautiful lady.
"I'm a boy on crutches who can barely get off a horse," he said. "That's all."
Margaery giggled again.
A trumpet sounded in the distance, and Loras turned from Sansa.
"The jousting," Margaery said with a smile. "Have you watched my brother ride?"
"Only in the training yard. He's quick."
"He's more than quick. He's the finest jouster in Westeros." She said with conviction. "Three tourneys won before his eighteenth nameday. Father says he was born in the saddle."
"He was born in a castle," Arya said, appearing beside Jon like a cat. Jon had forgotten she was listening. Arya always listened. "And Jon's a better rider."
Sansa's head snapped around. Loras raised an eyebrow. Jeyne made a soft squeaking noise.
"Arya." Sansa's voice could have frosted glass. "Be quiet."
"It's true. Jon's the best rider I've ever seen. He can gallop through the Wolfswood at full speed and never touch a branch. Loras is lucky Jon can barely stand right now, or he'd—"
"Arya." Jon said with a warning look. Quieter. Arya looked up at him, saw his expression, and closed her mouth. She knew the look. She'd overstepped, and she knew it.
Loras broke the tension with a grin. "Well. A rider of legend, and I've been sparring with him all this time." He looked at Jon. "Is she telling the truth? How good are you?"
Jon exhaled. "I've always liked riding. My father said I had a gift for it. Robb and I used to race through the Wolfswood, and I won more often than I lost." He paused, choosing his words. "But I've never jousted properly. Training lances in the yard at Winterfell, a few passes against Robb and Theon, that's the extent of it. I've never ridden a tilt against a real opponent."
Loras considered this. "Then we'll have to fix that. A year from now, perhaps sooner, there'll be another tourney. The Reach hosts them like other regions host harvests. You could come to Highgarden." His face lit with the idea. "You'll be healed. I'll arrange a proper horse, a real lance, none of those blunted training sticks they use in the North. And we'll see what Jon Snow can do against the finest jouster in Westeros."
Jon opened his mouth to respond—
"Highgarden!" Sansa almost shouted. She turned to Loras. "I've always dreamed of seeing Highgarden. The gardens, the fountains, the maze of roses. Is it true the walls are covered in golden roses that bloom all year?"
Loras turned to her, and Jon watched his friend's attention shift like a compass finding north. Loras began describing the terraced gardens, the way the light fell through the bower walks in the afternoon, and Sansa leaned in with her lips slightly parted and her eyes wide, and Jon realized he'd been released from answering.
He glanced at Margaery. She'd been watching the exchange with a small, satisfied smile.
Another trumpet rang out, closer this time, and Loras straightened. "I need to go. The jousting starts within the hour." He turned to Sansa and took her hand. Lifted it. Pressed his lips to her knuckles.
"My lady. It was a true pleasure."
Sansa turned the color of her hair.
Loras clasped Jon's shoulder, gentle on the uninjured side. "Watch closely today. I plan to give you something worth seeing." Then he was gone, striding toward the arming tents with his green cloak snapping behind him.
Sansa stood frozen, staring at her own hand like it was made of gold.
Arya looked at her sister with the expression of someone watching a dog chase its own tail. "You do remember you're betrothed to the golden cunt?"
Sansa's trance shattered. "Don't call him that!"
"I'll call him what he is."
"He is the Crown Prince, and you will show respect, and you will never use that word again, Arya Stark, or I swear by the Mother I will-"
"Enough." Jon's voice cut through the rising storm. Both sisters fell silent, though Arya looked mutinous and Sansa looked mortified. Jeyne Poole hovered behind them, caught in the blast radius, her eyes bouncing between the sisters like a spectator at a melee. "We need to find our seats. The jousting starts soon."
Margaery touched Jon's arm as she stepped away. "I should join my family. It was a genuine pleasure speaking with you, Jon."
"The pleasure was mine. Truly."
She held his gaze. Jon wondered if she liked looking at his eyes, then turned and walked toward the Tyrell section of the stands.
Jon watched her go. She reached a cluster of seats draped in green and gold, and he saw the rest of House Tyrell assembled there. An old woman sat at the center with a cane across her knees, her face sharp and weathered, her eyes scanning the crowd with the cold appraisal of a hawk counting mice. She looked like a harder, older version of Catelyn Stark, a woman whose kindness had been filed down to a point by decades of court politics. Beside her sat a plump man in a doublet of green velvet, older than Ned, with a round, ruddy face. A beautiful woman with rich brown hair sat at his side.
Then Jon noticed the boy.
He sat at the end of the Tyrell row, and he was older than Jon, perhaps nineteen or twenty. Brown-haired, with a lean face and Loras's cheekbones, though his frame was thinner, his skin paler. He held a cane propped against his knee, and when he shifted in his seat, he moved as if making sure he wouldn't hurt his left leg.
Jon knew what that looked like. He was living it.
Who is he? Jon wondered. A brother, clearly, the resemblance to Loras was plain. But Loras had spoken of Garlan, who held him back during the melee, and Garlan would be a fighter, strong and whole. This was someone else.
He turned away. There would be time for questions later.
"Come on," he said, settling the crutches under his arms. "Let's find our seats."
They climbed the stands to the section reserved for the great houses. Stark banners marked their places: grey direwolf on white. Jon took the seat beside Arya, with Jeyne on Arya's far side. Lady settled at the base of the stands below them, her great head resting on her paws, eyes half-closed in the sun.
Sansa smoothed her skirts, checked her hair, and walked toward the royal box where Joffrey Baratheon waited, golden-haired and smirking on his cushioned seat.
Jon watched her go and felt his stomach tighten.
Arya leaned close. "She'll be fine. She's good at pretending."
Jon knew that was not true. Cersei was good at pretending; she could even pretend that she genuinely looked like someone.
Sansa, she was anything but good at pretending.
The stands filled around them. Lords and ladies in rich clothes from Westeros and some from Volantis, trailing servants and conversation. Bannermen found their sections, arranged themselves by rank, and began the serious business of being seen. The sun beat down on the arena, warming the wood of the benches and drawing the smell of shit and horse sweat from the tilting ground below.
Jon felt it before he understood it. A prickling along the back of his neck, he was being watched. He'd learned to trust that feeling in the training yard at Winterfell, where an unguarded moment meant a bruise, and in the Red Keep, where it meant a knife in the back.
He looked up at the royal box.
Cersei Lannister sat on a cushioned chair draped in Baratheon gold, her golden hair catching the light like a crown of its own. Robert slouched beside her with a wine cup already in his fist, laughing at something Renly had said. Joffrey sat on Cersei's other side, and Sansa had taken the seat beside him, her back straight and her hands folded in her lap.
Cersei was looking straight at Jon.
Her green eyes held him across the distance. Jon knew that look. He'd seen it in firelight at Winterfell, in the shadows of her chamber, in the moment before she pulled him close and pressed her mouth to his throat. Want wearing a queen's face. Her lips parted, just slightly, and her gaze moved down his body the way her hands once had, as though she were unwrapping something she intended to taste.
Jon held her gaze for a second. Two.
Heat stirred low in his belly, and his cock thickened against his breeches. His body remembered what his mind had discarded, the arch of her spine beneath his palms, the sounds she made when he was inside her, the way she whispered his name like it was the only word she knew.
He looked away.
The arousal faded as quickly as it had come, a fire with no fuel behind it. Cersei Lannister was beautiful. His body had been trained to respond to that beauty the way a hound responds to a whistle. But the boy who trembled at her touch had died somewhere between the Trident and the Godswood, and the man sitting in these stands felt the ghost of desire the way he felt the ghost of a wound.
She could stare all she liked.
Jon turned his attention to the arena, scanning the stands to settle his mind. The great houses filled their sections in blocks of color: Baratheon gold and black, Tyrell green and gold, Tully red and blue. He traced the banners from left to right.
His eyes reached the far side of the arena.
The seats there belonged to the Dornish contingent.
A small group occupied the Martell section, fewer than a dozen, dressed in silks of orange and red and burnt gold. The sun-and-spear banner hung from the railing in front of their seats.
Jon's gaze swept the group.
Then his heart stopped.
She sat in the second row, slightly apart from the others, wearing a gown of deep crimson that left her shoulders bare. Her dark hair fell past her collarbones in loose waves. Her skin was olive and smooth, and her face was the face from his bedchamber in the dark, the face from his dreams, the face that had leaned over him while he lay broken and bleeding and whisperedYou are my valonqar.
Rhaenys.
Jon's fingers locked around the edge of the bench. The wood bit into his palms.
She looked different in daylight. In his chamber, she had been shadow and candleflame, a whisper and a touch and a pair of purple eyes floating in darkness. Here, in the full glare of the afternoon sun, she was real. Flesh and bone and breath. Her cheekbones were high and sharp, her jaw elegant, her mouth set in a careful line that Jon recognized because he wore the same expression when he was trying to look like he belonged somewhere he feared he might be killed.
And her eyes. Even from across the arena, even at this distance, he could see them. Purple. Deep, vivid purple, and because of the sunlight, they appeared like two purple stars.
His pulse hammered in his ears.
The woman beside Rhaenys drew Jon's attention next, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe for an entirely different reason. She was young, perhaps twenty, and arrestingly beautiful. Black hair fell in thick, shining curls past her shoulders. Her gown was silk, burnt orange, cut low enough to display a busty figure. Full breasts pressed against the fabric, and the curve of her waist flowed into hips that made the gown seem inadequate to the task of containing her. Her skin was a deep olive, her lips full and dark.
She leaned close to Rhaenys and whispered something. Rhaenys turned her head and giggled.
Elia's family. The thought struck like a hammer. They hid her. Just like Ned hid me. Two children of Rhaegar Targaryen, two noble houses, two lies that lasted fourteen years.
As if sensing his gaze across the crowded arena, Rhaenys turned her head.
Their eyes met.
Purple found purple across a hundred yards of sunlight and dust and the heads of a thousand strangers. Jon saw recognition flash through her.
Her lips moved. He was too far away to hear, but he knew the word. He'd heard it twice in the dark of his chamber, whispered like a prayer.
Valonqar.
Then she looked away, turning back to the woman beside her as though she'd merely been looking at the crowd.
Jon exhaled. His hands were trembling. He pressed them flat against his thighs and stared at the empty tilting ground.
"Jon?" Arya's voice, sharp with concern. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Jon swallowed. His throat felt like sand.
"Maybe I have," he said.