"After the War was lost, she gave birth in that Tower on the same day her brother, Lord Eddard, finally came for her. My sworn brothers and I were under strict orders from Rhaegar to only let her brother through. No companions could be trusted. But they had been beset by remnants of the Dornish forces on the way there, and only Ned and Lord Howland Reed arrived out of the band that had set out, both bloodied and exhausted. I knew from Lyanna's stories that Howland Reed owed her his honour and possibly his life, and was no more likely than her own blood to betray her.
I persuaded Gerold and Oswell that we need not fight, and Ned sat with his sister as she died. We had to pry her stiff hand out of his, hours later. He was still crying, clutching the babe to his chest. And what an irony it was, to find that the babe was not Visenya at all. Lyanna named him Jaehaerys, for the Conciliator. Less than two moons' turns after Prince Aegon died, his younger brother, Jaehaerys, Third of His Name, Lord Protector of the Realm, was born, the true king of the Seven Kingdoms from the moment he first drew breath." Arthur paused then, and looked at Jon with such intensity in his eyes that it was nearly staggering.
Jon's breath hitched and caught. His hand, he realised, was trembling in Margaery's. His whole body felt weak. He was no idiot. He knew who Arthur must be talking about. It still did not feel real, felt as foreign as though this all pertained to someone else, someone not him. And yet there were dragons in his bedchamber. Dragonstone had not hurt him, with fire or with fumes.
He was... He stopped, swallowed. He was not Ned Stark's son. He was not Arthur Dayne's nephew. Robb and Arya and the others were not his siblings. His brother and sister were long gone, as were his parents. Uncle Benjen and Aunt Dacey remained to him. They must. Benjen, too, had only just learnt of this, had he not? And he was no less his uncle now, even if it was through Lyanna rather than Lord Eddard. And Margaery. Jon glanced up at her, took in the pallor in his cheeks, the way her mouth hung open, as though caught there. She had not known either. Jon did not know why that made him feel so relieved. It did, though. He did not know what he would have done had she known and not told him.
"Beyond everything else," Arthur said. "We needed to keep you safe. And at that time, with the loyalist forces scattered and broken, that meant keeping you secret. The five of us agreed that I would go with you and your uncle to Winterfell. He would claim you for his own, and I would claim you for my sister's. That way fewer people would question my presence. Gerold and Oswell had to leave. We could never have managed the ruse with three Kingsguard around you, and so they went to Essos, to raise an army for the day we would need it."
A wry, sad smile stretched Arthur's face. "Ned and I rarely agreed on anything. He wanted to keep you secret your whole life. I always believed that keeping you secret, in the long run, would come with risks we could not foresee. You would be safer in a seat of power, where we could at least see the threats coming. Ned, for all that he resents the man, loves Robert like a brother, and would hesitate to rise against him. But he will if he has to, and some day he will, for your sake. That Throne does not belong to Robert Baratheon; it never did. It is yours, Your Grace. It has been since the moment of your birth."
Jon felt a sob try to tear free from his throat. He bit it back with some effort. 'Do not call me that,' he wanted to scream. He could not bear the sudden distance it put between them. It was bad enough that Arthur was not his uncle, that Ned was not his father, that everyone had lied to him, that he had lost them all halfway already. Did Arthur have to make it clear that he had lost them fully? "Is that why you left Dorne?" he managed. "Is that why you stayed all those years? Just because--"
"Because you are the rightful king?" Arthur said. He sighed, reached out a hand and stroked it through Jon's hair like he had when he was younger. "Yes." His voice was sad. "It is. But it is also because I loved your father like a brother and counted your mother among my dearest friends. That was why I came along. That was why I swore my sword to you on the day you were born. But Jon." He caught Jon's chin with his strong, calloused hand and pulled up his head until they were eye to eye. "I swear myself to you every single day, and it is no longer because of any of those things. It is because of you. Because you are all the things that were good about Rhaegar, but with none of his madness. Because you are all the things that were right about your forbearers, and none of the things that are wrong. It is because the realm needs you, and because I love you like mine own son." He was silent for a long moment, and his eyes told the tale of both his sadness, and of pride and love and all the things Jon had thought, for a moment, that he had stood to lose, if he had ever had them at all. "I am sorry I lied for so long," he said. "I can only say that for the longest while, it was necessary. Then it was habit. Then it was... waiting for the right moment." The apple of his throat bobbed on a swallow. "And perhaps I was afraid, to never hear you call me uncle again."