Chapter Text
Prologue
Jon Snow
The snow was coming down again, thick and wet, clinging to Jon’s cloak and running cold fingers down his neck. He hunched his shoulders and kept close to Robb as they trudged through the wolfswood, Theon Greyjoy behind them with his usual smirk, like this was all some grand lark.
It had been near a month since Theon came to Winterfell. He was older than Robb or Jon, near-grown, but he talked too much and laughed too loud, and Jon didn’t think he was half as brave as he pretended to be.
They were looking for the knight.
The mysterious knight, some folk called him. He had come out of nowhere years ago, settling deep in the woods, so the stories went. Old Nan said he was a fallen king or a hedge knight turned outlaw or maybe a ghost in rusted mail, cursed to wander until the end of days. Then she said she had once had a crush on him when she was a girl, which made Robb laugh and Jon wrinkle his nose. Old Nan was older than the Wall itself, wasn’t she? That’s what Jon had always thought, anyhow.
The snow made no sound under their boots. Robb led, like always, with Jon close behind and Theon trailing. Jon kept glancing left and right, half-expecting to see a shadow in the trees, a man in dark armor watching them. He felt like the whole forest was holding its breath.
They were almost to the camp when the men came out of the woods.
Rough hands seized Jon before he could cry out. Robb shouted, Theon cursed, and then they were all being dragged through the trees, kicking, slipping in the drifts. The men were big and hard-looking, with swords at their belts and cruel eyes. Bandits, Jon thought wildly. They have to be bandits.
The camp was a ring of firelight under the pines, smoke curling up through the branches. The man who seemed to be their leader stepped forward. He wore a black coat like Jon’s uncle Benjen, though it was torn and dirty, the black faded near gray. His smile was worse than his sword.
“Well, well,” the man said, looking them over. His eyes found Jon and lingered. “The little lordling out for an adventure.”
Jon froze. He realized all at once the man thought he was Robb.
He was about to speak, to tell them they had it wrong, but then he saw Theon grab Robb’s arm hard, shaking his head, eyes sharp with warning.
“Yes,” Jon heard himself say. His voice cracked. “Yes, I am.”
The bandit smiled like a man who’d found gold in the river. “And these two?”
Jon’s mouth felt dry as dust. “One’s Jon Snow,” he said, pointing at Robb. “My half-brother. A bastard. He doesn’t matter. The other’s just a servant. Let them go. Send a message to my father. He’ll pay ransom.”
The leader looked at him a long moment, then nodded. “The bastard runs. The servant stays. One man’s enough to carry words to Winterfell.”
They tied Robb’s hands and shoved him toward the dark. “Run, boy,” one of them barked. Robb stumbled, then bolted through the trees toward the horses.
That was when Jon saw the other man.
Younger than the leader, with pale eyes and a knife in his hand. He had a thin smile that made Jon’s stomach twist. He looked at Theon like a cat looks at a mouse.
“Before he goes,” the pale man said softly, “maybe I take a finger from the squid. Or an ear. Something small.”
The knife caught the firelight.
“Wait!” Jon’s voice came out high and thin before he even knew he was speaking.
The man turned, his pale eyes finding Jon. That smile never changed.
“Brave little lordling,” he said. “Honorable, too. Want to take the servant’s punishment for him, do you?”
Jon couldn’t make his head move, but somehow he nodded. His heart felt like it was trying to climb up his throat.
The man chuckled, low and mean. “Well,” he said, “a lordling should get what he asks for.”
The knife came toward him slow, so slow, and Jon didn’t know whether to shut his eyes or scream.
I don’t know how long it’s been. Time comes in pieces now—each one a cut, a slice, the cold edge of the pale-eyed man’s knife. My face burns. My arm screams where he opened it. My breath comes ragged and thin, and the snow under me is turning black in the firelight.
The pale-eyed man left some time ago, whistling to himself, the way cruel men do. I can hear Theon cursing behind me, voice cracking as they tie him to a tree. He sounds angry, but there’s fear in it too.
I can’t even lift my head when it happens.
One of the bandits near the fire opens his mouth to say something, and then his head is gone. Just gone, spinning away in the snow.
The knight is there.
I never saw him come. One heartbeat there were only bandits, the next there was a man in battered mail and a torn surcoat, moving through them like a storm given legs. His sword is long and straight, and it takes men apart like it was made for nothing else. A second man falls, then a third, the blade flashing quick and bright in the firelight.
Someone shouts. Steel bites into the knight’s side. Another man drives a dagger into his chest. He kills them anyway.
When it’s done, the knight stumbles against a tree and slides down it, one hand clutching his sword, the other pressed to the dagger jutting from his ribs. Blood runs through the dents in his armor, steaming where it hits the snow.
I can’t keep my eyes open. My head drops to the side. Everything feels far away now, as if I’m watching it through water.
And then there is water.
A lake, sudden and strange, where there shouldn’t be one. Smooth as glass, the moon breaking on its surface. A woman steps out, pale and silent, her face a blur my eyes can’t hold. She carries a cup carved from pale wood, a face grinning on its side like the ones on the heart trees.
She kneels. The cup touches my lips.
I drink.
The taste is cold and clean and strange, like snow melting on stone. My cuts burn, then cool. My breath comes easier.
When I blink again, the woman is gone. Only the snow, the fire, the dead men.
I push myself up on one elbow, weak but alive. Theon is still tied to the tree, his head turned away, so he saw none of it. The knight sits slumped against the trunk opposite him, the dagger still in his chest. His eyes are half-shut, but there’s a faint smile under the beard.
He crooks a finger, beckoning.
I go to him, slow and unsteady, blood stiff on my clothes. My wounds ache, but not like before. I kneel beside him, close enough to hear his breath rattle in his throat.
Whatever words this man has left, I want to hear them. He saved me. He saved Theon.
I crawled closer, the snow soaking through my breeches, my hands leaving red smears behind me. The knight watched me come. His eyes were half-closed, his breath a thin rattle.
When I was near enough, he lifted his sword.
It was slow, the way he moved, like every bit of it hurt him. The point touched my shoulder. Then the other. I heard words, but they were mumbled through the blood in his throat, too soft for me to catch. He lifted the blade again, resting it for a heartbeat on the crown of my head.
I didn’t understand. I only knelt there, shivering, too tired to speak.
Behind me, I heard ropes snapping. Theon. He must have got one hand free. I didn’t turn to look, not with the knight’s eyes on me.
The sound of hooves was getting louder through the trees. Riders. Stark men, maybe. Or more bandits. I didn’t know.
The knight whistled.
It was a thin sound, weak, but the horse came anyway. A big brown mare, heavy with foal, packs strapped tight along her flanks. She came to him like she knew him well, head lowering to his legs.
His hand shook as he took the reins and pushed them toward me. Then he gave me the sword.
It was a great bastard sword, longer than I was tall, the grip worn smooth by years of use. My fingers curled around it clumsily, sticky with half-dried blood.
The knight leaned back against the tree. His lips moved again, some prayer in a tongue I didn’t know. Maybe it was the Old Gods. Maybe it was something else.
The last breath rattled out of him, a long, slow sigh.
And then he was still.
I sat there beside him, holding the reins in one hand and the sword in the other, the snow falling all around us.
Ned Stark
Promise me, Ned. Promise me.
The words rode with me as hard as the wind did, thudding in time with the hooves beneath us. We cut through the trees like a spear point, men of Winterfell at my side, every face grim, every sword ready. Jon. Theon. Gods, let us not be too late.
We burst through the clearing.
Dead men lay in the snow, bandits in boiled leather and torn mail, their blood steaming in the cold. Theon Greyjoy was slumped against a tree, one arm free, fingers scrabbling toward a dagger half-buried in the drift.
But my eyes found Jon first.
He was on his knees before the body of a knight in battered plate, a sword across his lap. Jon’s face was streaked with tears and dirt, his hands crusted red.
“Jon,” I said softly.
He turned. His eyes were wide, bright with fear and exhaustion. Then he was on his feet, throwing his arms around me, clinging as if I might vanish.
I held him. Patted his back as his sobs slowed, as his small body went heavy against me, sleep taking him at last. He was only a boy. My boy.
“See to Greyjoy,” I told the men. “And the knight. He will have a proper burial. With honor.”
They moved to obey. I bent, lifting Jon into my arms. He was light as a bundle of sticks, though he still clutched the great bastard sword like it belonged to him and no one else. I pried it free, meaning to carry it myself, until I heard the horse.
It stepped out from the trees, the one that had lain by the knight’s side. A big mare, heavy with foal, eyes dark and watchful. It came to me slow, snow clinging to its mane.
There was a scabbard at its flank, leather worn but tooled with strange symbols I did not know. The sort of marks you saw on old barrow stones, not in any hall I’d ridden through.
I slid the sword home.
The mare gave a low sound—almost a huff of breath—and fell into step behind us as I mounted.
Theon, already talking through split lips, began telling any man who would listen about the fight, about the knight who came like a ghost, about Jon kneeling in the snow.
I only thought of the boy in my arms. The heat of him. The weight. The words that would not leave me.
Promise me, Ned. Promise me.
Maester Luwin’s hands were cool and steady as he finished his work.
“You’ve healed well, Jon,” he said, straightening with a faint smile. “Remarkably well, truth be told. The first to recover, too.” He packed away the last of his salves and linen. “Robb’s still limping on that leg he strained running through the woods, and Theon…” The maester made a small sound in his throat. “He’ll be tender for a time, after what the ropes did to his wrists. But they’ll mend. All of you will.”
Jon said nothing. He sat on the edge of the bed, pale but upright, his eyes on the fire.
“Your father has taken men to deal with the rest of the bandits,” Luwin went on. “Some deserters from the Night’s Watch, I hear, stirring up wildlings beyond the Wall, leading them south to raid. He’ll see to it. A few weeks, no more.”
Jon’s eyes flicked toward him then, waiting.
The maester allowed himself a small smile. “But I do have some good news for you.”
Jon looked wary, as if the words good and news didn’t belong together.
“That knight who saved you,” Luwin said, “his final act before he died was to make you a knight as well. Ser Jon Snow now, if you please. It means you may fight in tourneys one day, or carry your own arms.”
The boy blinked, as though the thought had never once lived in his head before.
“You’ll need a sigil,” Luwin said. “A personal device. What would you like?”
Jon was quiet for a long time. The fire popped softly.
At last he said, “A woman standing on a lake. She’s holding a grail carved from a heart tree. With a face on it. A laughing face.”
Luwin chuckled under his breath. “So you’ve heard the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, have you? Fitting enough. Yes, I think we can find something close to that.”
He turned to go, but Jon spoke again, soft as falling snow.
“Her face should be blank,” he said. “Blank, but with a kind smile.”
The maester nodded, studying him a moment before leaving. The boy’s eyes were far away, as if chasing after something he couldn’t quite reach.
Back in his chambers, Maester Luwin sat at his desk, lit a candle, and dipped his quill. Perhaps the king should hear this tale, he thought. Of the boy who stood against bandits, who bore the last honor of a dying knight. Of Ser Jon Snow.
The letter would be read in King’s Landing, and men would speak of it in halls and hearths alike. Some deeds deserved to be known.