Chapter Text
Year 298 After the Conquest.
POV Jon Snow
Jon patrolled slowly through the inner gardens of Illyrio Mopatis’s palace. Broad walkways of pale marble wound between pools filled with blue lilies and hedges trimmed with almost unreal precision. The air smelled of spices, citrus, and strange flowers from the lands of the Jade Sea. Even after several weeks in Pentos, it all still felt foreign to him. Too rich. Too warm. Too colorful.
At his side walked Eddison Tollett, whom everyone simply called Ed, along with Larence Snow. Ghost moved silently ahead of them, his white fur almost spectral beneath the light of the setting sun.
Jon still struggled to believe everything that had happened over the last four months.
Four months earlier, he had decided not to join the Night’s Watch when his uncle Benjen had come to Winterfell. For years, the Wall had seemed like the only place in the world where he belonged. There, no one cared who your mother was. There, a bastard could become someone.
But Benjen Stark had spoken plainly to him that night.
The Wall was not the adventure the songs spoke of. It was cold, hunger, and broken men. Rapists, thieves, and murderers dressed in black until the day they died. Benjen had told him he was still young, that he should not condemn his entire life before he had even seen the world.
“You are searching for a place to belong, Jon. But the Wall must not be your only answer.”
Those words had haunted him for days. Then his father had given him his blessing, in his own way. Eddard Stark was not a man of grand speeches, but Jon still remembered the weight of his hand resting upon his shoulder.
“You bear my name as much as any of my children. Wherever you go, never forget that.”
The next morning, he had left Winterfell. No ceremony. No songs. No promises to return.
Arya had cried. Bran had asked him to bring back a sword from Essos. Rickon had refused to speak to him. Robb had embraced him for a long while before slipping a new dagger onto his belt. Even Sansa had offered him a few polite words.
Lady Stark, however, had not come. Jon had not been surprised.
He had ridden south with Ghost at his side, with no true destination beyond Essos itself. The vast Free Continent had called to him for years through the tales of merchants and travelers. There, they said, a man could become whatever he wished.
Harwin had joined him within the first days of the journey. Hullen’s son was a solid, loyal man, and a far better rider than Jon himself. He claimed only that he wished to see the world before returning north, though Jon suspected his father had quietly asked the young man to watch over him.
And as they crossed the lands of the North, they had met two other bastards.
Larence Snow and Torrhen Snow.
Larence was only slightly younger than Jon. Tall and lean, with badly cut brown hair and a reckless grin he wore even in the face of danger. He came from Cerwyn lands and wielded a bow with remarkable skill. Where Jon thought too much, Larence spoke too quickly. Yet the two young men had understood one another almost immediately.
Perhaps because they shared the same name.
Snow.
The name given to those who never truly belonged anywhere.
Torrhen, however, was different. Older. Harder. He seemed to be around Lord Stark’s age, perhaps older still. His weathered face bore the marks of old battles, and his silence often made others uneasy. Once a man-at-arms in service to a minor northern house, he had left Westeros after a bloody quarrel he refused to speak of.
Jon had learned not to ask questions.
And while camped within the Wolfswood, their small band had been attacked by wildlings. Seven wildlings, to be exact.
The attack had been brief but brutal, as all things in the forests of the North became once tensions finally broke. Four had died by the end of the struggle, cut down amidst the confusion of trees and muffled cries swallowed by moss and ancient snow. The last three, disarmed and cornered, had eventually surrendered.
The one who seemed to lead them was called Tormund. He was a massive man, with a red beard and shoulders as broad as a draft ox. Unlike what Jon might have imagined of a wildling, he seemed neither desperate nor especially intimidated by the situation. He had merely spat into the snow before explaining that they were fleeing from north of the Wall.
He spoke of a cold that was not natural, a cold that froze the blood within a man’s veins and killed men before they even understood why. He also spoke of dead men walking.
Those words had been enough to drag back a memory Jon would rather have forgotten.
The deserter from the Night’s Watch executed a month earlier at Winterfell. Before the blade had fallen, the man had sworn he had seen White Walkers in the lands beyond the Wall. Jon still remembered the silence that had followed those words, and the look in his father’s eyes. A look he had not known how to understand at the time.
Tormund had then introduced the two young women traveling with him.
Ygritte was young, red-haired, and carried an almost instinctive wariness upon her face. She watched the northmen as though they were as much a threat as a curiosity, ready to react at the slightest movement.
Val, meanwhile, stood apart. Quieter. More observant. Her pale eyes seemed to miss nothing while betraying no emotion at all, her honey-blond hair stirring in the wind.
The discussions had lasted long into the night after that.
Harwin refused to trust the wildlings. Torrhen leaned toward a simpler and far more permanent solution. Larence, meanwhile, merely watched the situation unfold with a sort of nervous amusement.
In the end, the three wildlings swore upon the Old Gods that they would do them no harm if Harwin and the bastards swore the same.
And strangely enough, it worked.
Northmen and wildlings got along better than Jon would ever have imagined over the days that followed. The tension remained, but it slowly wore away beneath the weight of travel and exhaustion. Tormund talked constantly, Ygritte spoke too little not to seem dangerous, and Val kept her distance from everyone, as though she were still judging where this road would ultimately lead them.
And surprising as it was, the three wildlings eventually asked to join their growing mercenary band.
Over the passing weeks, they had become a small company.
The departure from Winterfell had ceased to feel like a break and instead become a continuation. Faces changed at times, and so did the conversations, but the road remained the same: long, damp, uncertain. And little by little, without any of them truly deciding it, they had begun moving forward together as though they had always been meant to.
Then, upon the kingsroad, they met Ed.
Eddison Tollett had been found dead drunk in a ditch after losing even his boots in a game of dice. He had lain there like some forgotten bundle, soaked to the bone, mumbling indistinct prayers to gods who already seemed to have stopped listening to him. When he had finally opened his eyes again, he claimed without the slightest hesitation to be the son of a minor knight from the Vale, though no one had ever been able to verify the tale.
“If I lie, then at least I have the decency to lie poorly,” he often said with his eternal mournful expression, as though he were announcing the end of the world rather than making a jest.
He was the youngest son of a large family, sent north for lack of any other future. He spoke little, observed much, and carried in his gaze the same quiet weariness Jon had already seen in other men who understood they were not made for grand stories.
His meeting with the group had been neither spectacular nor decisive. Against all reason, Jon liked him.
There was in Ed a sort of quiet resignation that stood apart from the rest of the company. Where the others fought against their past or their name, Ed seemed to have accepted long ago that nothing would ever truly turn in his favor.
And Ed stayed. As though, for once, fortune had decided not to abandon him immediately.
Then came the Neck.
The road there became slower, heavier, as though the land itself sought to hold travelers back. Water swallowed more and more of the solid ground, the trees seemed to rise directly from the swamps, and every step demanded greater effort than the last.
Their group stopped in a small village to purchase horses for the three wildlings and for Ed, who lacked one.
It was little more than a cluster of low houses lost between stretches of wet, fertile land. A place of no importance save for being a necessary stop for travelers heading south or north. The villagers watched them with the usual suspicion reserved for armed men, strangers, and those whose intentions were never entirely clear.
The horses for sale were neither the strongest nor the finest beasts one could find in the North, much less south of the Neck. Some had ribs that showed a little too clearly, while others bore the weary look of creatures that had already traveled too far in a single lifetime. But they could still stand, and more importantly, they were available.
In their situation, that was enough.
Tormund inspected one of the animals while almost affectionately tugging at its mane.
“This one’s seen more misery than I have,” he declared. “I think I’m going to like him.”
Ygritte said nothing, though the horse given to her already seemed to despise her as much as she despised it in return. Val accepted hers without comment, as though the quality of the mount mattered little so long as it carried her in the right direction.
Ed, meanwhile, spent a long while staring at the horse presented to him.
At last, he sighed.
“I always dreamed of a proud and noble warhorse. And instead I find myself facing… this.”
The horse flicked an ear, unimpressed.
Larence let out a faint laugh, while Torrhen curtly reminded them that they had neither the time nor the coin to be difficult.
Jon merely watched the scene without speaking.
There was nothing exceptional about these horses. They would carry no knights toward glory, no heroes toward songs. But they would carry them a little farther down the road.
And for now, that was all that mattered.
They resumed their journey afterward, crossing Moat Cailin and the Neck before riding down through the Riverlands.
Their passage through Moat Cailin had gone without incident, yet Jon had felt, as he always did when nearing those ruins, the ancient weight of the place. The shattered towers, the stones blackened by time and rain, and that lingering sense that the North was still defending itself, even in ruin.
Beyond it, the Neck had closed behind them like a damp gate, while the Riverlands opened before them, greener and more alive, yet more unstable as well. Here, roads changed without warning, and men did too.
It was there that they met Anguy, a gifted archer who earned his living by shooting coins from tavern doors for a few coppers and a mug of ale. He joined them with little hesitation, as though the road offered him a kind of continuity he had never truly possessed.
Then they crossed paths with Cregan Snow, a smuggler from the North who knew the back roads better than soldiers knew the kingsroad. He did not ask many questions. In his trade, questions were often more dangerous than answers.
And the meetings continued.
Gendry, a runaway smith who almost never spoke of his past. Mya Stone, who had grown up between villages and roads without ever truly belonging to either. Ronnel Storm and Nyra Sand, bound by different bloods yet carrying the same instinct for survival. Owen Pyke, who had learned early that the Iron Islands left little room for those who doubted. And finally Bronn, a sellsword with neither title nor lasting loyalty, but an efficiency no one questioned.
Little by little, their group ceased to be a simple improvised company and became something far harder to define.
Not an army. Not a gang. Not even truly a troop. Something between the three.
Along the road, they spent long hours discussing what name to give their mercenary company. Suggestions came and went over the passing days, some serious, others absurd, yet none managed to gather more than a handful of voices behind it.
Until Gendry finally spoke.
“The White Wolf Company,” he had said simply.
The name lingered in the air for a moment, carried by the wind and the sound of hooves.
It was a reference to Ghost. Gendry had even added, without much ceremony, that they ought to make the direwolf their mascot.
Jon had not answered immediately.
Ghost walked a little apart from the others, as always, indifferent to the talk of men, yet for the first time in a long while, the name did not feel entirely foreign to him.
Then they arrived at King’s Landing.
The city stretched before them like some deafening, crushing mass, a tangle of stone, timber, and human flesh. Even after weeks upon the road, Jon had the unpleasant feeling that the air there was heavier, thick with sweat, smoke, and the salt blowing in from the bay.
The streets teemed with people at every hour, and the group scattered through them almost naturally, each man drawn by his own needs and instincts.
Ed, Mya, and Nyra went in search of a ship capable of carrying them to Essos. The docks were a constant chaos of merchants, sailors, and swindlers, and Jon doubted they would easily find a captain reckless enough—or greedy enough—to accept their entire company aboard.
The others took charge of supplies, searching for food, equipment, and provisions for the rest of the journey. Even Bronn, who usually cared little for such matters, seemed to measure the streets with careful eyes, as though constantly weighing risks against opportunities.
That was when Yoren found them.
The Night’s Watch recruiter approached Jon without ceremony, as though they had parted only yesterday rather than months before. He still carried the smell of road dust and cold rain, and his eyes looked like those of a man who had seen too much to waste time upon details. Without a needless word, he handed Jon a sword.
Jon took it instinctively. The weight felt immediately familiar. Too familiar.
The steel was dark, almost alive beneath the gray light of the harbor. He did not need to be told what it was to understand. And yet part of him refused to believe it until memory finally assembled itself in his mind.
Valyrian steel.
And not just any blade.
He had seen it before, years ago, in the old books of Winterfell, among illustrations and legends from ancient times.
Dark Sister.
The name rose within his memory with brutal clarity.
Jon looked up, but Yoren did not give him time to speak.
“A gift from your uncle, Benjen Stark,” he said simply.
Jon remained silent for a moment, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of the sword, unable to fully grasp what such a thing truly meant.
He opened his mouth to ask questions—how, why, at what cost—but Yoren merely shrugged, as though none of it mattered in the slightest.
Then he turned away without ceremony, without further explanation. Moments later, he was already boarding a ship bound northward, vanishing into the endless tide of men and departures that filled King’s Landing.
Two days later, they sailed for Pentos with a new addition among them: Aurane Waters.
The Velaryon bastard had introduced himself without much ceremony, as though it had always been inevitable that their paths would cross. He possessed the easy confidence of men raised near the sea and among courts, a mixture of quiet assurance and discreet calculation hidden behind his eyes.
He claimed he wished to make a name for himself in Essos.
Westeros, according to him, offered far too little room for ambitious bastards and too many chains for men who wished to rise without asking permission.
The growing mercenary company had seemed as good an opportunity as any.
And perhaps, more simply, a way out.
The ship awaiting them in Blackwater Bay was a long, narrow vessel, built to cut through the waves rather than dominate them. Sailors already hurried across its deck, shouting orders in a mix of Valyrian dialects and dockside jargon while the last cargo was hauled aboard.
Jon boarded last.
Ghost remained upon the dock for a moment, motionless, watching the water as though trying to understand what it meant. Then he followed his master without hesitation.
When the moorings were cast off, King’s Landing slowly faded behind them.
The walls, the towers, the shouting, the smoke… all of it gradually shrank into an indistinct mass before vanishing into the mist of the bay.
Ahead of them there was only the sea. And so they set their course for Pentos.
The sea was calm at first, almost deceptively so. The ship glided across dark waters, and the wind filled the sails with a steady rhythm that gave the illusion of an easy voyage, almost orderly.
Jon, who had departed alone, now found himself at the head of a company of nearly fifteen souls.
The thought still felt strange whenever he considered it. Only months earlier, he had been nothing more than the bastard of Winterfell with a direwolf as his sole certainty. Now he shared a deck with men and women he had never sought out, yet whom the road had gathered around him as though it had always been meant to happen.
Ghost kept apart, as always, lying beside the rail in silence, watching the horizon.
Around Jon, the life of the ship slowly settled into place. Some adapted easily to the cramped quarters, others less so. Tormund seemed to view the vessel as a temporary prison, Ygritte shifted constantly between curiosity and suspicion toward anything tied to the sea, and Val remained quiet, at times staring toward the horizon as though searching for something only she could see.
Larence and Ed always found a way to turn any situation into an endless conversation, while Torrhen watched everyone with the patience of a man who had already survived worse.
Aurane Waters, meanwhile, observed far more than he participated. He often remained near the rails, his gaze lost upon the open sea, as though he were already calculating future routes rather than the one they currently sailed.
Jon, for his part, did not truly feel like a captain.
He simply felt… in the middle of it all.
Caught between roads he had never intended to walk, surrounded by people whom chance—or perhaps something else—had gathered around him.
And as the ship sailed deeper into the Narrow Sea, toward Pentos and whatever awaited beyond it, he understood one simple thing. He was no longer alone, though he was not certain whether that was a good thing.
A Pentoshi merchant named Illyrio Mopatis had noticed the young Stark bastard and his companions in a harbor tavern. Since then, Jon had suspected their meeting had not been chance at all.
Illyrio always seemed to know everything.
About everyone.
The fat merchant had taken them under his protection and arranged their passage to Pentos before anyone even knew it, the entire affair having been prepared before the company had ever reached King’s Landing. Officially, he claimed only that he saw potential in young northern warriors. But Jon was not a fool.
Men like Illyrio Mopatis never did anything for free.
The days in Pentos passed in a strange sort of comfort. Too much comfort, perhaps. Gardens maintained with almost unsettling precision, meals forever plentiful, silent servants appearing before a request had even been spoken aloud.
Jon disliked it. Everything here felt as though it were being offered freely… yet never without a price.
Ghost suddenly stopped before a basin of black marble. The direwolf lifted his head, ears raised, motionless as a watchful shadow.
Jon immediately sensed that something in the air had changed. It was not a sound. Not movement. More a presence.
Then a warm, heavy voice echoed behind them.
“Ah, the young wolf of the North. Always walking as though he expects an assassin to leap from behind every tree.”
Jon turned slowly. Illyrio Mopatis stood at the entrance to the walkway, draped in purple silks embroidered with gold. Two guards accompanied him, standing motionless like statues uncomfortable within such a perfect setting.
And behind the magister stood a man Jon had never seen before.
A man with pale silver hair.
Jon did not move at once.
His gaze remained fixed upon the stranger behind Illyrio. Silver hair was uncommon, even in Pentos. Rarer still was that manner of carrying oneself—straight, controlled, as though every gesture had been considered long before it was made.
Ghost did not growl. Yet his silence felt even more unsettling than that. He was watching.
Clearly pleased with the effect he had created, Illyrio spread his arms slightly.
“Do not be so wary, young wolf. I have not come bearing ill news… not today.”
His voice rolled with that oily softness he always used, as though each word were meant to be swallowed rather than heard.
Jon gave no answer. He had learned long ago that silence unsettled men more than questions ever could.
The merchant’s eyes drifted toward Ghost before returning to Jon.
“Your companion still frightens my servants. Though I suppose that is an advantage when one wishes to survive in this world.”
Jon’s gaze remained cold.
“You wanted to see us.”
“It was not a question.
Illyrio’s smile widened, as though he appreciated the simplicity of the tone.
“Yes. Of course. I always wish to meet interesting people. And you, Jon Snow… you are becoming more and more interesting.”
The name sounded anything but discreet in his mouth. It felt like a label, an object set carefully upon a table.
Jon sensed the others drawing closer behind him without even needing to turn. He already knew their presence: Ed, unusually silent; Larence, far too curious to stay away; Torrhen, already wary; and Aurane Waters lingering a little behind the rest, watching with that cold attentiveness that betrayed nothing.
The silver-haired man finally stepped forward.
He still did not speak, yet his eyes had settled upon Jon with an unusual intensity, almost studied.
Illyrio continued, as though guiding a conversation that had already been written.
“Allow me to present… a friend. A man who has come from very far away.”
He paused slightly, savoring the attention.
“He takes an interest in the stories of the North. The old tales. The legends that many here dismiss as children’s stories.”
Jon felt a faint chill crawl down his spine despite the heat of Pentos.
The North. The legends. The stories only spoken in hushed voices around fires.
Illyrio watched his reaction with satisfaction.
“And he wished to meet you.”
Jon did not look away.
The silence stretched a second too long, like a rope pulled taut without knowing whether it would snap. Ghost remained motionless, but his attention had shifted entirely toward the silver-haired man, as though he had decided he was the true danger in this meeting.
At last, Jon broke the silence.
“Then by all means, Master Illyrio,” he said calmly, “make the introductions.”
Illyrio let out a small, pleased laugh, as though the answer delighted him precisely because it existed.
“Always direct… I like that about you, young wolf. In Westeros, they still teach you to speak as though every word must be weighed against Lannister gold.”
He stepped slightly aside, opening a hand toward the man behind him.
“Very well.”
His gaze slid toward the stranger before returning to Jon.
“This is… a man who no longer truly requires a name. But for your comfort, let us call him Viserys.”
The name fell into the air without flourish, like a discreet blade.
Behind Jon, he sensed a subtle shift. Not an audible reaction. More a diffuse tension, as though some understood without yet knowing why.
Ghost still did not move, yet his eyes never left Viserys.
Illyrio continued, indifferent to the tension he had just laid between them.
“A prince of ancient blood. A man who has known times… far more glorious than these. And who has survived things few men could endure.”
Viserys still had not spoken, but now he stared directly at Jon. And within that gaze there was neither warmth nor polite curiosity. Only a cold expectation, ancient and almost offended by the simple fact of being here.
Jon met his stare without flinching. He felt, though he could not yet name it, that this meeting was no trivial thing and that Pentos had suddenly changed in nature.
Jon instinctively rested a hand upon the pommel of Dark Sister. The cold metal answered beneath his fingers like a silent certainty. Valyrian steel did not need to be drawn to make its presence known.
“I am a bastard of the North, and you have just introduced me to Viserys Targaryen. You are taking a risk, Master Illyrio.”
Mopatis smiled as though the word risk had never carried consequence in all his life.
“Perhaps. But are you not mercenaries?”
Jon did not look away.
“That does not prevent me from choosing my contracts.”
The merchant’s smile widened further, satisfied, almost fatherly in its confidence.
“Then hear this one. I would have your company serve as personal guards to the last Targaryens.”
A silence fell. Not an empty silence. A heavy one, burdened with something Jon could not yet name.
“The last?” he repeated simply.
Illyrio nodded slowly.
“Yes. Prince Viserys also has a sister, somewhat younger than yourself. Daenerys.”
It was then that Jon saw her.
She stood slightly apart, as though she had not yet decided whether she belonged in this scene or whether she was merely a forced spectator. Her silver-gold hair seemed almost to catch the light of the garden, and her violet eyes contrasted with everything Jon had seen thus far, even in Pentos.
She was not smiling. She was observing. Not like a child. Not truly like a princess either. More like someone still learning what it meant to exist in a room where everyone else already had a defined role.
Jon remained still for a moment. The world around him seemed to draw slightly farther away, as though the garden, Illyrio, even Viserys himself had lost some of their sharpness.
Behind him, Ghost let out a low breath, almost imperceptible.
Jon did not yet know what this offer truly meant, but he knew one thing with unpleasant clarity: from this moment onward, none of this journey had been chance.
Bronn stepped forward, as though merely checking the firmness of the ground beneath his feet.
“And how much are we talking about?”
His voice was calm, almost interested, but Jon knew that tone. It was not curiosity. It was calculation.
Illyrio did not seem offended. Quite the opposite.
“Enough that you shall never want for anything again until the end of your days, should you accept.”
The merchant possessed that strange gift of turning every promise into a certainty. As though wealth were not a matter of quantity, but inevitability.
Bronn then turned his head toward Jon.
“Jon. Our coffers are dry, and I’d quite enjoy living in a palace.”
There was neither shame nor justification in the statement. Merely a simple fact presented as the natural logic of the world.
Jon did not answer at once. His gaze drifted once more toward Viserys, then to Daenerys standing slightly apart, still silent.
There was something too clean about this proposal. Too carefully arranged. As though the entire road had been laid out long before they had ever reached Pentos.
At last, Jon turned toward the prince.
“And what would you ask of us, Prince?”
Viserys stared at him without blinking. There was a rigidity in his face that had nothing to do with youth. It felt older than that. A tension carried for far too long.
“As Master Illyrio has said,” he finally replied, “you will ensure my protection and that of my sister.”
The silence that followed differed from the others. This one carried something final within it. Jon felt the weight of every gaze settle upon him. His companions. The Targaryens. Illyrio. Even Ghost seemed to be waiting.
And Jon understood then that the answer he gave would decide not merely a contract, but the entire direction their company would take.
Jon let out a slow breath.
“Very well. So be it.”
Viserys and Illyrio exchanged satisfied smiles, the smiles of two men who had obtained exactly what they wanted without ever needing to force a hand. But Jon did not allow them long to savor it.
“But,” he continued, “understand this: neither I nor my company will obey dishonorable orders.”
His tone had not changed. Calm. Measured. Yet the firmness within it left no room for doubt.
A faint silence followed.
Bronn shook his head, as though he had just heard one of the world’s oldest certainties.
“Ah… Northmen.”
There was neither open mockery nor visible respect in his voice. Merely weary observation, like commenting upon weather one could never hope to change.
Illyrio, meanwhile, let out a soft, heavy chuckle.
“No one will ask you to surrender your honor, young wolf. Only to be… effective.”
Viserys said nothing. Yet his eyes never left Jon. He seemed to be measuring the exact limit of that declaration, like a man accustomed to seeing all limits eventually break.
Behind Jon, Ghost rose slightly. A subtle movement. Enough.
Jon sensed it before he even saw it, and that alone was enough to keep him from lowering his gaze.
“Efficiency depends upon the nature of the orders,” he replied simply.
Illyrio smiled again, though this time less broadly.
“Naturally. Then we shall speak of contracts… rather than orders. An important distinction, would you not agree?”
Jon gave no answer. He already understood that in the mouths of men like Illyrio Mopatis, distinctions were often the most dangerous part of a sentence.
And that was where he stood now.
A pact concluded. Promises exchanged. And a company of bastards, mercenaries, and exiles transformed within the span of days into the improvised guard of the last Targaryens.
Jon walked through Illyrio’s gardens without truly seeing them. The pools, the sculpted hedges, the overly sweet perfumes of Pentos… all of it drifted around him without catching hold of his thoughts. He kept thinking of the way Viserys had looked at him. Not as a man. More like a tool whose strength one tests before deciding how to use it.
And Daenerys…
He pushed the thought away before it could fully form.
“You don’t seem to like Viserys much,” Larence said, drawing him from his thoughts.
Jon did not answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed somewhere between two marble columns.
“Though little Daenerys certainly caught your eye,” Ed added.
Jon immediately let out a grunt.
“Be quiet.”
The answer came sharp and automatic. Yet it lacked a little conviction, and that alone was enough to draw smiles from some of the others behind him.
Ghost, a few paces away, continued forward in silence, indifferent to the conversations of men. And yet Jon sometimes had the feeling the direwolf understood far more than he ever let show.
He drew a slow breath.
Daenerys Targaryen.
He did not like the way the name had settled in his mind. Not because it meant something precise. But precisely because it meant nothing yet… and still refused to fade away.
The group continued through the palace walkways. The sun above Pentos was slowly sinking lower, stretching the shadows of the columns across the pale marble. The air remained warm, almost motionless, as though even the wind hesitated to wander too far into Illyrio’s gardens.
Jon remained silent. Ed, however, seemed in no mood to leave him in peace.
“I’m only saying what I see,” he continued innocently. “The North has its rules, but even there people recognize when someone is… striking.”
Jon cast him a brief glance.
“You talk too much.”
“So I’m often told,” Ed replied without the slightest embarrassment.
Larence let out a faint breath, half laugh and half exasperation.
“So we’ve gone from ‘mercenary company’ to ‘personal guard of an exiled prince and his mysterious sister.’ Honestly, I can’t decide whether that’s a promotion or a death sentence.”
Behind them, Torrhen answered without slowing his stride.
“Both.”
That silenced Larence for a moment.
Ghost still walked ahead, silent, though Jon noticed the direwolf had drawn slightly closer to him. As though despite the gardens and the men surrounding them, the wolf remained bound to one thing alone: his place within Jon’s world.
They passed beneath another archway. Somewhere farther off came the muffled laughter of servants and the soft splashing of a fountain.
At last Jon slowed his pace. He had not turned his head in some time, yet he already knew the subject would not vanish so easily.
“It isn’t about her,” he said finally.
Ed raised a brow.
“No?”
Jon hesitated for the briefest instant.
“It’s about what that family represents.”
The word family lingered in his mouth a little too long.
Larence glanced sideways at him.
“The dragons?”
Jon gave a slight nod.
“And everything that follows dragons.”
Another silence settled over them, more serious this time. Even Ed did not joke.
Far away, somewhere within the palace, a bell rang softly, a reminder that Pentos continued to live regardless of the decisions they made.
Jon resumed walking, but now something had changed in the way he moved, as though the road no longer lay only ahead of them but also within what they had just agreed to become.
That was when Tormund appeared beside them, as though he had been there all along without anyone noticing.
“Tell me,” he said, “what’s a khal?”
Jon and the others turned toward him.
Tormund walked without slowing, his arms slightly spread as though Illyrio’s gardens were merely another strange hunting ground. His gaze shifted from Jon to the others and back again, never truly settling.
“Why do you ask?” Ed said.
Tormund shrugged.
“Because I heard the silver-haired peacock plans to marry his sister off to some Khal Drogo for an army or something like that.”
The name for Viserys had clearly come from him. As for the rest, Tormund seemed to have pieced it together in his own fashion, with little concern for accuracy.
The group slowed almost instinctively.
Jon immediately felt something tighten within him. A vague, unpleasant sensation, like a rope being pulled too far.
Larence frowned slightly.
“A khal… he’s a war chief among the Dothraki.”
Without taking his eyes from the distant gardens, Torrhen added,
“A sort of king, but without walls, without a court, and without any law beyond strength.”
Tormund nodded slowly, as though the explanation suited him perfectly.
“So, a wild king. I already like that better than some southern nobles.”
Ed let out a quiet breath, though he did not argue.
Jon still said nothing.
The words lingered in his mind.
Marriage.
Army.
Dothraki.
And above all: Daenerys.
His grey eyes hardened without him truly realizing it.
He had no logical reason to care. No connection. No duty. And yet something within him simply rejected the idea, as though it should not happen, as though it were the wrong path entirely.
He barely heard Ed speak again beside him.
“And these Dothraki… what are they like?”
Larence answered immediately, with an almost satisfied grin.
“They kill everything that moves. And apparently they enjoy it.”
A silence followed.
Jon let out a slow breath before resuming his stride.
“We’ll know more soon enough,” he said simply.
But there was something colder in his voice than before.
And Ghost, for no apparent reason, moved one step closer still.