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Year 298 AC/7 ABY
Winterfell, The North
Luke guided Arya through the final movements of Form I, watching her small hands struggle with the practice sword's weight. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the godswood's chill, her grey eyes fierce with concentration. Beside them, Bran sat cross-legged on a gnarled root, pebbles orbiting his outstretched palm in wobbly circles.
"Feel the weapon as an extension of yourself," Luke said, adjusting Arya's grip. "Not something you hold, but part of your arm."
Through the Force, he sensed their progress—steady but uneven. Where Jon blazed like a beacon and Robb's presence grew stronger each day, these younger Starks flickered like candles in wind. Arya's connection sparked with raw potential but lacked focus. Bran's gift ran deep as ancient roots, yet something held him back—perhaps his age, perhaps something else.
"I'm trying," Arya muttered, executing a clumsy thrust. "It's just heavy."
"Size matters not." Luke smiled at the familiar lesson. "When you truly connect with the Force, you could lift the tree your sword comes from."
Bran's pebbles clattered to the ground. "Truly?"
"Master Yoda once lifted my…vessel from a swamp. The Force flows through all things equally—stone, steel, flesh. Our limitations exist only—"
A presence touched his awareness. Sansa approached the godswood, her Force signature muted but tinged with determination. Luke sensed Arya tense, ready to unleash one of her cutting remarks about ladies and swordplay.
"Continue practicing," Luke said quietly. "Both of you."
Sansa entered the grove like a ghost, her steps barely disturbing the fallen leaves. Dark circles shadowed her eyes—the assassination attempt four nights past had left its mark. She stopped at the edge of their training circle, hands clasped before her.
"Maester Luke." Her voice came soft, almost apologetic. "Forgive my intrusion."
Arya's mouth opened, no doubt to deliver something sharp about Sansa calling him a maester. But her grey eyes flicked to her sister's wan face, the way Sansa's fingers trembled slightly, and she pressed her lips together. Even Arya's wildness recognized wounds that shouldn't be prodded.
"You're always welcome here, Sansa." Luke lowered his practice sword. "How are you feeling?"
"Well enough." The lie sat awkwardly on her tongue. "I... I've been thinking. About what you teach my siblings. About what you did that night."
Luke waited. Through the Force, he felt her gathering courage like armor.
"Do I—" She swallowed. "Could I learn as well? Do I have the potential?"
The question hung in the cold air. Luke extended his senses, studying her more carefully than he had before. The Force moved around all living things, but in some it sang louder. In Sansa, he found...
Interesting.
Her connection ran different than her siblings—not the raw power of Jon or Robb's natural leadership resonance. Not Arya's fierce spark or Bran's deep wells. Sansa's gift lay in subtlety, in understanding. The Force whispered around her in patterns of emotion and intent, perfect for sensing deception, reading hearts, influencing minds.
"Yes," Luke said simply. "Though your path will differ from your siblings'."
Luke studied Sansa's face, reading the determination beneath her fragile composure. The Force whispered warnings—trauma clouded judgment, fear masqueraded as courage. He'd seen it before in students who sought power to never feel helpless again.
"Sleep on this decision," he said gently. "If you still wish to learn, meet me here tomorrow at dawn."
Sansa's brow furrowed. "But I've already decided—"
"Have you?" Luke's voice carried no judgment, only understanding. "Four nights past, a blade pressed against your throat. Such experiences leave marks deeper than bruises. The path of a Jedi demands clarity of purpose, not desperation for protection."
Through the Force, he felt her initial protest die unspoken. She possessed more wisdom than her siblings credited—enough to recognize truth when spoken plainly.
"A Jedi's training shapes more than skill with weapons." Luke gestured to where Arya practiced, sweat darkening her tunic. "It changes how you see the world, how you understand yourself. Once begun, the path transforms you in ways that cannot be undone."
Bran's pebbles resumed their wobbly orbit, the boy listening intently while pretending focus on his exercise.
"You think I seek this from fear." Sansa's words came measured, testing.
"I think you're wise enough to question your own motivations." Luke smiled slightly. "That awareness will serve you well—tomorrow, if you choose this path. Tonight, examine your heart. Ask yourself: do you seek the Force to become someone new, or to better understand who you already are?"
Sansa's fingers twisted in her skirts—a nervous habit she'd likely consider unladylike if aware of it. "And if I don't come?"
"Then you've made the right choice for Sansa Stark in this moment. There's no shame in walking a different path."
The godswood held its breath around them. Even Arya had stopped practicing, though she feigned adjusting her grip.
"Dawn," Sansa repeated softly. "I understand."
"Time for the midday meal," Luke announced, watching Arya's shoulders slump with relief. The practice sword dropped from her grip, clattering against exposed roots. "We'll resume this afternoon."
Bran's pebbles fell like hail, bouncing across frozen earth. "But I was just getting them steady!"
"A Jedi must also know when to rest." Luke retrieved Arya's discarded weapon. "Exhaustion clouds judgment as surely as anger or fear."
The children gathered their things with the barely-contained energy of youth. Arya stretched like a cat, working out knots from an hour of forms. Sansa lingered at the grove's edge, her earlier vulnerability replaced by thoughtful calculation—already weighing tomorrow's choice.
"Race you to the hall," Arya challenged Bran, then took off without waiting for agreement.
"That's not fair!" Bran scrambled after her, their voices fading into the castle's stone corridors.
Sansa followed at a more dignified pace, though Luke caught her quickened steps once she thought herself out of sight. Some sisterly instincts transcended courtesy.
Alone now save for Amidala's white presence among the trees, Luke approached the heart tree. The carved face watched him with eyes that wept red sap—an unsettling reminder of blood and sacrifice. He'd meditated here daily since arriving at Winterfell, yet something felt different today. The Force thrummed stronger, almost electric in its intensity.
His palm touched rough bark.
The world exploded into light.
Luke stumbled, but his feet found no ground. Around him stretched pathways of pure Force energy—luminous threads connecting infinite doorways that hung suspended in cosmic void. The air itself sang with power, each breath filling his lungs with raw potential. Stars wheeled overhead, but wrong somehow—too close, too bright, arranged in patterns that hurt to perceive.
Amidala's consciousness brushed his—distant but present, her concern a warm pulse in the overwhelming strangeness.
"You always did have a talent for finding yourself in the oddest places."
Luke spun. His father stood behind him, whole and unmarked by Mustafar's flames. Anakin Skywalker grinned with boyish mischief, looking no older than Luke himself.
"Well," Luke managed, forcing lightness into his voice, "I learned from the best. As I recall, you seemed to always appear at those strange places too."
"What's a father to do when chasing his errant son."
"Seems like we yet again meet in a strange place." Luke's attempt at humor couldn't mask his shock. "Father... where are we?"
Anakin's expression sobered. "Between worlds. A place of the Force, by the Force." He gestured at the infinite pathways. "Time flows differently here. Past, present, future—all paths accessible to those who know how to walk them."
Without warning, Anakin stepped forward and pulled Luke into an embrace. The contact felt real—solid warmth, familiar strength. His father's voice dropped to a whisper against Luke's ear.
"I'm so proud of the man you've become. Your mother… shewould be even prouder."
The words hit like a physical blow. Luke's throat tightened. In all their previous Force communications, Anakin had never—
"Thank you," Luke whispered back, not trusting his voice for more.
They separated, and Anakin's manner shifted to business. "I'm glad you received the holocron I left. Though I suspect you didn't expect it to lead you here."
"A planet with no star charts, no records—"
"This world is special." Anakin began walking along one of the light-paths, Luke falling into step beside him. "When the Je'daii Order split, when the first schism created Jedi and Sith, one of those early dark siders came here. He accomplished something terrible."
"What kind of—"
"I don't know exactly." Frustration colored Anakin's tone. "But whatever he did, it grows stronger in the dark side with each passing day. Like a wound in the Force that refuses to heal."
Luke thought of the Wall, of Ned's reports about wildlings fleeing south. "The people here speak of a Long Night, of dead things walking—"
"Then they remember." Anakin nodded grimly. "Find their histories, their legends. Know your enemy before you face them."
They paused where several paths converged. In the distance, Luke glimpsed other figures walking other roads—shadows of possibility, echoes of choice.
"Though I have to say," Anakin's mood lightened, "stumbling into an entire family of untrained Force sensitives? That's remarkable even by Skywalker standards."
"The Force works in mysterious ways."
"That it does." Anakin studied him. "You're already thinking of them as your padawans."
"They need guidance. Without it—"
"They'll fall." Anakin's eyes shifted, blue bleeding into sulfuric yellow. When he spoke again, his voice carried mechanical weight despite the absence of a mask. "You will have to do things you won't like to protect them. Hard choices. Brutal choices."
Luke's hand moved instinctively to where his lightsaber would hang. "Father—"
"Listen." Darth Vader's presence pressed against Luke's consciousness—not threatening, but insistent. "The Sith understand something the Jedi refuse to acknowledge: sometimes darkness serves the light. Sometimes the monster must be unleashed to save the innocent."
"That path leads to—"
"To what I became? Perhaps." Vader's yellow eyes bore into Luke's. "But you are stronger than I was. You've already walked through darkness and emerged. These children will test you in ways the Emperor never could. When that moment comes—when you must choose between Jedi principles and their lives—remember that even monsters can love."
The pathways began to blur, the cosmic crossroads fading—
Luke gasped, his hand jerking back from the heart tree. He stood in Winterfell's godswood once more, Amidala pressing her massive head against his side with worried whines. His palm tingled where it had touched bark, and when he looked at the carved face, he could have sworn its expression had changed.
Whatever ancient darkness plagued this land, whatever his father's warning meant, Luke would need more than Jedi wisdom to face it.
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Jon's boots struck Winterfell's cobblestones with sharp echoes, each step jarring muscles that still trembled from the morning's violence. The wildling woman trudged between guards ahead of them, her chains rattling a metallic counterpoint to Ghost's silent padding at Jon's side. Through the Force, he felt Luke's presence before seeing him—that steady warmth like a banked fire, waiting by the gates.
"Master." Jon inclined his head as they approached, noting how Luke's gaze swept over their party before settling on him and Robb. The weight of that attention pressed against Jon's consciousness, probing gently at the turmoil beneath his calm facade.
"We need to speak privately," Jon said, the words emerging rougher than intended. Blood still crusted beneath his fingernails despite his efforts to clean them.
Robb nodded, turning to the guards. "Take the wildling to the cells. See she's fed until Father returns."
"Aye, m'lord," Ser Rodrick replied, leading Osha away. The woman's dark eyes found Jon's one last time, and through the Force he felt calm in captivity, whatever drove her south seemed to be a far greater threat than them.
The lord's solar felt too warm after the morning's chill. Jon stood near the window while Robb took Father's chair—still an awkward fit for his brother's frame. Luke remained standing, patient as always, though Jon sensed expectation thrumming beneath his serenity.
"The wildling woman spoke of the dead attacking her people beyond the Wall." Jon's words tumbled out faster than he'd planned. "Said they rise with blue eyes, that whole camps freeze in summer. Is this—" He swallowed hard. "Is this the danger you warned us about?"
Luke's expression shifted, shadows deepening the lines around his eyes. "I'm afraid it is. My visions grow clearer each day, and what she describes..." He paused, choosing words carefully. "The woman isn't lying. What comes from the North is worse than any of us imagined."
"Seven hells." Robb's knuckles whitened against the chair arms. "Dead men walking. How do we even—"
"We prepare," Luke interrupted gently. "But first, we must speak of this morning."
Jon's stomach clenched. He'd known this was coming.
"You both took lives today. Your first kills." Luke's voice held no judgment, only understanding. "How do you feel?"
The question hung between them like morning mist. Jon forced himself to meet Luke's gaze, searching for words to describe the sick-sweet rush of the Force guiding his blade, the wet sound of steel parting flesh, the light fading from a man's eyes.
"I feel..." Jon's voice cracked. "Wrong. We train in these Forms, learn about peace and defense, and then I—" His hand clenched involuntarily, remembering the sword's weight. "It was so easy. The Force showed me exactly where to strike, and I just... did it."
"Too easy," Robb agreed, his usual confidence fractured. "One moment they were men, the next..." He shook his head. "Father always said taking a life should weigh on you. But in that moment, with the Force flowing through me, it felt like the only choice. Natural, even. That frightens me more than the act itself."
Luke moved closer, his presence in the Force wrapping around them like a cloak. "Taking a life should never be the first choice, nor should it ever be easy. What you feel—that discomfort, that questioning—hold onto it. The day killing stops bothering you is the day you begin to lose yourself."
"But they would have killed more innocents," Jon said, needing the justification as much as stating it.
"Yes." Luke's agreement came swift and certain. "Sometimes we must act to prevent greater suffering. The Force guided you to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. That's not wrong, Jon. But neither is your grief for the lives you ended. Both truths can exist together."
Luke's words hung in the air, but Jon felt the weight of what remained unspoken pressing against his chest. The dead walking, blue eyes in the darkness—it all sounded like Old Nan's tales, except the Force whispered truth in every syllable.
"But we need more than warnings," Luke said, breaking the silence that had stretched between them. "The libraries here hold fragments—old stories, half-remembered legends. Not enough to prepare for what's coming."
Jon watched his teacher pace to the window, hands clasped behind his back. Through the Force, he sensed Luke's mind working, sorting through possibilities like a maester with his scrolls. Robb shifted in Father's chair, leather creaking beneath him.
The quiet deepened, each lost in thought. Jon's mind raced through what little he knew of the Long Night, of the Others that drove the First Men south. Stories to frighten children, they'd always said. But the wildling woman's terror had been real as steel.
"The Citadel," Jon heard himself say, the words emerging before he'd fully formed the thought. Both Luke and Robb turned to him. "At Oldtown. If answers exist anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, they'd be there. The maesters collect knowledge from across the known world."
Luke's eyes closed, his presence in the Force expanding outward like ripples on still water. Jon recognized the signs—his teacher communing with that greater power that connected all living things.
When Luke's eyes opened, decision crystallized in their depths. "The Citadel. When your father returns, I'll need to journey to Oldtown." He paused, gaze moving between the brothers. "I can take only one of you with me—if Lord Stark permits even that."
"What?" Robb shot to his feet, the chair scraping against stone. "Why only one?"
Jon felt his brother's alarm spike through the Force, sharp as a blade. His own heart quickened at the prospect—Oldtown, the Citadel, lands he'd only heard described in lessons.
Luke's gaze settled on Jon with the weight of mountains. "I'll take Jon."
"That's not—" Robb's hands clenched into fists. "I should go too. I'm Father's heir, I need to know what threatens the North."
"Your father would never permit both his sons to travel so far south, not with the current tensions." Luke's voice remained calm, but Jon sensed steel beneath. "He may not even allow Jon to accompany me."
The words stung, though Jon knew their truth. A bastard was more expendable than a trueborn son. Always had been.
"But my training—" Robb's voice cracked, revealing the fear beneath his protests. "You'll be gone for moons. How am I supposed to continue without guidance?"
Luke stepped closer to Robb, and Jon felt the Force flow between them, teacher to student. "Is that your true concern? That your progress will stall?"
Robb's jaw worked silently before he nodded, shame coloring his features.
"I've already taught you the foundations of Form V. You and your siblings have meditation techniques, basic telekinesis, the ability to sense through the Force." Luke's hand found Robb's shoulder. "Master what you know. Perfect it. When I return, you'll be ready for the next steps."
Jon watched his brother's shoulders relax incrementally. Through their connection in the Force, he felt Robb's acceptance settling like snow.
"I've never left the North," Jon said, drawing their attention. The admission tasted strange on his tongue. "Never seen anything beyond these walls and Winterfell's lands." He met Luke's gaze. "If Father permits it, I'd... I'd welcome the journey."
Welcome. Such a pale word for the excitement coursing through him. To see the Reach's golden fields, the Citadel's towers, to walk paths that no bastard of Winterfell had any right to tread. But beneath the anticipation lurked something else—a pull southward that felt almost like destiny.
"The Citadel's maesters can be... particular about who they share knowledge with," Robb said, sinking back into the chair. "A bastard and a foreign sellsword might find closed doors."
"Perhaps." Luke's smile held secrets. "But the Force has ways of opening what men would keep shut."
Jon thought of the wildling woman in the cells below, of her tales of the dead walking. Whatever waited in Oldtown's ancient vaults might be their only hope of understanding the threat. Father would have to see that. He'd have to let them go.
"When Father returns," Jon said, "we'll need to tell him everything. The wildling's words, your visions, all of it."
"Aye," Robb agreed. "He saw that deserter's fear. He'll understand the need."
But Jon caught the doubt threading through his brother's voice. Lord Eddard Stark was not a man who bent easily, especially where his children's safety was concerned. And sending his bastard son across the realm with a mysterious warrior...
"For now," Luke said, moving toward the door, "we prepare. Jon, double your meditation sessions. If we do journey south, you'll need every advantage the Force can provide."
Jon nodded, already planning his schedule. Dawn meditations in the godswood, evening practice in his chambers. If the Force had chosen him for this path, he wouldn't disappoint.
As they left the solar, Jon caught Robb's arm. "I'll share everything I learn. Every scroll, every secret. The North needs this knowledge."
Robb's grip on his wrist was fierce. "Just come back, brother. Both of you."
Jon squeezed back, sealing the promise without words. But through the Force, he felt a shadow of uncertainty. Some journeys changed a man beyond recognition. Some paths, once taken, allowed no return to what was.