Chapter Text
Trusting Tyrion had been a mistake. Far from his first, just one among many. Late at night, when Jon lies alone on his unforgiving mattress longing for a sleep that continues to evade him, he wishes his mistakes were material things so that he might build a pyre with them and set himself alight. Would he burn? He flexes his scarred hand. The Stark part of him would, but would the dragon? He doesn’t know.
In those first years after the Great Burning, held hostage in a decimated Red Keep, he would return to the thought eagerly. Over time, however, his mind has worked it like a river stone smoothed by the relentless current; its comfort now solely derived from the familiarity of the ritual. There is no absolution in fire. Nearly a decade at Daenerys’ side has taught him that, if nothing else. There is, however, a type of twisted redemption in the prison he’s built for himself over time. A new bar having been erected at every fork where he’d chosen to follow the wrong path. Misstep after misstep for which countless others had borne the true consequences. Bars that keep him caged in a nest of vipers when he would rather be in a den of wolves. He may be named Aegon Targaryen, but he’s a Northern fool through and through.
The years have been unkind enough to him that he can now acknowledge without shame that he should have killed Daenerys long before the siege on King’s Landing. Notions of honour and duty and oaths mean little when standing in the Dragonpit; when your nose is full of the acrid smell of burning flesh. They do not resonate the way that Dracarys does. While he can’t see anything past the walls of the Red Keep from his apartments, he knows that the charred remains of the city lie beyond them. The repairs are still ongoing, progress having slowed to a trickle by the reallocation of what little gold the Crown has to other more pressing causes over the years. The bodies have been cleared, of course, but the burnt-out husks of buildings stand like mausoleums, a lasting testament to Queen Daenerys’ mercy. A reminder of his folly in thinking that he could control the better angels of her nature. One that is as indelible as the scars on his own body.
On that harrowing day, after pulling his own men off innocent men, women, and children alike, any doubts he might have had hardened into convictions. So he’d walked to the keep – to Tyrion – his boots stained with the blood of slain, surrendered, Lannister soldiers, leaving bloodied footprints in the ash. They had unleashed a dragon upon Westeros and they must now right what they’d set wrong. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Ned Stark may not have sired him, but he had raised him and taught him important truths. Like every Stark man who’d travelled South before him, however, Jon had been unprepared for the game. Maybe if he’d spent less time arguing with Sansa and more time watching her, learning from her, he might have been able to predict that Tyrion would trade Jon’s trust in him for shackles. Jon had been chained, helpless before he’d even had a chance to act, courtesy of Tyrion’s ambition and eye for opportunity.
He’d had no other option but to sit idly by, waiting for scraps of information, and praying that the worst had not come to pass. He’d gleaned from the whispers of servants that Tyrion had been using his renewed sway over Daenerys to convince her to forgo her wars and instead focus on King’s Landing, on rebuilding and solidifying her rule. At least the rest of Westeros might be spared, he’d thought. But the North had refused to rest. As the moons had waxed and waned, word had reached Daenerys that the remaining Starks intended to march south and bring their missing wolf home, so he had offered the only thing he had left.
“Marry me,” he’d rasped to her on one of her visits to his prison cell. Daenerys had laughed, a sound he would have once thought of as girlish, but now only sounded hollow.
“You must be joking,” she’d said, the bells in her hair tinkling gently as she shook her head in disbelief.
“They come for me because they think I’m here against my will.”
“Then let them come,” she’d scoffed. “After all that you have done, you cannot believe that I would set you free.”
But Sansa commanded the North. The Vale, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands would likely declare for her. Dorne and the Iron Islands were teetering on the knife’s edge of independence and there was no guarantee that they would fight for Daenerys. The Dothraki were decimated and the Unsullied ever dwindling. It was a war she would lose and so he told her so.
Her gaze had been almost pitiful. “I have Drogon. That is all the army I need.”
“Aye and then you will truly rule a court of bones. Westeros is half ash already, it won’t survive more war. You know that, Tyrion’s been telling you as much since you first locked me away.”
She had stilled then, as though waiting for him to continue, and he had thanked the Old Gods and the New that she seemed to hear him.
“I’m not asking for freedom. I’m suggesting a different kind of imprisonment. Marry me and I will renounce my claim in front of all the Westerosi lords. You can keep me for as long as it pleases you and I can write to my sisters of the marriage, to tell them that I proposed it, that I love you, and that we will found a new Targaryen dynasty together.”
He’d managed to continue despite the bile rising in his throat.
“If I tell them that I know the truth of who I am now – that I am a Targaryen and I have chosen my side – they’ll never come for me.”
Daenerys had raised an elegant silver brow. “And why should they believe you?”
“Sansa already believes it. She saw my weakness from the start,” he’d all but whispered. The truth of his words had stung worse than any blade. “Give her the North; you’ve no love for it anyway. Give her the North and she won’t ever have cause to rise against you.”
Tyrion had emerged from the dark hall, ever in Daenerys’ shadow.
“He isn’t wrong Your Grace; it is an idea worth considering. We could have peace.”
“Peace,” Daenerys had sneered, “at the expense of my sovereignty. Why should I reward Sansa Stark for being the architect of all the difficulties I have faced in Westeros? She has not bled for the realm as I have. She has not sacrificed her children for it! Why should she get to claim half a kingdom that is mine by right?”
Jon had been unable to do anything other than clench his sword hand impotently by his side. Daenerys’ arrogant assumption that Sansa had not sacrificed for the North filling him with rage. She knew nothing of the battles his cousin had fought. Still, he had known that his anger would only harm any chance he might have had to convince her, so he had stayed silent.
Once again, he’d been forced to stand by as Tyrion had whispered in Daenerys’ ear; sweet nothings about how giving Sansa the North would allow them to focus on Dorne’s flagging loyalty. Dorne, which was a much better prospect for trade and had full coffers, unlike the North whose people were struggling just to survive the winter. Let them gain their independence, he’d said, the winter will wither them away and then they’ll come begging on their knees for the Queen’s mercy. Watching Tyrion so easily spin half-truths into facts had made Jon wonder if the man had ever believed in his Queen’s cause or if he’d only ever seen her as a rung on the ladder to power. It had reminded him of the way Littlefinger used to haunt Sansa’s every step and his heart had clenched at the thought of never seeing her, or any of his family, again.
At the time he’d truly believed that the faces of his family, looking on as he dutifully marched south, would be the last memory he’d have of them. He couldn’t have known that within the year he would be back in Winterfell, if only for a short time.
Daenerys had walked over to where Jon was chained to the floor. Next to her fine gown and perfumed hair, he must have looked as wretched as he felt.
“And you sweet husband? How do I know that you won’t turn to treason again once my back is turned?”
Jon had stared into her eerie purple eyes, trying to communicate his earnestness through gaze alone.
“I have no care for my own life, but I will never do anything to endanger my family.”
“Alright, I agree to your proposal. I will keep you and Sansa can keep the North.” She’d knelt next to him, grabbing his chin in one hand and forcing him to look at her predatory smile. “But know, Aegon, that her heirs will be mine. Any child born to Sansa Stark will be brought to live within my walls, under my rule, and when she dies, they will guard the North as one of the seven kingdoms once again.”
He’d only agreed to Daenerys’ horrid proposition because he knew Sansa would never marry again, she had told him as much herself. If she never married, she would never have any heirs of her own. Bran would be left to carry on the Stark name and Daenerys hadn’t said a word about Bran’s heirs. He’d thought that he was being clever. Another mistake.
Because Sansa had had an heir. A boy named Robb, the scroll had said, and his heart had swelled. Sansa deserved this joy. She deserved everything after her idiot cousin had almost destroyed any possibility of happiness for her. The scroll had arrived over a year after he’d last left Winterfell and he’d kept it with him since, if only because it had been written in her hand. It was also the last letter he’d received from her. Arya and Bran, however, continue to write and he scans their letters eagerly for any information about little Robb. Even Sam and Davos mention the boy on occasion. They describe how, despite his Stark looks, the boy is all delight and laughter. That he shares not a shred of the Stark seriousness exhibited by his other family members. They write about how they will protect that joy and ensure that he will not be thrust into adulthood early as they were.
Jon stares guiltily at the locked desk drawer where he keeps these letters. He’s never told any of them about Daenerys’ decree. In truth, he had forgotten. It had seemed for a time that Daenerys had as well.
She’d once thought herself barren, but after she’d given birth to their daughter, she finally had the heir that she’d so desperately wanted. It had seemed then that there would be no more need to take Sansa’s. Jon remembers the disgust he’d felt when he’d first learned of Daenerys’ condition. He would never have lain with his aunt if he’d thought there could be the possibility of a child. Despite his misgivings, their daughter had turned out hale and hearty and whole and he’d loved her from the very first moment he’d laid eyes on her. Daenerys had informed him that the babe was to be named Alysanne, after the Good Queen and after the daughter of Aegon the Unworthy. The slight had not been lost on him. Alysanne was, by all accounts, Robb’s opposite in both looks and temperament. She looked the spitting image of her mother, but was reserved and solemn like her father. And now, he sighs, they are to be betrothed.
He sinks further into his chair, still recovering from the abruptness of his conversation with Daenerys.
“Our daughter will need to marry soon.”
Jon hadn’t even fully stepped into her solar and she spoke so swiftly – not even glancing up from her correspondence – that he almost stumbled across the threshold.
“What? She’s only nine years of age, Daenerys!”
“Yes and these things take time,” she had replied, as though speaking to a child. “I was only three and ten when I married. We must make arrangements.”
“Why must she marry at all? You became queen with no husband. You could make the same possible for her.”
She had sighed and pressed her fingers into the sides of her temples.
“If Sansa had not been so scornful, I might have preferred marrying her. At least then there would be no need for such relentlessly dull conversations. I suppose that this is why we are both queens and you are only my consort.”
That had stung. Jon knows he isn’t as adept at the game as his wife or cousin. Nonetheless, Sansa had at least made him feel like he’d had the potential, like he wasn’t a complete failure as King in the North. But then again, his honour and bad judgement let King’s Landing burn, his failed battle plans resulted in the death of thousands at Winterfell, and Sansa hasn’t spoken to him in almost a decade. Perhaps Daenerys is right. Faced with the demons of his past, he certainly feels like an utter fool. Maybe Sansa had only been humouring him all along.
Daenerys had risen then, silver curls tumbling over her shoulders. “Yes, I became queen by right of birth and by conquest, but even I had to marry you for political gain. Our daughter will be queen after me, but any man she marries will seek to advance his own power by way of her name and her claim. We must ensure that does not happen.”
She’d looked to him and bared her teeth, more weapon than smile. “That is why I have decided that Alysanne will marry Robb Stark. Your cousin is hateful, but she is also clever. She wants her son and the North to survive and she will ensure that Robb never has any designs on wresting the throne from our daughter.”
“You would ask Sansa to send her only child South? To give up her heir and the North both? You cannot be serious!” He’d gaped at her.
“She has a brother and sister, does she not?” she’d asked, seeming wholly unbothered by his concerns. “There will be other heirs if she does not have more herself. I trust that she will see this for the peace offering that it is intended as.”
“And you would have our daughter marry a bastard?”
Daenerys had laughed humourlessly. “You are the last person I would expect to disapprove of a match based on someone’s baseborn status! Besides, he has been legitimized by your Queen in the North. I can think of no better match for Alysanne.”
Before he could respond, she had held up a sun-kissed hand. “I will brook no arguments on this, Aegon. It is done. I have already written to Sansa and she will arrive at court in a fortnight hence.”
He sighs and pushes himself up out of his seat. It’s time to greet his cousin.
******
Sansa stands before him, looking more beautiful than he remembers. Her long copper hair hangs free and a small band of twin direwolves sits atop her head. A gesture of defiance, no doubt. She’s wearing a dress of the palest blue with some kind of beading along the leather bodice that makes it sparkle. Even in the sweltering heat of King’s Landing, the effect brings to mind freshly fallen snow. Made even more luminous by the dress, her blue eyes are like beacons from below the dais. Sansa. Jon exhales a breath he’s been holding for over nine years.
She faces Daenerys and drops into a curtsy. “Your Grace,” she says, voice strong and clear. Her dress rustles like the leaves of a weirwood tree when she turns to him and nods. “Prince consort.” She lifts her eyes to his and he eagerly scans her face. She looks so young and it strikes him that she cannot be more than nine and twenty. They’ve lived through so much that he forgets how young they all are. He’s certain that he looks nowhere near as good as she does, though. The years have left him battle-worn and, never having taken to court life, his outfit is plain and black. He knows the lords and ladies at court gossip about his lack of kingly bearing, but he can’t find it in his heart to care. It is so difficult to care about anything these days. For Sansa, however, the years have only served to refine her beauty. Framed by the soft light filtering through the stained glass windows, she looks every inch a queen.
He thinks back to their first reunion at Castle Black and aches to rush to her again, to hold her in his arms and be enveloped by her warmth and the rosemary citrus smell of her hair. He had always found the hot and humid air of King’s Landing to be stifling, especially once summer had set in. Now he wonders if he’s ever actually ever known true warmth since leaving Winterfell.
“We are honoured to receive you at court Lady Stark, especially for such a joyous occasion!” Even now, Daenerys stubbornly refuses to use Sansa’s rightful title.
Sansa holds his gaze for a long moment and then turns back to Daenerys.
“Indeed,” she offers with a smile. “I am grateful for your tremendous hospitality.”
“The journey here was no doubt a long one. I hope you will find your quarters well appointed. I look forward to seeing you at the feast tomorrow.” A dark-eyed and dark-skinned handmaid emerges, as if from thin air, in response to a gesture from Daenerys.
All the Dothraki handmaids that Daenerys had brought with her from Essos now wear the same style of hair and dress that Missandei once did. Tyrion and Jon had shared a troubled look when that had first begun, but Daenerys never grew close to any of them. Preferring to be surrounded by ghosts. Occasionally, he sees Grey Worm stare in shock at the retreating form of one as she slips around a corner. Inevitably, his face crumples in pain when he realizes his mistake. Daenerys has found a way to punish all of them, it seems, although he can no longer remember for what crimes. But she stares after them too and perhaps the only person she seeks to punish is herself.
“Narri will lead you to your chambers,” Daenerys continues.
Sansa curtsies low, looking for all the world like a woman who is charmed to be here. He had judged her harshly for it before, but now he knows enough to envy her courtesies, her skill at the game. If he’d been better at it – if he’d listened to her – things might have been different. They might not be standing in a city half-risen from ashes.
“Thank you for your kindness, Your Grace.” With that, she turns to leave the throne room. Jon watches her until her hair disappears down the hallway like a flame snuffed out.
******
As they have since he first moved into the apartments above the kitchens, the noises of the servants readying for the day wake him before the light of dawn has even thought to crest over the horizon. He wearily pulls on a pair of fresh breeches and a tunic and heads over to his basin to wash.
There are no guards posted outside his chambers, not anymore, so when a knock sounds on his door, it falls to him alone to answer. Jon can’t imagine who would be seeking an audience with him; he isn’t exactly popular at court and certainly, no one has ever needed him urgently enough to find him this early in the morning. He quickly dries his face and shrugs on a jerkin before answering.
Jaime, in his full Queensguard armour, greets him on the other side. A pale brow raised, he sizes Jon up and clearly finds him wanting. Jon imagines that Jaime must once have walked the halls of the Red Keep looking like a golden god, but now he just looks tired. He wonders if Cersei’s ghost dogs Jaime’s steps the way that Ned and Rickon and Ygritte haunt him. Reminders of failings past.
Jon himself had once thought Jaime to be a ghost. He’d been shocked half to death to find the man at Sansa’s side when he’d returned again to Winterfell, all those years ago. While they’d never been able to find the body of their prisoner, Tyrion had tearfully presented Daenerys with Jaime’s golden hand, proof that his brother had died an undignified death in the chaos of the siege. She had melted it down into the crown that now sits upon her head. But Tyrion had lied. He’d released his brother, but only once he’d been certain that Cersei had died. Tyrion had done it to save his life, Jaime had said. But Jon knows something of the desperation a man feels when he is in chains, watching everything he holds dear slip through his fingers. He knows that it is no mercy and it’s plain to see now on Jaime’s face.
Jon had been happy to see the man alive, but Daenerys had been absolutely livid when she eventually learned the truth of Tyrion’s deception. So much so that she’d had him imprisoned in the dungeons for the better part of two moons. Jon would be lying if he denied feeling a perverse sort of pleasure when he visited the man’s cell. But, somehow, Tyrion managed to escape the Dragonpit. Though Daenerys and her Hand despise each other, neither seems to be able to survive without the other. Despite all odds, Jon, Tyrion, and Jaime keep cheating death, though none of them appears entirely sure whether it’s a fate they should be pleased with.
“Your sister, the Queen, would like a word with you in the godswood.”
“My cousin, you mean?”
Jaime smiles and it is not kind.
“Yes, your cousin.”
Jon feels like he’s answered a question he didn’t know he was being asked. His frown deepens when no further explanation is given.
“What would she want with me at this hour and in the godswood, no less?” Even as these skeptical words leave his mouth, he’s lacing up his jerkin, prepared to travel anywhere that Sansa asks.
“I do not presume to know the inner workings of my Queen’s mind,” the knight replies derisively.
“Last we met, you were much less sullen,” Jon remarks.
“Last we met, I was in the North and, if you don’t mind, I’d like to return there before I turn to dust.”
Jon sighs, as Jaime impatiently gestures down the hall with his substitute iron hand.
“Wouldn’t we all.”
******
The godswood rises in front of Jon, looking as incongruous as ever amongst the stench and filth of King’s Landing. Sansa stands at the entrance, conversing quietly with Brienne. Her hair is loose again today, but the circlet is missing. Long strands dance lightly in the gentle breeze, the scant rays of the rising sun making them gleam. She’s wearing a gray silk dress and when he draws nearer he can see that black and white embroidered direwolves dance up the skirts and bodice. Red beads sewn in where their eyes should be. He sucks in a breath. She couldn’t have possibly worn it for him, but he remembers that she wore a very similar gown when they’d last said their goodbyes. It had been heavier than this one, clearly made to withstand the winter cold, but the effect was the same.
“Sansa,” he whispers, soft as a prayer. He’s momentarily blinded by the full force of her brilliant smile. Gone is the inscrutable mask from yesterday in the throne room. Her face is as open and joyful as the Sansa he remembers. A Sansa that a precious few ever got to see. His Sansa.
In an instant, she flies towards him. His arms open instinctively and she rushes into him with the force of a wave cresting off the coast of Dragonstone. Fitting then that he clutches at her like a drowning man. The scent and feel of her, all of it is exactly as he remembers. In the ashes of his breast, he feels something he long thought dead, an ember, burning brighter. She runs her fingers through his hair, carelessly freeing it of its leather tie. Gods, he could stay here forever, but then his eyes land on Jaime and Brienne, who are exchanging a disapproving look. Unsure of what he’s done to slight them, he regretfully withdraws from the sweetness of Sansa’s embrace.
She places a hand over his heart. “Oh, Jon.” Her voice rings in his ears, a siren song that he had tried in vain to forget. “Or is it Aegon here?” He takes her delicate hand in his rough ones. “Not to you, never to you.” He searches her blue eyes for some confirmation that she has understood his true meaning. Aegon is a lie, a shackle that keeps him prisoner to a duty he’d never wanted, but a punishment he deserves. He will only ever be Jon to his true family, to the people he loves, and neither time nor geography can change that. Sansa gives him a look so pleased and tender that he cradles her face in his palms and presses a kiss to her forehead so that she might not see how affected he is.
“Your hair has gotten long,” she observes.
“Aye, it has.”
“And you look old.”
He laughs. “Aye, I do.”
“And me?”
“You look as beautiful as ever, as I’m sure you well know.” That earns him a coy smile.
“Come, I have a friend that you will want to meet.” She takes his arm and leads him deeper into the godswood, where Brienne and Jaime do not follow. When they reach the heart tree, Jon is bowled over by a blur of white. “Ghost!” He laughs, as the direwolf pins him to the dirt and licks his face. Eventually, he sits up and scratches the fur behind his wolf’s remaining ear. Sansa laughs brightly and his heart feels full to bursting. When he’d departed Winterfell again after his brief return, he had left Ghost with Sansa, as much for her benefit as his own. A direwolf would surely wilt in the festering South and he wanted him as far away from Drogon as possible. He’d also felt better leaving some tangible part of himself with Sansa, telling himself that she wouldn’t forget him as long as Ghost was there. In truth, Ghost has only ever been a dream away. Whenever he’s overcome with longing for Winterfell, he lays his head down and closes his eyes only to open them again as Ghost’s. These strange dreams leave him with only vague memories of warmth, of ravens and the forest, and of copper hair, but it is enough to settle him.
Sansa walks over and helps Jon to rise. Ghost dutifully returns to her side and she sinks her hand into his white fur. “You should see Robb and him. There are no truer friends.” She stares off at the direwolf as he trots after the sound of some small game.
Jon’s eyes snap to hers. Other than to report on his birth, they’ve never spoken about her son. He assumes that Sansa wishes for it to be so and that she has some reason, as she does with everything. Her face, however, is warm and open so he risks a question.
“How is he?”
“Gods, he’s nearly perfect in every way. He has the best of all of us, Jon, truly. He is everything we could have been if life had been a little kinder.”
He knows he could ask, should ask, the question that plagues him and the one he knows he does not want answered. The question of Robb’s father. Jon isn’t sure what would displease him more, that Sansa was dishonoured by some man who disappeared or that she has some wildling lover waiting at home. A stranger sitting with her in the Great Hall, watching her smile at the small folk during their petitioning, unpinning her hair at night, sleeping in her furs.
Instead, he asks, “And Bran?”
“Bran is ruling in my stead. He still isn’t ... as he was, but since the Night King was slain, he returns to us little by little.”
Jon knows this to be true. His correspondence with Bran is the most consistent and, gradually, the content of his letters have contained more and more of Bran’s sense of humour and wonder. It makes Jon think of the little boy who’d fearlessly clambered up every wall at Winterfell, despite Lady Catelyn’s warnings. Miles away from the emotionless void of a man that he had returned to after he’d made such a mess of things at Dragonstone.
“I haven’t heard from Arya in some time, have you?”
“Yes, she’s just been kept busy. Settling into Storm’s End has been trying for her. You know Arya.” She shakes her head fondly. “She’s never had the temperament for being a lady and Gendry has been away often, working hard to earn the respect of the lords.”
She comes closer, smoothing the folded edge of his jerkin. “She is actually back at Winterfell now. She wanted to be with family for the birth of her child. The maesters think it will be a boy.”
Jon’s eyes widen. “She’s with child? How did I not know?”
The corner of her mouth quirks upwards. “Well, she was waiting to tell you herself, but we know how I am with secrets.”
“Aye, we do,” he says, but his smile is tender. Confronted with her like this, he can’t deny how desperately he’s missed her. He knows he shouldn’t, but in the quiet of the godswood, he feels like he’s back in Winterfell, alone with Sansa. He steps into the cradle of her skirts and traces an embroidered wolf across her hip.
“Direwolves and Targaryen colours. I’m no lady, Sansa, but even I know some might consider this scandalous.” He continues tracing along her gown, along the edge of her collar. Her cheeks are a pretty shade of pink and he feels her breath puffing against his lips. He’s reminded of an argument in a tent where he’d felt too much, of a dance at a feast where he’d loved too fiercely, and of a warm, dark room where he’d offered everything and nothing. “Are you staking a claim, Sansa Stark?”
She meets his gaze and her eyes are dark, blazing. “I think we both know I already have.”
Yes, he knows all too well. The memories have haunted him for years. He skates his fingers over the curve of her cheeks and the line of her jaw. He grips her chin so that the pad of his thumb rests on her full lower lip.
“Then why wear it? Why risk it?”
He feels her reply beneath his fingertip. “I needed you to remember that you love me.” Her eyes drift down to his mouth and back.
He all but growls, “Sansa, if I could forget, we’d both be leading simpler lives.”
Slowly, so slowly, he leans towards her and kisses her as though she might fly away if he asks for too much. After all this time, he thought that he might have forgotten what she felt like, tasted like, but kissing her is like waking from a long sleep to discover that nothing has changed at all. Her nails scrape against the nape of his neck and she returns the kiss eagerly, opening her mouth to him. He pulls her hips against his, pressing into her skirts, and groans into her mouth. Suddenly, her mouth is gone and she leans her forehead against his. He makes to chase after her lips, but she interrupts.
“We have to be smart, Jon. We both know what happens to Starks who go South.”
He nuzzles at the crook of her neck and she leans her head back, offering him the pale column of her throat. Between kisses, he replies, “Aye, they become Targaryens.”
She hums, the skin of her throat vibrating against his lips. “Be serious, Jon. I doubt Daenerys will be as willing to share a husband as her ancestors were.”
“Hm you’re right I’m sure,” he acquiesces. “You always were about everything. It used to make me so bloody mad. How clever and lovely and right you were.”
Despite her earlier protest, Sansa’s nimble fingers are making quick work of the laces on his jerkin.
“You know, half those things I said were only to get a rise out of you. You were always off brooding, but when I made you mad, a flush would spread up your neck and you’d have this little pout,” she confesses. “Of course at the time, I didn’t understand why it appealed to me so much. It all seems rather obvious in hindsight.”
Her intrepid fingers push his jerkin up and over his shoulders and untuck his tunic so that they might travel up the hard planes of his stomach. “I wonder at the paths our lives might have taken if we had figured out then how enjoyable the after part could be.”
Her fingers scrape up his chest, over a nipple, and he sucks in a breath. He pulls her close again and reaches around to attempt to undo the laces of her gown, grateful for the lack of the leather armour today.
“I suppose we could always ask Bran.”
“There’s a terrifying thought,” she huffs.
He laughs and hazards, “The Northern lords probably wouldn’t have crowned a sisterfucker for one.”
The neck of her dress is now loose enough that he can see her fine linen shift and the tops of her breasts. He pulls the material to the side, kissing along her collarbone.
“The six kingdoms still crowned an auntfucker.”
“Careful,” he warns, smiling into her skin. He rewards her cheek with a slight nip to the rounded flesh of her shoulder.
“And besides, I’m no king.”
She sighs and steps back again, placing a hand between them. She looks perfectly wanton standing in front of him. Her hair is mussed, her lips swollen, and her beautiful gown hangs loose in the bodice, the material wrinkled from where he’d been fisting it. His hardness chafes against the constraints of his breeches. He would take her right here if he could, but he’ll never take what isn’t freely offered.
“Believe me, I want this, I do! I have thought about it since you left me last, but I came here with a purpose. This marriage between our children cannot happen, Jon, and I won’t leave until the matter is settled.”
He scrubs a hand over his beard.
“Seven Hells, Sansa, could this not have waited for a time when I’m not as hard as Valyrian steel?”
Blushing profusely, she stammers, “Yes, well I, I didn’t anticipate this happening so soon!”
Jon makes to step towards her, voice low. “But you did anticipate it happening eventually.”
“Jon!”
He groans and grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes. Gods, she’ll be the death of him.
“I apologize, Sansa, I’m listening.”
“Robb is too young and this betrothal is premature. My son hasn’t even celebrated his ninth name day and she presumes to marry him off?”
“Aye and Alysanne only celebrated hers half a year ago. I too disagree with the hastiness of this match, but Daenerys is determined to see this through.”
“More like she has finally discovered a way to bring me to heel,” Sansa retorts.
He attempts to placate her by acknowledging the truth of her statement, but she interrupts him.
“She would take my son, Jon, my only child! She would steal my heir to force the North to kneel,” she says wildly.
“Yes, that’s no small part, but I do believe that she also genuinely thinks this to be an advantageous match for them both. She has made up her mind on the matter and refuses to see reason.”
“Then you must make her see reason!”
“Sansa, I know this is far from ideal, but if we don’t have a compelling argument then – “
“They aren’t cousins!”
The echo of her outburst hangs in the air, heavy with implications. She looks at him and continues more gently, “Our children are not cousins, Jon, they are siblings.”
Suddenly, Jon’s heart feels like it might burst out of his chest. He doesn’t understand what any of this means, but he feels breathless and wild. Sansa reaches into a panel sewn into the inside of her gown and hands him something. Jon stares down at the miniature of a young boy. His long Stark face is framed with dark auburn curls, but instead of Tully-blue eyes, like those of his namesake, his are a deep, dark brown. Jon ghosts a finger over the painting. Robb. He’s never seen the boy before now.
Sansa must have sidled up to him during his inspection, as she now tenderly grasps his wrist.
“They say he looks like Ned Stark, but a mother knows. He looks like his father, he looks like you.”
Jon experiences the sensation of falling from a great height, grasping for anything to slow his descent. He’s struggling to make sense of Sansa’s confession. It still seems so impossible.
And yet.
And yet.