Jon Flint
The gates of Winterfell groaned open like an old man stretching after a long sleep, ironwood and iron scraping across stone with a sound that carried across the courtyard and probably halfway to Wintertown. Jon Flint rode through first, the direwolf pup cradled in the crook of his left arm, its white fur warm against his chest. The little thing had fallen asleep somewhere on the ride back, its nose tucked against Jon's ribs, one oversized paw dangling over his forearm.
Jon scratched behind its ear with his thumb. The pup made a soft sound and burrowed deeper into Jon's jerkin without waking.
Behind Jon, the sled whispered across cobblestones now instead of snow. The white cloth they'd draped over the woman fluttered once in the wind, then settled. Beneath it, she was still and silent and cold, as she would be forever.
The courtyard smelled of hay and horse sweat and the faint char of the smithy...Mikken must have been working late. Somewhere to the left, a dog barked twice, then went quiet. Two kitchen boys carrying a barrel of something between them stopped mid-stride to stare at the procession, their mouths hanging open like trout pulled from a stream.
"You there," came a gruff voice. Alyn, Captain of the Winterfell Gates, strode toward them from the direction of the guardhouse. He was a thick man with a jaw like a shovel and a permanently suspicious squint. His eyes moved over the riding party, counting heads, then fixed on the sled. "What's that you're carrying?"
Jon opened his mouth, but Robb was already swinging down from his horse. He cleared his throat, and Jon knew he was trying to use his "Lord Stark" Voice.
"Captain Alyn. We found a body in the Wolfswood. A woman. We believe she was murdered."
Alyn's squint deepened. He looked at the sled again, then back at Robb. "Murdered."
"Arrow wound in her calf," Robb continued. He clasped his hands behind his back...definitely copying Father now. "Shot from behind while she was running. We've brought her back for proper identification. Inform my Father immediately that Jon was right. There was a body, and someone killed her."
"Aye, my lord." Alyn was already turning on his heel.
"Captain." Jon's voice stopped the man mid-stride. "Inform Maester Luwin as well. He'll need to examine her before anything else. We need to understand exactly what killed this woman."
Alyn nodded without hesitation.
"As you say, my lord." Alyn walked off at a pace just shy of running.
Squires appeared then. Three of them materialized from the stables, quick-footed boys whose names Jon made a point to remember: Tomard's boy, a lad called Palla, and little Cayn who couldn't have been more than eight but moved around horses like he'd been born in a stall.
"Thank you, Cayn," Jon said as the boy took his horse's reins. "She was steady today. Give her an extra handful of oats."
Cayn nodded, then froze. His eyes had found the direwolf pup.
"Is that—" He swallowed hard. "My lord, is that a wolf?"
"Direwolf," Jon corrected. "Found him in the Wolfswood."
Palla had drifted closer, forgetting entirely about the horse he was supposed to be leading. His mouth formed a perfect circle of astonishment. Tomard's boy craned his neck from ten feet away.
"Wow, it's so beautiful! Can I have one?" Cayn asked with a big smile on his face, looking at the sleeping direwolf as if it were a cute kitten.
Jon chuckled. "You have to talk with your parents, if they say yes, then why not." The squires looked delighted to hear that and returned to their duty to lead the horses away.
Jon scratched the pup's ear again. The pup yawned, showing teeth that were still milk-white and tiny as needles. Not exactly monstrous. Not yet.
Jon turned to face the guards who'd ridden with them. Jory was already helping Harwin untie the sled from the packhorse. Heward stood nearby. And Wyl, young Wyl who'd vomited in the snow and then spent the ride back pretending he hadn't, stood a little apart, looking like he didn't know whether to stand at attention or ask to hold the wolf.
"Thank you," Jon said. "All of you. You did well today."
Jory nodded. Harwin knocked his fist against his chest once. Heward inclined his head.
Wyl went pink from his collar to his ears.
"It was—" The boy's voice cracked, and he coughed to cover it. "It was our honor to serve you, my lord."
"Get some food," Jon told them. "All of you. You've earned a hot meal and whatever ale the kitchens will spare."
The guards moved off with big smiles on their faces. Robb lingered, watching the squires lead the horses away, his expression caught somewhere between the lord he'd been pretending to be and the boy he still was.
Then Dacey's voice came from Jon's left.
"You know Lord Stark might not be thrilled about that."
Jon turned. Dacey had dismounted and stood with her arms crossed, her braid over one shoulder, her grey eyes fixed on the white ball of fur sleeping against Jon's chest. She'd changed from amused to serious somewhere on the ride back, and Jon could see the concern sitting in the lines around her mouth.
"There hasn't been a direwolf south of the Wall for hundreds of years," Dacey said. She tilted her head, looking at the pup and deciding whether it was cute or too dangerous. "And he's adorable right now, but they don't tend to stay that way for long."
"I know exactly what they grow into."
"Big as a pony, Jon. Some of the old stories say bigger. Teeth like daggers, jaws that can crack a horse's leg. They are not pets." She paused. "Mother would gut me if I brought one home to Bear Island."
"It's a conversation between me and my father," Jon said evenly. The pup stirred, yawned again, and settled. "I appreciate the concern, Lady Dacey."
Dacey held his gaze for a beat, then shrugged. "Your funeral. Or your arm, if he bites it off when he's grown." She turned and walked toward the guest quarters.
.
.
The corridors of Winterfell were warm and dim, heated by the hot springs that ran beneath the walls like veins beneath skin. Jon walked beside Robb, the direwolf pup transferred to a makeshift nest of blankets he'd left with Vayon Poole and strict instructions to feed the thing goat's milk and keep it warm.
Robb had been quiet since they'd entered the castle. Now, halfway to Father's solar, he couldn't hold it anymore.
"Jon."
"Robb."
"The dream. You dreamed about a dead woman in the Wolfswood, and we found a dead woman in the Wolfswood. Exactly where you said she'd be. Exactly how you described her. How is that possible?"
"I don't know," Jon said. It was only half a lie.
"You don't know?" Robb's voice pitched higher. "Jon, you dreamed through a wolf's eyes. You saw a corpse through a wolf's eyes. And then we went and found it. That's not—people don't just do that."
"I'm aware."
"So what does it mean?"
Jon started walking again. "It means I had a dream that turned out to be true. That's all I can say right now."
Robb fell into step beside him, clearly unsatisfied. "And who killed her? That arrow wound, do you think it was an accident?"
"Whoever it was," Jon said quietly, knowing he needed to sound like a lord right now, like his great-grandfather, "will pay for what they did."
Robb said nothing more. They walked the rest of the way in silence.
Ned Stark sat behind his desk. His grey eyes tracked Jon and Robb as they entered, and Jon noticed the furrow between his brows was deeper than usual. A letter sat half-written beneath his hand, the ink still wet.
"Close the door," Ned said.
Robb closed it.
"Jory gave me his account on the way to the maester." Ned's fingers laced together on the desk. "But I want to hear it from both of you. From the beginning."
Jon sat in the chair across from his father. Robb took the one beside it. The fire cracked and popped in the hearth, throwing moving shadows across the stone walls.
"We followed the path into the eastern Wolfswood," Jon began. "About two hours' ride from Winterfell. Dacey spotted wolf tracks, a mother with cubs, fresh, probably from the previous day. The tracks led to a clearing."
"And in the clearing," Robb continued, picking up the thread, "we found her. A woman, dead, lying in the snow. Wolves had been at her, but they'd stopped feeding and left. Dacey said that was unusual, a mother with cubs wouldn't abandon food unless something spooked her."
Ned's eyes moved between them. "What else did Lady Dacey observe?"
"An arrow wound," Jon said. "In the woman's right calf. She said the shot came from behind, but we don't know if it was a hunting accident or if someone out there is hunting woman like animals."
Jon watched his father's expression tighten. He was angry, but was hiding it well.
"Dacey believes the woman bled out, or froze, or both," Jon finished. "The arrow brought her down. The cold and the blood did the rest. The wolves came after."
Ned let out a sigh. "Maester Luwin is examining her now. He'll confirm or correct Lady Dacey's assessment." He paused. "Once we know more, I'll send a group of soldiers into Wintertown to ask around. Someone will recognize her. She has a family, or friends, or neighbors who noticed she was missing. We'll identify her and bring word to her people."
Jon leaned forward. "I want to go with them."
Ned's brow creased. "That's not necessary, Jon."
"With respect, Father, I think it is." Jon held Ned's gaze. "I'm the one who found her. I'm the one who brought her back. If her family is in Wintertown, they deserve to hear it from someone who was there, not secondhand from a soldier who heard it from a soldier."
His father gave him a long look, the same look he gave a few hours ago.
"Our duty is to protect the people of the North," Jon continued. "I'll go there, say my words, and reassure them that we will find whoever did this and see them punished. They need to know that Winterfell cares. That their lord cares."
Ned was quiet for several breaths. Then: "That's admirable, Jon. But I'll be honest with you, finding a single killer in the Wolfswood isn't simple. I'll have my best men and hounds searching, but I won't promise you quick answers."
"I'm not asking for quick. I'm asking for thorough."
"Then I cannot stop you from going." Ned glanced at Robb, who had been suspiciously quiet. "And you?"
Robb straightened in his chair. "I want to go too."
"Do you."
"I'm supposed to be the future lord of House Stark," Robb said, and Jon could hear the rehearsal in it, the words Robb had been assembling in his head since the ride back. "I can't just stay in Winterfell forever and only be seen in Wintertown when I'm visiting the—"
Robb stopped.
There was silence, and all Jon could hear was the fire and the wind outside.
Ned gave Robb a long, measured look. "Keep going."
Robb's face went from pale to pink to a shade of red that Jon had previously only seen on ripe tomatoes. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"He's smitten," Jon helped before Robb could dig the hole any deeper. "There's a girl in Wintertown. Quite beautiful, from what I understand. Robb's been finding excuses to visit whenever he can."
Ned's eyebrow climbed his forehead like it was trying to escape into his hairline. He turned to Robb. "Is this true?"
Robb, who looked like he might spontaneously combust, nodded once.
"Have you dishonored this girl?"
"No!" Robb almost shouted, then quickly cleared his throat and looked apologetic. "Father, I would never... I haven't....she's.... no. No, I have not."
Ned held his son's gaze for another long moment, searching for the lie. Whatever he found, or didn't find, seemed to satisfy him. He nodded once, and Robb let out a sigh of relief.
He's going to kill me for this, Jon thought, and almost smiled.
Then Ned's attention shifted to Jon.
"Now." Jon knew this would not be good from hearing his tone. "What's this I hear about a direwolf?"
Jon met his father's eyes. "I found a direwolf pup in the Wolfswood. Near where we found the woman's body. White fur, red eyes. A few weeks old at most."
"And you brought it here."
"I did."
"Where is it now?"
"I left it with Vayon Poole," Jon said. "I asked him to feed it goat's milk and keep it warm while I—"
"You left it with Vayon Poole." His father's voice rose a bit, and Jon felt like a child again. "The steward. You gave the steward of Winterfell a wild animal to nursemaid."
"He seemed happy to—"
"Jon." Ned cut him off with a single word, sharp as a blade. "A direwolf is not a puppy. It is not a kitten. It is one of the most dangerous animals in the known world. You took it from the forest. That makes it your problem. Not Vayon Poole's. Not the kennel master's. Yours."
Jon swallowed. "Yes, Father."
Ned wasn't finished.
"Tell me about this pup," Ned said. "Everything."
"In the dream," Jon began carefully, "My direwolf was following his mother, she had other cups. A litter. They were young, hungry, following their mother through the forest. When we were riding back from the clearing, this pup appeared. Alone. Separated from its pack."
"Separated." Ned said. "Or abandoned."
"I don't know. He was alone, and he would have died out there. He's too young to hunt, too small to survive the cold without his mother."
"And that's what concerns me." Ned stood up and looked down at Jon, who looked away, not bearing to look at his cold eyes. "You should have left it, Jon. A direwolf pup separated from its mother. That mother might come looking. She could track your scent all the way to these walls. A grown direwolf near Winterfell, near the town, near the farms...do you understand what that means for the people you just told me you want to protect?"
The words landed like stones in Jon's stomach.
"I didn't—"
"You didn't think it through." Ned's voice softened, but only slightly. "You saw something small and helpless and wanted to help. That's a good instinct, Jon. But instinct without foresight is recklessness, and recklessness gets people killed."
"I understand, father, but the direwolf is the sigil of our House. Of House Stark. I could not just leave it there to do die." Jon said, and he could see that his father saw the sense in those words.
Ned rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
"I'll post additional guards along the treeline and have the hunters watch for signs of the mother," Ned said finally. "We'll set up a perimeter. If she comes close, we'll drive her back into the forest before she reaches anyone."
"Thank you, Father."
"Don't thank me." Ned fixed Jon with a stare that was colder than the North. "From this moment forward, that direwolf is your responsibility. You will feed it yourself. You will train it yourself. You will clean up after it yourself. If it bites someone, you answer for it. If it gets sick, you tend to it. And if it dies you will bury it yourself. With your own hands. You will not bother the steward, the kennel master, the servants, or anyone else in this castle with your decision. Are we clear?"
"Yes, my lord. We are clear." Jon bowed his head. "I apologise. It won't happen again."
Ned studied him for a moment longer, then sat back down behind his desk. "Go. Both of you. And Jon—"
Jon paused at the door.
"—choose a good name for the beast. If it's going to live under my roof, it should at least have that much dignity."
Jon nodded and stepped into the corridor, Robb right behind him. The door clicked shut, and they stood there in the warm hallway, the sound of their father's quill already scratching across parchment behind them.
Robb punched Jon in the arm. Hard.
"Smitten," Robb hissed, his face still blazing. "You told our father I was smitten with a girl in Wintertown."
"Would you have preferred I let you finish that sentence?" Jon rubbed his arm, grinning; he knew it was a smug grin. "You were about to tell Father you visit Wintertown for the brothel."
Robb opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"...Thank you," he muttered, and stalked off down the corridor with the rigid posture of a man holding onto the shredded remains of his dignity.
Jon watched him go, then turned toward the kitchens.
He had a direwolf to feed.
Five Hours Later - Evening
The road from Winterfell to Wintertown was short enough that Jon could have walked it blindfolded. He'd made the trip hundreds of times over the past few years, first as a boy tagging along behind Derek, then as the young lord who'd built the candle guild that changed forty-three families' lives. He knew every rut, every turn, every place where the road dipped and the mud froze into ridges that could snap a horse's ankle if you weren't paying attention.
Tonight, the road felt longer.
Six soldiers walked behind Jon and Robb, their boots crunching in unison against the frozen ground. Three of them carried the sled between them, the white cloth over Tanya Snow's body stirring in the wind that came down from the mountains. The other three flanked the procession, torches held high against the gathering dark. The flames threw long shadows across the snow, making the trees along the road look like they were reaching for something.
Robb walked at Jon's left, matching his pace. He'd been quiet since they left the castle, but Jon knew the question was burning on his tongue like fire.
"Do we know who she was?" Robb asked finally.
Jon nodded. "Three hours ago, Father's soldiers went through Wintertown asking about missing women. A cobbler on the east side of town recognized the description. Her name was Tanya Snow."
Robb glanced at him.
"Bastard daughter of a blacksmith called Harren," Jon continued. "She worked in a tannery on the south end. The soldiers who asked around said she'd been missing for two days. They say her father has been asking around for her since yesterday."
"Two days."
"She has a son. A boy, maybe three or four years old. Also a bastard. He's been staying with his grandfather since his mother disappeared."
After looking at her body for two hours. Maester Luwin had come to the same conclusion that Dacey did. The woman was shot with an arrow, and then she died from the cold. Maester Luwin could not tell them if the shot was an accident or not, after all, accidents do happen during hunting, but Maester Luwin said that if it were an accident, he says the woman would have screamed, and whoever shot that arrow should have heard her, so if it was an accident, whoever did this, did not help her, or it wasn't an accident, and someone has done this for fun.
They walked in silence for a while after that. The lights of Wintertown grew brighter ahead of them, scattered across the darkness like fallen stars. Jon could hear the town now: dogs barking, the distant clang of a hammer on iron from a smithy working late, voices carrying thin and shapeless through the cold air.
Jon thought about the arrow in Tanya Snow's calf. He thought about her running through the forest, the blood hot on her skin, the cold biting through her clothes. He thought about her falling and not getting up again. He thought about her lying in the snow for two days while her son waited for her to come home.
They entered Wintertown through the main road. People stopped what they were doing to watch them pass. A woman carrying a basket of bread pressed herself against the wall of a baker's shop, her eyes tracking the covered sled. Two men sitting on a bench outside the tavern stood up slowly. A group of children playing in the gutter between two houses went quiet.
Word had already spread. Jon could see it in their faces. The soldiers asking questions that afternoon had done their work, and rumor traveled faster than horses in a place this small. They knew. They might not know the details, but they knew that someone had been found dead in the Wolfswood, and now here came the young lords of Winterfell carrying a body through their streets.
Jon could feel their eyes on him, hundreds of them. He was used to this feeling by now; every time he walked into this town, people looked at him, always.
They looked at him, and they looked at the sled, and Jon could read the question on every face: What happened? What will you do? But one thing was bothering Jon. He understood that what he had done had achieved respect from the people of this town, respect and love, and they all were looking at him for answers...Him.
Nobody was looking at Robb.
Jon felt that, and he knew Robb felt it too.
"This way," a soldier ahead of them said quietly, turning onto a narrower street that ran between the tannery and a row of small timber houses pressed together like teeth in a crowded jaw. His name was...Jathan.
The blacksmith's home sat at the end of the row. It was a modest building, two rooms at most, with a forge attached to the side that still radiated heat even though the fire had been banked for the evening.
Light spilled from the single window. Voices came through the door, low and muddled. A lot of voices for a small house.
Jon stopped. He looked back at the soldiers carrying the sled, then at Robb.
"Ready?" Jon asked.
Robb nodded once.
Jon knocked.
The voices inside went quiet. Footsteps could be heard and then the door swung open. Harren the blacksmith filled the doorway. He was a big man, broad across the chest and with very big shoulders. His hair was dark and streaked with grey at the temples, his eyes brown and bloodshot, and when he saw Jon standing on his doorstep with soldiers behind him and a sled carrying something covered in white cloth, those eyes went dead.
He already knew. He'd known since the soldiers came asking questions that afternoon. He'd been sitting in this house with his family, waiting, hoping he was wrong, knowing he wasn't.
"Harren," Jon said. "May we come in?"
The blacksmith stepped aside without a word.
The room inside was small and warm and packed with people. An older woman sat in a chair near the hearth, her face swollen from crying, a younger woman beside her holding her hand. Two men who looked enough like Harren to be brothers stood against the far wall, arms crossed, faces like stone. A neighbor, Jon recognized from the candle guild, sat on a bench near the window, turning a cup in her hands without drinking from it. Three or four others crowded the remaining space, standing because there was nowhere left to sit. Jon noticed many candles burning, illuminating the space, and Jon knew they were all his candles.
And in the corner, sitting on a stool with his legs dangling, was a boy.
He was small. Three, maybe four years old, with dark hair that stuck up in every direction and brown eyes too large for his face. He wore a shirt that was too big for him, the sleeves rolled up past his wrists, and he held a wooden horse in one hand.
The boy looked at Jon, then at Robb, then at the soldiers filing in behind them. He didn't look scared. He looked confused, then he looked at his grandfather, waiting for an answer.
"Where's Mama?" the boy asked.
Nobody answered him. The older woman by the hearth made a sound, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth. One of Harren's brothers looked away.
The soldiers brought the sled inside. They were gentle with it, angling through the narrow door with care, setting it down on the floor in the small space that the gathered family cleared for it without being asked. The white cloth settled over the shape beneath it, hiding everything except the outline. The undeniable, unmistakable outline, and dark hair spilling out.
"Mama!" The boy slid off his stool and padded toward the sled on bare feet. "Mama, wake up!"
Jon felt his heart crack like glass.
Harren moved fast for a big man. He scooped the boy up before small hands could reach the cloth, and the boy squirmed in his grandfather's arms, reaching over his shoulder toward the sled.
"Mama! Why isn't she waking up? Grandpa, tell her to wake up!"
"Shh." Harren's voice was barely a whisper. "Shh, little man. Shh."
"But she's sleeping too long! She always sleeps too long and I have to wake her up! Let me wake her up!"
Harren pressed his face into the boy's hair, and his massive shoulders began to shake. The boy kept reaching, kept calling, and one of Harren's brothers finally stepped forward and took the child from his arms, carrying him toward the back of the room while the boy's protests grew thinner and more confused.
"Why won't she answer me? Why won't anyone tell me?"
Jon stood in the center of that grief and let it wash over him. He could almost see it, for a moment, it wasn't the boy, it was him...asking Derek where Bella was, if she was alright, why he had come to wake him up and not her.
Jon waited. He waited until Harren's sobs grew quieter, until the older woman had stopped hiding behind her hand and was simply crying openly, until the brothers had composed themselves into something resembling stillness. One of them, carried the boy away to a different room, he didn't need to hear this.
Then he spoke.
"Tanya Snow was found in the Wolfswood this morning," Jon said. "She was murdered. We have people who are searching for the guilt, and justice will be brought."
Harren lifted his head.
Jon felt the room watching him. Not Robb. Him. Every pair of eyes in that cramped, grief-soaked house was fixed on the boy with the purple eyes. The boy who'd built their candle guild. The boy who'd given their daughters work and their sons purpose. The boy who'd found their dead and carried her home.
"I swear to you," Jon said, and his voice did not waver, "on the old gods and the heart tree of Winterfell, that I will find who did this. I will hunt them. And when I find them, they will answer for every step she ran, every drop of blood she shed, and every night her son has to sleep without his mother."
Jon looked at Harren. "You have my word. The word of Jon Flint."
Harren stared at him for a long moment. Then the blacksmith nodded once, a single heavy movement, like a hammer falling on an anvil. And in the other room, a small boy clutched a wooden horse and asked again, in a voice growing smaller with each repetition, why his mother wouldn't answer.