# The Neck, En Route to Greywater Watch
*Eight years after Robert's Rebellion*
The morning mist clung to the waterways like a crone's shroud, grey and damp and cold enough to make a man wonder if the sun had finally given up on the Neck entirely. Jaime Lannister had stopped wondering that six years ago. The sun would burn through by midday—it always did—but the reprieve lasted only until evening, when the mists rolled back in thick as wool and twice as stifling.
He stood at the prow watching the grey waters part before them, one hand resting easy on the rail, the other on the pommel of his sword. Not the gilded monstrosity he'd carried as a Kingsguard—that had been left behind with the white cloak and the pretty lies about honor. This was a proper blade, Northern steel, plain and practical and weighted for real work rather than ceremony.
*Eight years,* he thought. *Eight years since I rode north with Targaryen children and became the traitor everyone south of the Neck already thought I was. Eight years since I last saw Cersei's face twisted with rage that I'd chosen duty over her bed.*
He should have missed her more. Should have felt the ache of separation, the longing for her touch, her taste, the way she'd gasped his name in the darkness. Instead he felt... relief. Bone-deep, guilty, liberating relief that the obsession that had ruled his life since childhood had finally, mercifully, burned itself out.
The North had given him that gift, among others. Distance. Purpose. The chance to be something other than the Kingslayer, the oathbreaker, the man who'd murdered his king and fucked his sister with equal enthusiasm.
"You're brooding again," came a voice like rumbling thunder. "I can always tell when you're brooding. Your face gets all scrunched up like you're trying to pass a stone."
Jaime didn't turn. "That's remarkably observant for a man whose skull is thick enough to stop a battle-axe."
"I practice," Gunnar Ravenswood said, moving to stand beside him with footsteps that made the boat list dangerously until he adjusted his weight. The man was built like a siege tower—six and a half feet of muscle and bone and Northern stubbornness, with hands that could probably crack walnuts without effort and shoulders that required most doorways to surrender unconditionally. "Someone has to keep track of your moods. Otherwise you might do something rash and Southern, like write poetry or declare your feelings. We can't have that. You're practically Northern now."
"Practically," Jaime agreed. "Though I still can't bring myself to enjoy fermented seal liver."
"No one enjoys fermented seal liver," Gunnar said with the air of someone stating obvious truth. "We eat it because it keeps scurvy away during winter and because our ancestors ate it, and if it was good enough for men who survived the Long Night without dragons or fancy Southron armor, it's good enough for us." He paused. "Also because refusing it when offered is an insult that can end with knives out, and avoiding unnecessary violence is the mark of wisdom."
"The North's approach to etiquette never ceases to amaze me," Jaime observed.
"Etiquette is eating things that taste like death rather than starting blood feuds," Gunnar replied cheerfully. "The South has it backwards—you lot serve food that actually tastes good but stab each other over perceived slights to your honor. We serve food that tastes like ass and only stab each other when someone steals our women or kills our kin. Much more practical."
He pulled a leather flask from his belt, unstoppered it, and took a long pull before offering it to Jaime. "Here. This'll warm you up. New batch from Wintertown—one of those distillers Princess Rhaenys set up decided he could improve on the basic vodka formula. Added some kind of herbs or spices or possibly just ground-up bark. Hard to tell, really, but it's got more kick than a mule with hemorrhoids."
Jaime eyed the flask with appropriate wariness. "The last time you offered me 'improved' vodka, I couldn't feel my tongue for three hours."
"That's because you drank half the flask like a Southern lord guzzling wine," Gunnar said. "Vodka requires *respect*. You sip it. Well, you gulp it, really, but you gulp it respectfully. With awareness of what you're doing to your insides."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's not meant to be. It's meant to be accurate." Gunnar thrust the flask closer. "Go on. You look cold."
*I'm always cold,* Jaime thought, but he took the flask anyway. The vodka—or whatever the mad distiller had created—hit his throat like liquid dragon's breath, burned its way down to his stomach, and sat there radiating heat that felt distinctly unnatural. "Gods," he gasped when he could speak again. "What in the seven hells is in that?"
"Grain alcohol, water, and what the distiller swears is 'a proprietary blend of Northern botanicals,'" Gunnar recited with the air of someone who'd memorized this explanation specifically so he could mock it later. "Which I suspect translates to 'whatever I had lying around that didn't kill the rats when I tested it.' But it works, doesn't it? You're warmer already."
Jaime had to admit he was. Possibly because his insides were now on fire, but warm was warm. "Your standards for beverages are terrifyingly low."
"My standards are *practical*," Gunnar corrected, reclaiming his flask. "If it warms you, gets you drunk, and doesn't blind you or make your cock fall off, it's good vodka. Everything else is just Southern pretension." He took another drink, apparently immune to the fire that had nearly killed Jaime. "Though I'll admit that whiskey they're making near White Harbor is superior for actual *enjoyment* rather than functional purposes. Smoother, more complex, makes you feel civilized while still getting you properly drunk."
"You prefer the whiskey," Jaime said. "I remember. You spent most of last winter trying to convince me it was objectively superior."
"Because it *is*," Gunnar insisted with the fervor of a septon preaching salvation. "Vodka is what you drink when you need to get warm or drunk or both as quickly as possible. Whiskey is what you drink when you want to actually *taste* something that isn't just concentrated alcohol and regret. It's the difference between fucking a camp follower and bedding a woman who actually wants you there. Both accomplish the basic goal, but one leaves you feeling considerably better about yourself afterward."
"That's..." Jaime considered. "Actually not a terrible comparison."
"I'm full of wisdom," Gunnar said smugly. "It's one of my many gifts. The others include being able to lift things heavier than you, drink more than you, and intimidate people just by standing near them and breathing."
"And modesty," Jaime added. "Don't forget modesty."
"Modesty is for people who have things to be modest about," Gunnar replied without missing a beat. "I'm excellent at everything I do, so false humility would just be lying. And lying is dishonorable." He grinned. "See? I can be philosophical *and* arrogant. Another gift."
Behind them, three more boats followed in careful single file, their Northern crews managing the channels with the kind of casual competence that came from a lifetime navigating waters that shifted with every tide. Good men, all of them—hand-picked by Princess Rhaenys and Lord Cregan for loyalty, discretion, and the kind of practical intelligence that knew when to ask questions and when to simply do the job.
"You know what I find funny?" Gunnar said, his voice dropping to something more contemplative—which with him usually meant 'preparing to say something profound that sounds insulting.' "Eight years ago, when Princess Rhaenys told me I'd be serving as your guard, I thought she'd lost her mind. Putting the *Kingslayer*—the man who'd helped destroy the Targaryens—in charge of protecting the very children whose family he'd betrayed? That seemed like the kind of decision that ends with everyone dead and songs about folly."
He paused, took another drink. "But here we are, eight years later, and I can't imagine having served with anyone else. You've taught me more about what honor *actually means*—not the pretty words version, the real thing—than any knight who stayed South playing at politics. And you've proven that sometimes the hardest thing isn't doing your duty. It's living with the consequences while everyone else judges you for choices they weren't brave enough to make themselves."
Something tightened in Jaime's chest—gratitude mixed with relief mixed with the bone-deep satisfaction of being *understood* by someone who had every reason not to understand at all. "That means more than you know, Gunnar."
"Don't go getting all weepy on me, Lannister," Gunnar said quickly, though his voice held warmth beneath the mock severity. "We're Northmen now. We express affection by insulting each other and occasionally helping with heavy lifting. None of this Southern emotional honesty nonsense."
"My apologies," Jaime said, matching his tone. "What I *meant* to say is: you're an overgrown half-wit whose brain is roughly the size of a pea, and I remain constantly amazed that Princess Rhaenys trusts you with anything more complicated than opening doors and making threatening noises at people."
"Much better," Gunnar said with satisfaction. "That's proper Northern friendship. Insults and loyalty in equal measure." He gestured at the oilskin packet secured at Jaime's belt—wrapped in layers of treated leather, sealed with six different types of wax, marked with the sigils of Stark and Reed and carefully-hidden Targaryen dragons. "So what's in those letters that's got you looking like a man heading to his own funeral?"
Jaime's hand moved unconsciously to the packet. Eight years of carrying treasonous correspondence had made him paranoid—appropriately so, given that these letters could start wars if they fell into the wrong hands. Ravens could be intercepted, killed, their messages read by anyone with eyes and the willingness to commit casual treason. And Varys the Spider had his little birds *everywhere*, hearing whispers, gathering secrets, weaving webs of information that could strangle kingdoms.
So they'd fallen back on the oldest method of secure communication: physical delivery by men who could be trusted absolutely, traveling routes that couldn't be easily intercepted, carrying messages that existed nowhere else in the world.
"The usual treasonous correspondence," Jaime replied quietly, pitching his voice low despite the fact that everyone in their convoy already knew what they carried and why. "Updates from Winterfell about the children's progress. Letters from Princess Elia to the people who officially died at the Tower of Joy but who somehow keep writing back. Notes from Lord Eddard to his sister who's supposed to be in her tomb but who seems remarkably active for a corpse."
"So just your standard treason," Gunnar summarized cheerfully. "Nothing unusual. Just letters acknowledging that officially dead people are actually alive, that Rhaegar Targaryen's son by Lyanna Stark is being raised in secret, and that several of us are actively participating in deceiving the entire realm about matters that could get us all hanged if discovered. Typical day in the North."
"When you put it like that," Jaime said dryly, "it sounds considerably worse than it feels."
"Does it?" Gunnar's pale blue eyes held genuine curiosity beneath the humor. "Because from where I'm standing, we're carrying evidence that Lady Lyanna Stark didn't die in childbirth, that her son by Rhaegar exists and is being hidden away like treasure, and that legendary knights who everyone thinks died heroically are actually alive and serving as bodyguards for a boy who has better claim to the Iron Throne than the man currently sitting on it. If that's not the dictionary definition of treason, I'd love to know what would qualify."
"Treason requires betraying your rightful lord," Jaime said, and there was an edge to his voice now—not anger, but something harder. Conviction. "Tell me, Gunnar—who's my rightful lord? Robert Baratheon, who took the throne by killing everyone in his way and called it justice? The laws that say Targaryen children should be murdered for the convenience of political stability? Or perhaps the comfortable lies that let people sleep at night without wondering whether anything about the Rebellion's outcome was actually *right*?"
He turned to face Gunnar fully, his green eyes hard as emeralds. "I killed Aerys Targaryen because he was going to burn half a million people alive rather than let Robert take his city. That was justice, however much people want to call it kingslaying. I helped evacuate Elia and her children because murdering babies to consolidate power is *exactly* the kind of monstrous behavior that made Aerys worth killing in the first place. And I serve Princess Rhaenys now because she represents something better than what either the Targaryens or the Baratheons have offered the realm in three hundred years."
"Better how?" Gunnar asked, and there was no challenge in it—just honest interest in understanding the philosophy that had driven the Kingslayer north and kept him there.
"Better because she and Lord Cregan aren't content to simply inherit power and squeeze it for everything they can extract," Jaime replied, his voice gaining heat. "They're *building* things. Revolutionizing agriculture so fewer people starve. Establishing trade routes so the North gets rich instead of just surviving. Creating new industries—that vodka you're so fond of didn't exist eight years ago, and now it's making people wealthy from here to White Harbor. And that's not even touching the major projects. Sea Dragon Point. The canal. Moat Cailin rising from ruins. All of it designed to make lives *better* rather than just maintaining the status quo."
He gestured broadly at the Neck around them, the motion encompassing more than just the immediate waterways. "Look at what they've accomplished in eight years, Gunnar. When we first came north, the North was poor, isolated, living on scraps from summer to barely survive winter. Now? The North has gold. Has trade goods that Southron lords fight over. Has food stores that could feed twice the population through the longest winter. And all of it came from two children who somehow know more about running a kingdom than men who've been doing it for decades."
"All designed by children," Gunnar observed. "Which is either a miracle or something considerably more disturbing, depending on how much stock you put in divine intervention versus other explanations."
"I've stopped trying to understand *how* they know what they know," Jaime admitted. "Whether it's gods whispering in their ears, or reincarnation, or magic we don't understand, or just genius beyond anything the world has seen in a thousand years—it doesn't matter. What matters is that they're using that knowledge to build something worth protecting. Something worth serving. Something worth dying for, if it comes to that."
He paused, his hand returning to the oilskin packet at his belt. "In King's Landing, I served mad kings and stood silent while they committed atrocities, because tradition said that's what Kingsguard do—stand and serve and don't ask questions. Here in the North, I serve a princess who uses her power to feed the hungry, protect the innocent, and build futures where children don't have to be hidden away just for having the wrong father. If that's treason, then call me traitor and let's be done with it. I'll wear that name with more pride than I ever wore 'Ser.'"
Gunnar was quiet for a long moment, studying Jaime's face with those pale blue eyes that seemed to see through flesh and bone to truth beneath. "You really believe in them," he said finally. "In Lord Cregan and Princess Rhaenys. This isn't just about avoiding the South or finding purpose or redeeming yourself. You genuinely believe they're going to change the world."
"I believe," Jaime replied with absolute certainty, "that they're *already* changing it. And I believe that in twenty years, when they're ruling the North together as Lord and Princess, historians will look back on this moment and mark it as the point where everything shifted. When power stopped being just about who could kill the most people and started being about who could create the most prosperous, stable, just society. When the game of thrones became less important than the game of actually governing well."
"That's quite a vision," Gunnar observed. "Big dreams for a Kingslayer and an oversized Northern bastard carrying treasonous letters through a swamp."
"The best dreams usually are," Jaime replied.
"Hope you're right," Gunnar said, and for once there was no humor in his voice—just honesty. "Because if this all collapses, if it turns out we're wrong and they're just lucky children who'll fail when the real challenges come, we're all going to hang side by side while people compose songs about our folly. 'The Kingslayer and the Giant,' they'll call it. Maybe add a verse about how we died for nothing."
"If I'm wrong," Jaime said quietly, "at least we'll have died for something that *could* have been worth it. That's more than most people get. More than I'd have gotten if I'd stayed South."
The boats continued their steady progress through water so still it might have been glass—grey glass, thick with mist, reflecting nothing but the eternal fog that made the Neck the Neck. Up ahead, barely visible through the thinning mist, a structure was beginning to take shape. Timber and stone and woven reed, floating on foundations that shouldn't exist according to every principle of architecture Jaime had ever learned.
Greywater Watch.
Home to House Reed, the crannogmen, the little people who moved through their swamps like ghosts and knew every channel, every safe path, every place where solid ground gave way to sucking mud that swallowed men whole.
Sanctuary for those whose existence had to remain hidden from the world's eyes.
Destination for letters that could reshape kingdoms if they reached the wrong hands.
"Tell me about the boy," Gunnar said suddenly, his voice soft enough that it wouldn't carry beyond their boat. "Jon Snow. Lyanna Stark's son. The one who's officially supposed to be dead but who we're delivering letters to. What's he like? I've heard the stories, but stories and truth aren't always friends."
Jaime considered the question carefully. He'd met young Jon—eight years old now, nearly nine, already showing signs of the man he'd become—half a dozen times during previous runs to Greywater Watch. The boy was... unusual. Not in the spectacular, obvious way that Cregan and Rhaenys were unusual, with their impossible knowledge and revolutionary ideas. Different. Quieter. Like a lake that seemed shallow but went down farther than you'd think, with cold things moving in the depths.
"He's quiet," Jaime said at last, choosing his words carefully. "Thoughtful. Watches everything, listens to everything, speaks only when he has something worth saying. He's got his mother's eyes—grey as winter ice—and he looks at you like he's measuring whether you're worth his trust or worth his blade."
"Dark outlook for an eight-year-old," Gunnar observed.
"He's an eight-year-old who knows he has to hide who he is or die," Jaime replied flatly. "That tends to make children grow up fast. He knows his father was Rhaegar Targaryen. Knows that makes him valuable to some people and a threat to others. Knows that men have died to keep him safe and more will die before this is done. That's not the kind of knowledge that leaves room for innocent childhood."
"But?" Gunnar prompted, hearing the weight in Jaime's voice, the unspoken reservation.
"But there's something else," Jaime admitted slowly, frowning as he tried to put instinct into words. "Something about him that feels... old. Not ancient like Lord Cregan sometimes seems, with his impossible knowledge of things no child should know. Different. Like he's carrying burdens he shouldn't have, like he's lived through things that haven't happened yet. Like he *knows* more than he's saying, but it's buried deeper, harder to see."
He shook his head, frustrated by his inability to articulate what he felt. "I can't explain it better than that. Just that when you talk to Jon Snow, you get the sense that you're speaking with someone who's seen darkness that would break grown men, and he's only eight years old. It's unsettling."
"Unsettling seems to be a common trait among important Northern children these days," Gunnar said dryly. "Lord Cregan with his impossible knowledge, Princess Rhaenys with her cleverness and ruthlessness, and now Jon Snow carrying burdens that shouldn't exist. The gods really are having fun with us, aren't they?"
"Or fate is," Jaime replied. "Or magic, or prophecy, or any of a dozen impossible explanations that all somehow feel less implausible than believing that Westeros just happened to produce three genuinely extraordinary children in the same generation by pure blind chance."
Gunnar took another pull from his flask, grimacing slightly at the burn—or possibly at the implications of their conversation. "You know what I think?" he said, his voice carrying the kind of philosophical weight that good alcohol sometimes inspired. "I think we're living through one of those periods that historians write about centuries later. The kind where everyone afterward says, 'That was the moment everything changed, how did people not realize what was happening?' Except we *do* realize it. We're just too busy surviving and trying not to get hanged for treason to properly appreciate the cosmic significance of our situation."
"That's remarkably profound for a man who claims to think primarily with his muscles," Jaime observed.
"I contain multitudes," Gunnar replied with drunken dignity. "Also, vodka makes me philosophical. It's a gift, a curse, and an excuse for saying stupid things that turn out to be accidentally wise. Triple threat."
The mist was thinning steadily now as they approached Greywater Watch proper, the autumn sun finally burning through with enough strength to make the world visible beyond twenty feet. What had been vague suggestions of structure were resolving into something more solid—though "solid" remained the wrong word for a holdfast that floated on the water and allegedly moved with the tides, never found twice in exactly the same place by those who didn't have Reed blood or Reed permission.
"How do you think Lady Lyanna's managing?" Gunnar asked, his voice gentling in the way it did when discussing suffering he understood but couldn't fix. "Eight years in exile. Eight years raising her son in hiding, never able to go home or acknowledge who she really is or see her family except through smuggled letters. That's got to wear on a person, even one as strong as the stories make her out to be."
"She endures," Jaime replied, thinking of the few conversations he'd had with Eddard Stark's sister over the years—a woman who should have been ruling Winterfell as Ned's lady wife or married to some Northern lord and raising proper acknowledged children, but instead lived in exile for the crime of loving the wrong man. "Because she loves her son more than she hates her circumstances. Because she knows the alternative to exile is watching him die the way Aegon and Rhaenys would have died if they'd stayed in King's Landing. When the choice is between enduring hardship and watching your child murdered, endurance comes easy."
"And the others?" Gunnar pressed gently. "Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull himself. Ser Oswell Whent. The other Kingsguard and Northern men who 'died' at the Tower of Joy but somehow keep needing to be fed? How do they manage, being officially dead, unable to return to their lives or their lands or their honor?"
"They manage," Jaime said, and his voice held respect that went bone-deep, "because they *chose* this. Because they decided—every one of them—that protecting an innocent child mattered more than personal comfort or public glory or acknowledged honor. That's the kind of sacrifice that doesn't come with regrets. It comes with quiet pride that you chose correctly when the choice mattered most."
He paused, his hand returning one final time to the oilskin packet at his belt—their cargo, their burden, their treason. "And letters like these help. Connections to the world they left behind. Proof that they haven't been forgotten, that their service matters even if it can never be publicly acknowledged. News from the North, from the South, from people who remember them. It's not much, but it's what we can offer. Small comfort for large sacrifice."
The boats were close enough now that Jaime could make out individual figures on Greywater Watch's floating docks—crannogmen mostly, moving with that peculiar fluid grace that marked Reed's people, but also taller silhouettes that suggested their expected visitors were already gathering. Knights who'd died eight years ago. A lady who'd perished in childbirth. A boy who'd never been born.
All very much alive.
All waiting for letters from the world that thought them dead.
"Right then," Gunnar said, draining the last of his vodka and tucking the flask back into his belt with the care of a man who knew he'd want it again soon. "Let's deliver these treasonous letters to the officially dead people and the hidden prince who has better claim to the throne than the man sitting on it. Just another normal day in service to the future of the North, the dragons nobody knows about, and the wolves who protect them."
"Just another normal day," Jaime agreed, and he was smiling—not the pretty courtier's smile he'd worn in King's Landing, but something real. Something earned. "Treason, conspiracy, protecting impossible children, and trying not to get everyone killed in the process. If anyone had told me eight years ago that this is where I'd end up, I'd have thought them mad."
"And now?" Gunnar asked.
"Now," Jaime said quietly, watching Greywater Watch resolve out of the mist like something from legend, "I can't imagine being anywhere else."
The boats glided toward their destination, carrying letters that could reshape kingdoms, serving children who might reshape the world, protecting secrets that could start wars.
And Jaime Lannister—once the youngest knight to wear the white cloak, once the Kingslayer, now something simpler and infinitely more valuable—felt the bone-deep satisfaction of purpose fulfilled.
Even if that purpose looked like treason to anyone foolish enough to judge it from the outside.
Winter was coming, after all.
And the wolves had learned that sometimes the best allies came from the most unexpected places.
Even lions.
*Especially* lions who'd finally found something worth protecting.
---
# Greywater Watch, The Floating Holdfast
The approach to Greywater Watch never got less strange, no matter how many times Jaime made the journey. The holdfast shimmered through the thinning mist like something half-remembered from a fever dream—there but not quite there, solid but somehow uncertain, positioned exactly where logic said it should be yet subtly *wrong* in ways that made his eyes hurt if he thought about it too hard.
Howland Reed claimed it was just the Neck being the Neck—tides shifting, water levels changing, floating foundations responding to currents in ways that made fixed positions impossible. But Jaime had served in the Kingsguard, had seen things in the Red Keep's bowels that didn't bear close examination, and he suspected the truth was considerably stranger than simple engineering. Old magic, perhaps. The kind that predated the Andals, maybe even the First Men. The kind that didn't care about rational explanations and worked simply because it always had.
Whatever the reason, Greywater Watch existed in that peculiar space between myth and reality—impossible to mark on any map, yet undeniably present when you needed to find it. Rather like the crannogmen themselves, come to think of it.
The docks—and calling them that was generous—were a testament to engineering that shouldn't work but somehow did. Logs bound with reed and rope, floating on water that was probably deeper than the wisest man could measure, yet stable enough to support cargo and warriors despite having no business staying afloat at all. Crannogmen scampered across them like cats on rafters, their small frames perfectly balanced, while visitors like Gunnar approached with the caution of men who knew the water below held things with teeth.
"Welcome back, Ser Jaime," came a voice dry as autumn leaves. Howland Reed stood waiting at the dock's edge, looking exactly as he had every other time—small, weathered, ageless in the way of men who'd learned to become part of their environment rather than fighting it. His eyes were sharp as obsidian, missing nothing, cataloging their party with the efficiency of someone who'd survived the Neck's dangers by never assuming anything was safe until proven otherwise.
"Lord Howland," Jaime replied, accepting the offered hand despite not strictly needing help onto the platform. Some courtesies transcended necessity—host and guest, the small rituals that kept men civilized even when surrounded by primordial swamp. "I hope we're not too early."
"Your timing is perfect as always," Howland said with a slight smile. "Though I suspect that's more Princess Rhaenys's planning than chance. The girl has a gift for logistics that would make a quartermaster weep with envy." His smile faded slightly. "Lady Lyanna has been watching for your boats these past two days. Letters from family are precious when you're dead to the world, and it's been too long since the last correspondence."
Gunnar followed Jaime onto the docks with considerably less grace, his massive frame making the whole platform dip alarmingly before the ropes and logs somehow compensated. Several crannogmen moved to secure the boats with practiced efficiency, their movements economical and silent—the kind of silence that came from hunting things that hunted back.
"How is she?" Jaime asked quietly, pitching his voice low despite the fact that everyone here knew the secrets they kept. "And the boy?"
"Restless," Howland replied with the blunt honesty Jaime had learned to appreciate over the years. No courtly euphemisms from the crannogmen—they said what was true and let you deal with it as you would. "Both of them. Jon's reached that age where he understands his life isn't normal but can't quite grasp why he should care about staying hidden. And Lady Lyanna..." He paused, choosing words with rare care. "She endures because she must. Because the alternative is unthinkable. But eight years of exile weighs heavy even on the strongest shoulders, and hers are bending under the load."
"Eight years without seeing your family," Gunnar muttered, following them along walkways that swayed gently underfoot. "Without going home, without being acknowledged, all because the king can't let go of a woman who never wanted him in the first place. That's not just tragic—it's obscene."
"Robert's obsession with Lyanna has achieved legendary status in the South," Jaime observed, his voice carrying an edge of contempt that eight years hadn't dulled. "Every tavern has some version of the tale. The beautiful Northern maiden stolen by the dragon prince, the brave warrior king who fought to save her but arrived too late to prevent tragedy. It would be romantic if it weren't built on lies and delusion and Robert's inability to accept that some women prefer other men."
"Truth rarely survives contact with politics," Howland said with the philosophical weariness of someone who'd watched kingdoms reshape themselves around convenient fictions. "Better that Robert believes his comfortable lie than learns a truth that might restart the war. Though I confess there are nights when I wonder if we're serving justice by keeping this secret or simply postponing an inevitable confrontation that grows more dangerous with every passing year."
"Cheerful thought," Gunnar observed. "Nothing like contemplating future wars before breakfast."
"I had breakfast hours ago," Howland replied with perfect deadpan. "Now I contemplate future wars while digesting. Much more civilized."
They passed through a series of interconnected structures—buildings that floated on the same mysterious principles as the docks, connected by bridges of wood and rope that swayed with every step like the whole place was breathing. The architecture was unlike anything else in Westeros—organic, adaptive, working *with* the Neck's fluid nature rather than trying to impose order on chaos. It was strange, unsettling, and somehow more honest than the stone fortifications that dotted the rest of the realm, pretending solidity would protect them from time and tide.
"The White Bull's been asking about you," Howland continued as they walked. "Gerold Hightower, I mean. He's taken charge of Jon's sword training now that the boy's old enough to hold a blade without dropping it on his own foot. Claims the child has natural talent but needs discipline to channel it properly. Also claims that watching an eight-year-old try to master forms designed for grown men is both inspiring and occasionally hilarious."
"Gerold's still sharp then?" Jaime asked. The former Lord Commander of Aerys's Kingsguard would be well into his seventies now—ancient by most measures, though the legends suggested he'd been carved from granite in the Age of Heroes and simply refused to acknowledge mortality's claims.
"Sharp as Valyrian steel," Howland confirmed. "Age has stolen some speed, but none of his skill or cunning. He moves like water when he teaches—shows Jon forms that I suspect haven't been practiced regularly since before the Conquest, and the boy absorbs it all like dry ground soaks rain. Takes everything Gerold offers and makes it his own, adds his own variations. It's unsettling to watch, honestly. No eight-year-old should pick up swordwork that fast."
"Nothing about Northern children seems normal these days," Gunnar observed. "Between Lord Cregan knowing things no child should know, Princess Rhaenys being more terrifying than most grown warriors, and now Jon Snow mastering ancient sword forms, I'm starting to think the gods are playing games with us specifically."
"If the gods are playing games, they have a twisted sense of humor," Jaime muttered.
They approached what appeared to be Greywater Watch's main hall—larger than the other structures, built from dark timber that had been treated with something that made it resistant to the Neck's eternal damp. Guards stood at the entrance—crannogmen mostly, but also larger figures that Jaime recognized from previous visits. Dead men, according to the world. Very much alive according to the evidence of his eyes.
One of those larger figures stepped forward, and Jaime felt the familiar complicated knot of emotions that always accompanied seeing Ser Gerold Hightower—the White Bull himself, legendary Lord Commander, supposedly dead at the Tower of Joy but standing very much alive in this hidden corner of the realm.
At seventy-three, Gerold should have been bent with age, slow with aching joints, thinking of nothing more strenuous than telling stories to grandchildren he'd never acknowledged. Instead he stood straight-backed and alert, his weathered face showing none of the confusion or forgetfulness that claimed most men who'd seen seven decades. His beard was white as fresh snow, his hair silver as moonlight, but his eyes—those sharp grey eyes that had evaluated thousands of knights over half a century of service—remained as penetrating as the day he'd taken his vows.
"Ser Jaime," Gerold said with genuine warmth, clasping forearms in the warrior's greeting. His grip was still strong, still steady—the hands of a man who practiced daily even if there was no war to fight. "Good to see you whole and healthy. The Neck hasn't claimed you yet, which speaks well of either your competence or your luck. Possibly both."
"Ser Gerold," Jaime replied, returning the clasp with equal firmness. "You're looking well. I'd say the years are treating you kindly, but that would suggest they're treating you at all. I'm starting to suspect you made a bargain with some dark power to remain perpetually dangerous."
"The dark power is called 'not drinking myself to death' and 'actually training regularly,'" Gerold replied with a slight smile. "Revolutionary concepts, I know, but they do wonders for longevity." He turned to Gunnar, eyeing the younger man with assessment that was probably unconscious after five decades of evaluating warriors. "And young Ravenswood. You've grown another inch since last I saw you, I swear. Soon you'll be too large to fit through doorways and we'll have to build a separate entrance just for you. Or feed you outside like a destrier that's too valuable to sell but too expensive to stable properly."
"Ser Gerold," Gunnar replied with a grin, returning the clasp with obvious care not to crush the older man's arm—though Jaime suspected Gerold's bones were probably harder than most men's swords. "I've been told I'm large enough already, though Princess Rhaenys insists there's no such thing as too intimidating when you're serving as someone's personal guard. She claims my primary qualification is that I can stand behind her and breathe menacingly at people who annoy her."
"The princess is wise beyond her years," Gerold observed. "As is young Lord Cregan, from what I hear in the letters. The pair of them seem determined to revolutionize the North whether it wants revolutionizing or not." His expression softened with something that looked suspiciously like grandfatherly pride—strange to see on the face of a man who'd never married, never had children, spent his life serving kings rather than creating heirs. "The letters you carry from Winterfell—they're well? The children thriving?"
"Thriving like weeds in fertile soil," Jaime confirmed. "Growing fast, brilliant as stars, making everyone around them either marvel at their genius or worry about what they'll revolutionize next. Currently they're obsessed with something called 'crop rotation' that's apparently going to double agricultural yields, and they're drawing up plans for a canal that will fundamentally alter maritime trade. You know, typical child concerns."
"Also, Princess Rhaenys stabbed a man in the hand with a fork last month," Gunnar added helpfully. "Some visiting Southern lord who thought grabbing her arse was acceptable behavior at dinner. She pinned his hand to the table, looked him dead in the eye, and explained in very small words exactly what she'd remove with a knife if he ever touched her again. Lord Cregan backed her completely, and the Southern lord left the next morning looking considerably paler than when he'd arrived."
Gerold's smile widened into something that might have been pride or possibly satisfaction at the thought of pompous lords learning painful lessons. "That sounds exactly like Rhaenys. She's always had excellent instincts for handling threats—swift, decisive, and thoroughly unambiguous about consequences. It's a gift." He paused. "Did she actually stab him or just threaten to?"
"Stabbed," Gunnar confirmed. "Through the hand, between the bones, pinned him to the table while she explained his mistakes. There was considerable blood and screaming. Lord Cregan declared it self-defense and sent the lord South with a letter explaining that Northern hospitality has limits and groping twelve-year-old girls exceeds them significantly."
"Good," Gerold said with satisfaction. "The world needs more lords who understand that consequences follow actions, and fewer who think their station exempts them from basic decency." He turned, gesturing toward the hall's entrance. "But you're not here to discuss fork-based justice, excellent as that topic is. Lady Lyanna awaits within, along with Jon. They've been preparing for your arrival all morning—the boy especially has been pacing like a caged direwolf, practically vibrating with eagerness for news from the wider world. I think he's memorized every word from the last batch of letters and is hoping for more stories about his cousins' adventures."
"His cousins," Jaime repeated carefully. In public—even here, where everyone knew the truth—they maintained the fiction. Jon Snow, bastard son of Brandon Stark and some unknown Northern woman, cousin to the Stark children in Winterfell. Not Aemon Targaryen, trueborn son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, with a better claim to the Iron Throne than the man currently sitting on it.
"His cousins," Gerold confirmed, and there was understanding in his eyes—the understanding of a man who'd spent decades maintaining necessary fictions in service to greater truths. "Young Robb and little Sansa. I believe Lady Lyanna is particularly eager for news of her niece—she's mentioned several times that she'd like to meet the girl someday, though we all know that's unlikely while Robert draws breath and maintains his obsession with the woman he thinks died in childbirth."
"Someday," Jaime said quietly. "When it's safe. When the world's changed enough that the truth won't restart wars."
"Someday," Gerold agreed, though his tone suggested he wasn't entirely certain that day would come. "Until then, we endure. We protect. We keep the secrets that need keeping and hope that when truth finally emerges, it emerges at the right time rather than the worst possible moment."
"Cheerful philosophy," Gunnar observed.
"I'm seventy-three years old," Gerold replied with perfect deadpan. "I've earned the right to be grim about the future while still doing my duty in the present. It's one of the few privileges of age—you can be cynical about outcomes while still working toward the best ones." He gestured toward the hall again. "Come. Lady Lyanna has been patient long enough, and Jon is probably wearing a groove in the floorboards with his pacing. Let's deliver your treasonous correspondence and pretend we're not all participating in a conspiracy that could get us hanged if discovered."
"Just another normal day in the Neck," Jaime said.
"Precisely," Gerold confirmed. "Treason, hidden princes, officially dead knights, and the ongoing effort to prevent wars through carefully maintained lies. It's practically routine at this point."
They moved toward the entrance, carrying letters that could reshape kingdoms, serving causes that existed only in shadows.
And Jaime Lannister thought—not for the first time—that he'd found more honor in conspiracy than he'd ever found in service to kings who valued appearances over truth.
Even if that honor came with the constant possibility of hanging.
Some things, he'd learned, were worth the risk.
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