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“Brother,” Aegon breathed into Jon’s ear, pulling him into a tight embrace as soon as Jon had met him in his solar after the feast. The young King had taken to their discovered kinship much more easily than Jon had. King Aegon was quick to love, even if Jon was their father’s bastard. But Jon had known family once, and the connection did not come as easily.
Aegon pulled apart from his newly discovered kin and sat back into his chair. “Have you heard the news?” Aegon asked, his eyes shimmering in excitement.
Jon had been resting in his chambers while the Targaryen men celebrated the sight of Cersei Lannister being hanged at long last. It took a lot for him to fall asleep after the stress of death and resurrection, and the merriment from outside his window had kept him awake.
“I’m afraid not,” Jon answered.
Aegon smiled. “I am to be wed.”
“Congratulations, brother,” Jon returned Aegon’s smile, but the look upon his face suggested that this was not the end of the news. “To Princess Arianne?” Jon asked. Aegon had been sent portraits of the girl and Prince Doran’s diplomats had been raving of her beauty since they’d arrived. The matter seemed all but settled.
“No, I’ve had another offer. One Jon Connington has bid me to accept, and one I think you would appreciate all the more for it would bind us closer together. A united front of Stark and Targaryen. Lady Sansa Stark, the girl who once called you brother herself.”
She never did, Jon wanted to say. She’d called him half-brother, if she referred to him at all. Not that it mattered anymore. They were children back then, and it had been a lie anyway.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” Aegon said after a long moment of silence.
“I am, if you are,” Jon said, closing his eyes. “I just haven’t thought about Sansa in a very long time.”
“Is she as beautiful as Lord Baelish says?” Aegon asked. “I’m not sure I believe much the bastard says, but he’s right in that this is the best match for both of us.”
“I haven’t seen Sansa since she was a girl. It’s been five years, and she was only eleven the day we left Winterfell. But my sister was the prettiest girl in the North.”
Jon’s memories weren’t as clear as they’d been before the red witch gave him life again. He had few recollections of Sansa, but he remembered how radiant her smile had been the last time a prince had come to Winterfell to court her. Aegon was twice the man Joffrey would ever be, and if his sister was anything like the girl who had left Winterfell he could not imagine she would have any objections to being his brother’s queen.
It seemed that Sansa Stark would be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms after all. She wasn’t sure what to do with the letter that bore King Aegon’s stamp. Once she would kept it as a souvenir of their love. She would have been in love with Aegon Targaryen by now, that was for certain. She wouldn’t need to meet him to fall in love with him, nor would she need to know very much about him. That was the sort of fool she’d once been.
Now she was the sort of fool who let Littlefinger use her as his pawn.
She had her escape. It had been a glorious few months with King Rickon on the throne. She had been his regent, and Petyr Baelish could not touch her. But dragonfire had taken her home from her, and she was helpless yet again.
Sansa threw the letter in the fire.
“Should I start calling you Queen?” Myranda Royce asked.
Or rather Myranda Baelish, for she’d married the weasel. They made a good match, Sansa had decided at their wedding. She was sure Myranda was itching to read the letter, and that made Sansa all the happier she’d tossed it to the flames. Sansa wouldn’t have minded throwing Myranda into the fire along with her husband.
I’m becoming a Targaryen already, she thought with a sad smile.
“Soon enough,” Sansa said, sitting back down on the chairs before the fireplace. She loved her stitching, but she wished she was in King’s Landing to see this all settled herself. “But surely Lord Baelish has written you the news?” Sansa asked, knowing he hadn’t. Petyr had always been more interested in Sansa’s chambers than his wife’s, and she’d been the one who corresponded with him the most. “Jon Snow is to bring me to his king.”
“Lord Baelish has told me much of your bastard brother,” Myranda responded. “For all his talk, I thought for awhile my husband might wed you to him.”
At that Sansa laughed. Not only because that had been Lord Baelish’s insane plan for a fortnight, but because the idea of marrying Jon Snow was so very foolish. Anytime Petyr brought it up Sansa thought of her mother’s face, and how astonished she’d be. Not only at Sansa marrying the bastard, but at him turning out to be a Prince after all.
But that had been when Winterfell still stood, and Jon commanded Daenerys Targaryen’s armies. Now all of it was gone — her dragons, the wall, the night’s watch, her armies, and Daenerys herself. Littlefinger wanted to be the queen maker. To what end, she had never been entirely sure. Petyr valued her intelligence more than any man ever had, but he didn’t show anyone is hand.
If Sansa was to guess, it would be rather simple. She was to marry a man worth more than Littlefinger. Perhaps she would convince that man to make Petyr Hand of the King. Sansa was to give the King a son. And then tragedy would strike, as it so often did. Myranda was like to die alongside Aegon, or Harry, had that been the man Sansa wed. In the end, Sansa would remarry the man who had been there for her all along. Of one thing Sansa was absolutely sure — in the end, Petyr expected her to marry him for love. She never would, but neither was she sure she would betray him.
“So it’ll be Aegon then?” Myranda asked after a long silence.
“Yes,” Sansa replied.
“I’m still interested in this brother of yours. He seems to be quite the man. The son of Rhaegar Targaryen, raised as your bastard brother in the North, defeated an enemy nobody else believed was real, some say he killed Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons — and they say he’s a warg, too.”
Sansa had heard the same as well. It all seemed so preposterous. She thought back on their last day at Winterfell. She could not remember saying goodbye to Jon, or even thinking about him much at all. She never had.
“You’ll meet him soon enough. He’s apparently already left King’s Landing, and is coming here to deliver me to my new husband.”
The journey to the Eyrie was nothing short of ordinary, but every servant Jon came across was constantly concerned with how it was going. He was unused to being such an important person. In the Night’s Watch, he might’ve rose to Lord Commander but even at the top it had been a hard life. But now he was the brother of the King, and Lord Commander of his kingsguard. He wore a white cloak and not a black one.
The Lady of the Eyrie asked him how his trip had been. The highborn girl Lord Baelish had married seemed as concerned as the servants aboard the ship that brought him here. He wasn’t sure he would ever be used to being held in such high regard.
“How was the journey?” He was asked for the thousandth time.
“Swift,” Jon answered.
“You didn’t find the trip up the mountain burdensome?” Myranda Baelish asked.
Jon meant to answer, but out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman’s figure emerge. When he turned his head, there was Sansa.
They locked eyes for a moment, and Sansa hesitated. “My lord,” she finally said, bending at the knees to curtsy for him.
Jon was rendered speechless by the sight of her. She was the first of the Starks he’d seen since he’d left Winterfell and Uncle Benjen had disappeared. He had acquired a family, sure enough, but it wasn’t the same. They were not what he was used to, and they had an altogether different view of the world.
He noticed tears when he finally caught Sansa’s eye again. He opened his arms and she rushed into them, not caring that he was her least favourite brother or that Lady Baelish was behind them. She collapsed against his chest, holding him tightly.
“I missed you,” Sansa breathed against his neck, and despite himself Jon believed her.
“It’s good to see you,” Jon whispered back, and he wondered why he hadn’t searched her out sooner. She seemed to fit perfectly into his arms, the way no woman had before. Her cheek brushed against his as she pulled away. She stood before him for a moment, and Jon felt her eyes on him as his roamed her body.
“Perhaps we should take a walk around the godswood?” Sansa said. Jon nodded in agreement. “Thank you for waiting on my brother, Myranda.”
Sansa took him by the arm and led him out into the Godswood in silent. Jon was not nearly as foolish as the Targaryens liked to joke, and he took note of Sansa’s need to get him alone. He was not the one who’d come to court her, and she kept silent until they reached the godswood, so she must not trust Lady Baelish.
Jon had found it difficult to trust the Targaryen court as well, even though he had a duty to it. When he’d sworn his oaths, he assumed that Aegon was the last family Jon had left in the world. He’d heard that Winterfell had burned, and it’s inhabitants along with it. Perhaps things would have been different had he known that Sansa Stark had managed, once again, to flee to the safety of the Eyrie.
When they reached the godswood there was another moment of awkward silence, though this time there was nobody to blame it on but themselves.
Finally, Sansa smiled from ear to ear. “I scarcely recognized you. If you didn’t look so much like father, I would have thought you an imposter.” Sansa looked up at him from beneath dark eyelashes. “Do you find me much changed?” she asked.
Jon turned his head away from her, which was all he could do to stop from drowning in her deep blue eyes. The Eyrie’s godswood was missing a heart tree. It was nothing like the thickly forested godswood that had once stood at Winterfell, but the light shone down beautifully and illuminated Sansa’s face. When Sansa smiled, she was radiant. Her skin seemed to glow white, and in the bright light Sansa’s hair was as red as the leaves of a weirwood. Perhaps I should pray to her, Jon thought, suddenly feeling as though there was no air in his lungs.
“You’ve grown, but you look much the same,” Jon replied with a nod. If things had been different, maybe he would have complimented how beautiful she’d become. But now he would leave that to Aegon.
“What happened?” Sansa asked, running a finger along the scar on his face. Beneath her touch his jaw hardened and he was drawn into her eyes again. The intensity of her gaze was unexpected.
“An eagle.”
“An eagle?”
“He had a grudge.”
Sansa laughed and pulled her hand away. She began walking around the godswood once again. This time she didn’t take his arm, though Jon would not have minded if she did. It seemed quite natural to walk with her.
“I’m surprised you agreed to marry Aegon, I thought you’d want to rebuild Winterfell now that winter is passing,” Jon said. He had been thinking about his sister’s decision on his journey to the Eyrie.
“I was surprised when you joined his kingsguard,” Sansa countered.
“He’s my brother.”
“And you’re mine,” Sansa said, “aren’t you? The last brother I have left?”
“Not truly.”
“No, not truly. But father wanted us to think you were.”
There was a coldness in Sansa’s voice Jon recognized. In truth, the warmth she’d greeted him with was out of character for his sister. “I wanted to be,” Jon replied. He still did. Even with his brother on the iron throne, even after being embraced by the Targaryens, Jon Snow still wanted to be a Stark. His armour was emblazoned with the three headed dragon of House Targaryen, but it was the same armour every knight of the kingsguard wore.
“I went North once. I thought everything would be better once I’d gone home. I don’t have to tell you how terrible things went in King’s Landing, everyone knows by now. When I was younger, I always wanted there to be a song about me… but tragedy isn’t as romantic when it’s about your own life.” Sansa stopped and sighed. She reached her hand out and picked a blossom from an apple tree. She twirled the bloom in her hand. “Things were no better when I went North. I gained a brother I thought was dead and a home I thought was lost only to lose both in a fire.”
Sansa picked a petal off the flower and cast it aside. It caught in the wind behind her. She resumed walking. He let her set the pace.
“What’s he like?” Sansa asked at long last.
It took Jon a moment to remember that Sansa was to be married, and he had come all this way to bring her to his brother. She was to be the Queen, and he was a knight of the kingsguard.
“He’s a good man. I’m sure you’ll grow to love him.”
“He’s handsome,” Myranda commented. She did not have to say who it was she spoke of, Jon Snow was the only person Sansa had thought about all day. “Even with the scars. I’m surprised you didn’t say anything.”
There was a time where she and Myranda would spend hours discussing how handsome certain young men were, but that was when Myranda was unmarried and Sansa was still Alayne. Things had changed since then, and it had become clear that Sansa couldn’t trust her constant companion. Still, she might’ve mentioned that Jon Snow was handsome if she’d known. It had taken her by surprise as well.
“He’s my brother,” Sansa said, reminding herself that she was not a Targaryen, not yet, even if it turned out Jon was. Such thoughts were unnatural.
“But you have eyes.”
Sansa jabbed her needle through the cloth in her hand too roughly and pricked her thumb.
“And he’s only a cousin,” Myranda added, her eyes sparkling. Even after she’d married Petyr, Myranda liked to get Sansa into trouble.
“He’s a knight of the kingsguard,” Sansa protested. Myranda opened her mouth to speak and Sansa cut her off, “an honourable knight.”
“I’m sure,” Myranda agreed.
“And I’m to marry his brother,” Sansa added for good measure.
“You’re right. It’s a terrible idea, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
The journey south was remarkably easy. Sansa had become practiced at descending the Eyrie, and it amused her when she saw something resembling fear in the great Jon Snow’s eyes as they came down the mountain. Everyone in the Vale knew of her impending marriage to King Aegon, and they came out of their houses and stood along the road to wave at her and the hero who’d saved them all from eternal night. Some of them had grown to love her when she was still Alayne, and the rest had come to know her story once it turned out she was a princess of the North hiding in plain sight.
“Are they always like this?” Jon asked after the two of them had settled in an inn near the shore.
“The first time I came to the Eyrie I had to dye my hair black and put up with the advances of almost every man I came into contact with. Nobody knew who Alayne Stone was, and if they did, they wouldn’t have cared a bastard girl was coming to the Vale.”
“They’re always like this for Aegon.”
“And for you, I’d guess,” Sansa said, rolling her eyes. She wasn’t sure if her brother was being falsely modest, but it was not Aegon who had inspired the song who played in the pub below them now. The sound was muted through the ceiling, but she could hear it’s distinct melody.
“Once or twice the crowd’s been happy to see me,” Jon admitted, his face breaking out into a smile. It looked unusual on his face. It seemed Jon reserved his smiles for her, just like their father had seemed so solemn and serious to everyone outside their family.
“Well, it’s better than them turning on you,” Sansa said.
Jon nodded, his eyes filling with sorrow. “Aye,” he said.
Suddenly, Sansa remembered how the song that played on below them went. The cheerful beat and happy ending disguised tragedy. She averted her eyes, ashamed to have forgotten. It had filled her heart with grief when she’d first heard how her brother had been murdered. “I forgot, I’m sorry,” she said, feeling foolish. “I was thinking about King’s Landing. There wasn’t any bread and the crowd turned on us —”
“It’s okay, Sansa,” Jon said, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. “I’m not the only man in the Seven Kingdom’s to have faced a mutiny.”
Sansa laughed. Jon Snow was not funny, not properly, but sometimes the things he said deeply amused her. “The only one to have survived, though.”
“With the scars to prove it,” Jon agreed.
Sansa’s throat felt tight. Jon’s hand was still on hers. She stole a glance up into his eyes. His grey eyes were so dark they were almost black, but his gaze was soft. She’d wondered about those scars. Her own body had mostly healed, but there were still a few on her back. She had been beaten so many times in Joffrey’s court she wouldn’t be able to say which man had inflicted them on her. “Can I see them?” She asked.
Jon looked away too quickly and her stomach tensed.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s improper,” she said, her words coming out jumbled.
“No, it’s okay,” Jon said.
He wasn’t fully dressed, but he still wore much of his armour. His back was turned to her as unbuckled his armour and pulled his mail over his head and discarded it on her bed. She watched eagerly as he unbuttoned his shirt, tension coiling deep in her belly when it fell down and exposed his muscled back.
Jon was tall and lean, and his body was more muscled than she expected. She swallowed. He turned to her at long last, and her eyes widened at how dark the scars were, even after years. She knew how deep they must have gone, that they had killed him, but their presence seemed grotesque. Sansa felt a deep need to comfort him. She walked closer to him, and looked up into his eyes when she kissed him. She could feel the surprise on his lips, and feel it running down her own spine.
Breathless, she pulled away. She expected bewilderment on his face, but she saw a sheepish grin instead. His hands encircled her waist and he pulled her close to him, kissing her again. A thrill ran through her as she felt his strength.
The outside world faded away as she ran her hands up his chest. They were only two bodies who had survived the worst the world could throw at them, hoping that in each other's flesh they could be reminded of a time before everything hurt.
Jon’s lips ran down her neck. He buried his head in her hair. His hands fell to her ass and he pulled her close to him. Through her dress and his breeches she could feel him hard against her.
“I have scars too,” Sansa breathed into his ear. “I’ll show you.”
Only when Jon released her did Sansa become aware how tightly he’d been holding onto her, and how safe she felt in his arms.
This time neither of them turned away. Sansa had never undressed for a man before. She was no maid, but every man who came before had ripped her clothes from her body. Sansa unhooked the direwolf pin that held her dress together and pushed it off her shoulders.
“Help me,” she commanded once she was in her small clothes, steel in her voice. She turned her back now finally, and sucked in a breath. Jon’s hands were gentle with her hair as he swept it over her shoulder. He kissed her neck again, his fingers starting to unlace her corset. His fingers were clumsy, but finally it came undone and fell to the floor. Her hands came up to cover her breasts instinctually, but unlike Petyr or Tyrion, Jon did not remove them for her. Instead he looked at her scars in the candlelight, tracing a finger against one of them.
Moments passed, and Sansa turned to him. His gaze was no longer soft. Sansa was almost afraid when she dropped her hands and bared her breasts. But she wanted him to devour her.
His eyes dropped and he stared at her for a long time. Every second she waited was agony. Finally she stepped towards him again, pressing her lips to his, but this time he did not kiss her back. She pulled away and looked at him, confused.
“We can’t,” he said, and the spell was broken.
All of King’s Landing gathered at the shore as Jon helped Sansa off the boat. No matter what she might have said, Jon knew it was her for whom they cheered. She was to be their queen, and they loved her already. She squeezed his hand apprehensively as she climbed off the boat onto the dock. Aegon was waiting with the full regalia. She looked back at him for a moment before she went to greet the man she was to wed. It hurt his heart to give her away, but what were they to do? Cling to each other and run away?
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Jon heard Aegon say, before it all faded away.
The scene was like something out of a song. Sansa curtseyed, Aegon took her hand in his and kissed it for everyone to see. His brother marked Sansa as his, and within a fortnight the two of them were wed before even more cheering crowds. That Jon loved her would have been plain for anyone who looked upon his face to see, but nobody did and their secret was lost to time.