Pain was the only clock Jon Snow had these days. It ticked in the throb of his ribs and tocked in the grinding ache of his shoulder, measuring the hours of the night in jagged increments.
He lay still in the darkness, the heavy velvet curtains drawn tight against the moon. The air in the Tower of the Hand was stale, sulfurous tang of the creature sleeping on his chest.
RedHeart was a dead weight of heat. She had burrowed beneath the linen shift Jon wore, her scaled belly pressed directly against his skin, right over his sternum. Her heat was impossible, a fever that should have killed him, a fire that should have turned his flesh to ash. Instead, it seeped into him, knitting his broken bones with a warmth that felt like a memory of summer.
Jon shifted his leg, and the dragon let out a low, grumbling vibration against his ribs. Greedy thing, he thought, though his hand moved instinctively to shield her small body through the blanket.
He was drifting in that grey space between waking and sleeping when the silence changed.
Jon's eyes snapped open. He didn't move; moving meant pain, and pain meant slowness. He kept his breathing shallow, his hand sliding imperceptibly under the pillow until his fingers brushed the cold steel of the fruit knife he had stolen from his dinner tray.
The door was locked. Jory Cassel was posted outside, along with Hullen. No one could get in without the heavy oak protesting on its iron hinges, without the guards challenging them.
And yet, someone was inside.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper darkness near the wardrobe.
Jon gripped the knife. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat that woke the dragon.
RedHeart shifted. Her claws pricked his chest. A tiny plume of smoke, invisible in the dark but acrid in Jon's nose, drifted up from beneath the sheets.
The shadow stopped at the foot of the bed.
"You are awake," a voice whispered. It was soft, melodic, and terrifyingly familiar.
Jon pushed himself up on his good elbow, the knife flashing in the gloom. "Stay back."
The figure lowered the hood of her cloak. Moonlight bled through the crack in the curtains, cutting a sliver across her face. High cheekbones, olive skin, and eyes that caught the scant light and swallowed it whole. Purple. Deep, impossible purple.
The woman who called him little brother.
"How did you get in?" Jon demanded, his voice a rough rasp. "The door is bolted. The guards..."
"Men see what they expect to see," she said, her voice a ghost of a whisper. "And they hear only what is loud. I am neither."
She took a step closer. Jon tensed, ready to shout for Jory, ready to drive the small knife into the dark if she threatened him. He didn't know who she was. Ashara Dayne's daughter? A Martell bastard? A assassin sent by the Queen to finish what the Mountain had started?
But she wasn't looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on the lump beneath the blankets on Jon's chest.
"So it's true!" she breathed.
RedHeart began to growl.
It was the same sound she made when Ghost got too close, a wet, rattling hiss that promised violence. The dragon hated strangers. She hated Arya's pokes; she hated the servants who brought the chamber pots.
Jon felt the heat spike against his skin. The dragon was preparing to strike.
"Don't come closer," Jon warned, his grip on the knife tightening. "She bites."
The woman ignored him. She moved to the side of the bed, her movements slow now, almost reverent. She looked at the shifting wool as if it hid the holiest relic of the Seven.
"Show me," she whispered. "Please."
Jon hesitated. He should call the guards. But he still wanted to know why she called him Little Brother.
He pulled back the blanket.
RedHeart was coiled like a snake, black scales drinking the shadows. The red veins along her wings pulsed with agitated light. She opened her mouth, revealing the furnace-glow of her throat, and hissed, a plume of grey smoke rolling over her teeth.
The woman didn't flinch. She didn't recoil as Arya had. She didn't gasp in horror.
She smiled.
Tears spilled over her lashes, tracking silver paths down her cheeks. " Zaldrīzes," she whispered. The word sounded like crackling embers.
RedHeart stopped hissing.
The dragon cocked her head, the golden slit of her eye widening. She tasted the air with a forked tongue, sampling the scent of the room, the scent of the woman.
Jon watched, stunned, as the tension drained out of the creature's small body. The intense, burning heat that usually spiked with her aggression cooled to a steady, rhythmic warmth.
The woman reached out a hand.
"No," Jon said sharply, remembering how RedHeart had nearly taken Arya's finger. "She'll—"
The woman's hand hovered inches from the black snout. Her palm was open, her fingers still.
RedHeart stretched her neck out. She sniffed the woman's fingertips.
Then, impossible as snow in summer, the dragon chirped. It was a high, trilling sound, welcoming and curious. RedHeart nudged her snout against the woman's palm, closing her eyes as she leaned into the touch.
The woman let out a sob that she quickly stifled with her other hand. She stroked the dragon's head, her fingers tracing the ridges of the eye sockets, the sweep of the tiny horns.
"You did it," she whispered, looking from the dragon to Jon. Her eyes were burning like purple flames in the dark. "You actually did it. After all this time... fire made flesh."
Jon lowered the knife. His heart was beating slow and heavy now, weighed down by a realization he didn't want to name.
Arya had the blood of the First Men, the blood of kings of winter, and RedHeart had tried to bite her. This woman, this stranger who moved like a shadow... the dragon knew her. The dragon accepted her.
Blood recognizes blood, Jon thought, the realization cold as ice in his stomach.
"Who are you?" Jon asked into the silence, and this time, he knew he wouldn't accept a riddle for an answer.
The woman looked up from the dragon, her hand still cupping the creature's jaw.
"I told you," she said softly, her purple eyes locking onto his. "I am your sister."
RedHeart purred, the sound vibrating through the mattress, through the woman's hand, and straight into Jon's bones.
"Sister."
Jon pushed himself up further, ignoring the sharp protest of his ribs. The knife in his hand didn't waver, though the dragon on his chest made it difficult to find a proper angle.
"I have sisters," Jon rasped, his voice scraping against the silence. "One is asleep in the Tower of the Hand. The other is likely dreaming of lemon cakes and stupid Joffrey. Neither of them have purple eyes. Neither of them walks through locked doors like a shade."
"Who are you?" Jon demanded, his voice rising just enough to cut through the dragon's purring. "Why do you call me that? Why does everyone in this accursed city speak in riddles except when they're trying to kill me?"
The woman's hand froze on RedHeart's head. Her expression turned almost ashamed. She snatched her hand back and pressed a finger to her lips, her eyes darting to the corners of the room, to the heavy tapestries, to the stone itself.
"Quiet," she hissed, the command barely audible.
"No," Jon snapped, though he kept his voice low. "I am done with quiet. My father won't speak. You sneak into my room in the dead of night. And this..." He gestured with the knife hand toward the dragon. "This thing is sleeping on my chest. I want answers. Now."
"You want to die?" she countered, her voice dropping to a steel whisper. She leaned over him, her face inches from his. "Do you think this room is safe? Do you think the Red Keep is stone and mortar?"
She grabbed his wrist. Her grip was cold. Too Cold!
"The walls have ears, Jon Snow," she whispered. "The Spider sits in the dark and spins his webs. He hears everything. If he hears the word 'dragon'... if he hears who you really are... you will not live to see the sunrise."
Jon stared at her. The fear in her purple eyes was genuine. It wasn't for herself; it was for him.
He pulled his wrist free, but he didn't raise his voice again.
RedHeart sensed the tension. The purring stopped. She lifted her head, looking between Jon and the woman, her golden eyes blinking slowly. She didn't hiss, but she shifted her weight, digging her claws into Jon's chest as if to anchor him.
"My father refuses to tell me my mother's name," Jon said, the bitterness leaking into his tone. "He says it is for my protection. Is that your excuse, too?"
The woman flinched. A shadow of pain crossed her face. "Lord Stark is a good man. An honorable man. He has carried a mountain on his back for fourteen years to keep you breathing. Do not hate him for his silence. It is the only shield he has."
"It's a poor shield," Jon muttered. "It leaves me blind."
"Better blind than dead," she said. She reached out again, her fingers hovering over RedHeart's scales. The dragon nudged her hand. "But you are right. You deserve to know. You deserve to know the blood that flows in your veins. You deserve to know why the fire does not burn you."
"Then tell me," Jon said. "Tell me why you called me 'little brother.' Tell me if I am..." He couldn't finish the sentence. If I am a monster. A son born of rape.
"Not here," she said firmly. She pulled her hand back and stood up, wrapping her dark cloak tight around her, blending back into the shadows. "And not now."
"Then when?" Jon demanded, frustration clawing at his throat.
"When you are free of this cage," she said. "When the ocean is between you and the Iron Throne. When the Spider cannot hear us."
She pointed a gloved finger at RedHeart.
"That creature is a miracle," the woman whispered. "But she is also a beacon. A torch in a dark cellar. Soon, she will be too big to hide under a blanket. Soon, the heat she gives off will warp the wood of your bed. You cannot hide a dragon, Jon. Not for long."
Jon looked down at RedHeart. She was small now, but the power in her was undeniable. She was a living ember that would eventually become an inferno.
"Six weeks," Jon said. "My father says we leave in six weeks."
"Six weeks is a lifetime," the woman said grimly. "If you can stand, you must run. If you can ride, you must fly. Do not wait for permission. Do not wait for healing. The moment you can move without screaming, get out of this city."
"I will find you," she promised. "When you are safe. I will find you, and I will give you every name, every truth, every song you have been denied."
"Who are you?" Jon asked one last time, desperation edging his voice. "Just a name. Give me a name."
"I'm really sorry, but I cannot tell you, not now. But I will tell you everything, once you are out of this place, once you are safe. Goodnight, little brother."
Jaime Lannister
The White Book sat open on the table, its pages heavy with the ink of dead men's deeds. Jaime Lannister stared at the blank space beneath his own name, the quill dry in his hand.
He had come here to read something, anything, to silence the noise in his head. But the desire to read wouldn't come. Only the realization, cold and absolute, filled the room.
It wasn't Arthur.
For weeks, he had been blind. He had looked at Jon Snow and seen a northern bastard, a threat to his house, a source of irritation. He had seen the boy's skill and dismissed it as talent. He had seen the boy's melancholy and dismissed it as a bastard's lot.
But now, the blindfold had been ripped away by an old man's memory of a sad song.
Rhaegar.
Jaime closed his eyes, and the pieces of the puzzle that had confused him for months suddenly slammed into place.
He thought of Winterfell. The ridiculous dueling challenge Robert had organized in a drunken stupor. Jaime had been bored, watching the squires and knights batter each other in the mud. But Cersei... Cersei had been watching Jon.
He remembered her face now. He remembered the strange, hungry intensity in her eyes as she watched the boy move. At the time, Jaime had thought she was mocking the Starks, or perhaps just admiring a pretty face.
She knew, Jaime realized, a chill running down his spine. She saw him fight, and she recognized him instantly.
It explained everything.
It explained why she had whispered in Robert's ear, planting the seed that the boy should come South. Robert, fool that he was, thought it was because Jon was a warrior born. But Cersei... she wanted her ghost. She wanted Rhaegar back, even if he was wrapped in Stark wool.
And then the Trident.
Jaime remembered the fury in Cersei's eyes after Jon had basically called Joffrey a liar and defended the Stark girl. It hadn't been just maternal outrage. It had been the rage of a woman scorned.
She had brought Rhaegar's ghost to King's Landing to be her pet, her champion, perhaps even her lover in some twisted fantasy. But the moment the boy showed his true colors, the moment he chose honor, family, love over power, truth over lies, he stopped being her imaginary version of Rhaegar, and became Jon Snow.
She hates him not because he is a bastard, Jaime thought, but because he is his father's son. And he rejected her, just as his father did.
"Gods," Jaime whispered to the empty room. "We are all trapped in a mummer's farce."
He stood up and walked to the window. The Red Keep slept below him, a beast of stone and secrets. Somewhere in the Tower of the Hand, the boy lay sleeping.
Jaime's mind drifted back fifteen years. To the steps of the Red Keep. To black armor and a ruby dragon on a breastplate.
When this battle's done I mean to call a council, Rhaegar had told him, his hand resting on Jaime's shoulder. His voice had been filled with a terrible, beautiful sadness. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago but... well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return.
He had ridden out the gates, his white cape flowing like a banner of hope.
He never returned.
Robert returned, with his hammer and his fury. Ned Stark returned, with his cold eyes and his frozen heart. But the Prince... the Prince had died in the water, his rubies washing away downstream.
Or so I thought.
Jaime pressed his forehead against the cold glass of the window.
Rhaegar hadn't returned. But his son had.
The boy was here. In the snake pit. Injured, surrounded by enemies, guarded by a father who couldn't claim him and hunted by a Queen who wanted to bury the past.
Jaime looked down at his white hand. The hand that had killed a king to save a city. The hand that had pushed a boy from a window to save a secret.
I promised her, he thought. I promised Cersei I would kill him.
But as the wind howled through the arrow slits of the White Sword Tower, Jaime knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his marrow, that he couldn't do it. He could kill Stark men. He could kill kings. He could kill his own honor.
But he could not kill the last part of Rhaegar Targaryen.
He turned away from the window, his cape swirling around him. The decision had been made without him even realizing it.
He needed to see the boy. He needed to look into those purple eyes and see if the ghost was real. He needed to know if the song had truly ended on the Trident, or if the melody was still playing, quiet and hidden, waiting for the right moment to rise.
Jaime blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness.
"We shall talk when I return," Jaime whispered, repeating the dead Prince's words.
He walked to the door. It was time to keep that appointment.