The Neck was no place for horses. After the first day, they left the horses behind on a spit of drier ground, tethered under the watch of a pair of crannogmen who hid into the bog like shadows. From then on, they walked—Jon, Howland Reed, his son Jojen, his daughter Meera, and Ghost padding reluctantly behind.
The swamp stretched endless, a land half-drowned, where the air stank of rot and wet moss, and every step threatened to sink into black water. Strange cries echoed across the swamps—frogs, birds, and beasts Jon could not name.
Ghost disliked it most of all. The direwolf kept close at first, ears flat, eyes darting at every splash in the water. Twice Jon found him standing stiff-legged, teeth bared at the surface of a stagnant pool where shadows stirred. By the second day, Ghost began to range ahead, his white coat flashing between the trees, returning each time with blood on his muzzle. Lizard-lions, Meera called them, swamp beasts with teeth like knives and hides thick as boiled leather. Ghost hunted them regularly, presumably knowing he would not be getting such exotic prey very time soon.
Jon walked in silence, his boots sodden, his thoughts heavier than the damp that clung to him.
He thought of his last life—the one he had left behind, or perhaps had never truly lived. The war against the dead. His death after. And all the truths that had come too late.
Howland Reed was here now, in the flesh, guiding him south, speaking words of loyalty to a name Jon had never even known. But in that other life, Reed had never come. Jon had learned of his birth not from the man who had known it all along, but from whispers and schemes when Westeros was close to its end.
By then, the game was already being played. Sansa with her quiet smiles, Bran with his cold eyes, Tyrion ever planning in the shadows with his cynical brain. And Jon—the fool in black, thinking his honor and his silence would shield him and everyone who believed in him.
It had not.
And Daenerys. For a time, he had loved her, or wanted to love her. She dreamed of thrones, of breaking wheels, of conquering fire. But she never saw Cersei for what she was—a viper too cunning to face in open field. Daenerys's certainty, her fury after her friend was slain, had burned through all reason. Jon had been too tired by then—too tired to love a woman who saw in him not a partner, but a rival.
He clenched his jaw and pushed the thoughts away. That path was ended. This one was before him.
On the third day evening, when the mist was so thick the world seemed little more than a grey shroud, Jon saw it.
Greywater Watch.
The keep did not sit upon stone but upon water itself, a mass of towers and halls rising from great rafts bound by thick ropes and creepers. It floated on the bog like a ship too stubborn to sink. No two towers were the same height, no wall the same angle. The place seemed to shift even as Jon stared, as if the very land resisted holding still long enough to be known.
"Greywater moves," Meera said, catching his glance. "No foe may find it who is not welcome."
Jon said nothing. He only followed as Howland Reed led them over swaying bridges of rope and wood, Ghost growling low in his throat at the strange give beneath his paws.
They entered a hall made of wood, the air within thick with the scent of smoke and herbs. Crannogmen moved silently about their work, their faces painted in paints and green marks, their eyes flicking curiously to Jon though none spoke.
At last, Howland stopped before a narrow door, pulling it open with a creak. "Here," he said simply.
The room was small but dry, a bed with furs laid neatly in the corner, a table with a clay lamp set upon it. Jon stepped inside, weary beyond measure.
Howland's gaze lingered on him, steady as still water. "Rest, my king. All that you wish to know will be told. Tomorrow, in the godswood, I will give you the truth your uncle could not."
Jon met his eyes, searching them for any shadow of falsehood. He found none.
He nodded once. "Tomorrow, then."
Howland inclined his head, then shut the door, leaving Jon alone with Ghost, who curled at the foot of the bed, eyes still wary of the strange floating walls.
Jon sat heavily, elbows on his knees, the weight of two lives pressing down on him. Tomorrow, he would hear it all—the truth of his birth, of Lyanna, of Rhaegar, of the name Aemon.