Chapter Text
The dead brought no siege weapons, but they throw themselves against the doors of the Great Hall relentlessly. It’s only a matter of time before they break through. As soon as the Wall fell, Jon knew the war was lost. Or maybe it was when Daenerys refused to fight in the North before she took her southern throne.
As last stands go, this is a pitiful one. Winterfell will be overrun like Castle Black and Last Hearth and all the others before it. All Jon can do is ensure none of them will be forced to rise and fight again.
He looks around the room at those who are gathered here. Some fled south to escape the encroaching night and the relentless army. But even more chose to stay. As Sansa said, when Jon begged her to leave, death is coming, and she would prefer to die at home. He searches for the familiar head of red hair, but there are too many people crammed inside for him to see her. He wishes he could hold off until he had one last glimpse of her.
But the dead do not wait. Jon raises his torch. “What is dead shall stay dead,” he proclaims.
He drops the torch, and it ignites the oil slick floor. The flames spread quickly and even those who chose to face their end like this scream as the flames take them.
#
It takes a long time for the screams to stop. For some reason, the flames don’t. Nor do they harm Jon. With a frown, Jon steps forward and then he stumbles as he falls off a platform and lands on a hard-packed dirt floor. Gasps around him force him to his feet in a moment, Longclaw drawn in front of him.
The room he’s in is dark, illuminated only by the large fire at his back. It flickers, casting shadows on the walls. The occupants of the room are all robed, but they lower their hoods to stare at him in awe and reverence.
“Fuck no,” Jon says as he recognizes one of the priestesses. “What have you done? Where am I?”
“You know me?” Melisandre looks flattered rather than concerned.
“We lost,” Jon tells her. “If you think to summon me here to fight for you, you are wrong.”
“I didn’t summon you,” Melisandre tells him. “R’hllor did.”
Jon’s string of profanity is enough to offend the entire room. Before any of them can react, the doors to the room are opened, and a woman enters. She is older than Jon by several decades. Her silver hair is obvious even in the dim lighting of the room, but it isn’t until she’s closer that Jon sees the purple eyes. She clearly isn’t Daenerys, and Jon almost laughs. For a House that was supposedly down to its last member, there are a lot of Targaryens running around.
“Who is this?” the woman asks. “Where did he come from?”
“He stepped through the flames,” one of the priestesses says.
“And you are unburnt?”
Jon shrugs. “Family quirk.”
The woman raises her eyebrows. “You are a Targaryen?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Not many reject the blood of the dragon,” the silver-haired woman says.
“A Targaryen kidnapped my mother and started a war. He died in the war he started with his own selfishness, and my mother died giving birth to me. The only Targaryen I’ve met was as selfish as her brother. She chose the Iron Throne over the Others and doomed Westeros to eternal night.” Exhausted, Jon seeks out the priestess who spoke earlier, willing to talk to anyone but Melisandre.
“The eternal night?” the priestess asks. “If you battled against the darkness then you must be Azor Ahai reborn.” She drops to her knees before him. “I am Kinvara.”
“You say the Long Night was lost.” Melisandre speaks, and she isn’t intimidated by Jon’s glare. She looks around at her brethren before her gaze finds Jon’s again. “In what year did this occur?”
“This one,” Jon tells her, his patience all but gone. “Three-hundred and four years after Aegon’s Conquest.”
Silence meets Jon’s proclamation.
“It is 110 AC,” the Targaryen woman says.
No, Jon thinks. Impossible. But he has already been reborn once. He has seen the Wall fall and the dead march. He has seen dragons. And hadn’t Melisandre told him the power in blood? If he is both Targaryen and Stark and he sacrificed himself…
“Fuck,” Jon says.
“The battle then was lost,” Kinvara says. “Because of something that happens now. You have been sent by R’hllor to prevent it.”
“No,” Jon says, even as his mind screams why me? Hasn’t he done enough? Failed enough?
“What could happen now that that affects two-hundred years from now?” the Targaryen woman asks.
“The dragons.” Jon doesn’t know his history well, especially not his Targaryen history, but he knows when it winds through the North’s. Cregan Stark was praised for keeping his oaths in the infamous war. “Have you heard of the Dance of Dragons?”
No one in the room answers in the affirmative.
“What is it?” the Targaryen asks.
“The beginning of the end.” Jon sheathes Longclaw. “The dragons died, and Targaryen power waned. I grew up with the first non-Targaryen king since the Conquest.”
“The dragons died?” The Targaryen shakes her head as if she can’t believe it. “How?”
Jon’s smile is stretched, painful thing. “A Targaryen war for succession.”
#
Saera Targaryen and the fire priestesses waste no time in sending Jon off to King’s Landing under strict orders to prevent the death of the dragons. Jon isn’t sure how a letter of recommendation from an exiled Targaryen is supposed to help with this aim, but when he hesitated, Saera offered to find him employment in one of her brothels if he preferred that instead.
And so here he is, in King’s Landing for the first time in his life. Save for his trip to Dragonstone to plead for dragons, Jon had never left the North. He is sure it surprises no one that he prefers it. His first impression of the capital city is unflattering. It is crowded, reeks of all manner of unpleasant things, and it is stifling, both the temperature and the general feel of it. He would take the biting wind at the top of the Wall over this stagnancy any day.
He attracts a few looks as he makes his way toward the Red Keep. He’s still in his leather armor, and he has a Valyrian steel blade strapped to his hip. No doubt, though, it is the black curls and the gray solemn eyes which attract the most attention. It was a blessing, he knows, that he looks so thoroughly northern. It made it easier to hide a half-Targaryen. But here, in King’s Landing, it makes him stand out.
It is quite a production for him to make it from the gates of the Red Keep to outside the throne room itself. Not for the first time since landing in Volantis, Jon has wished for Sansa at his side. She lived in King’s Landing for years, as a future princess and then as a captive. She has always been better at politics and court than he is.
Before he can worry too much, the herald hesitantly announces, “Jon Targaryen,” and Jon is ushered into the throne room.
Silence falls over the room, and he walks softly so as not to make unnecessary noise. Courtiers line both sides of the court, and they stare openly and then begin to whisper behind their fans. On the throne itself sits the king, Viserys, as Saera had informed him. Beside him is a tall, severe man with the Hand pin on his vest. And at the King’s feet, on a smaller and far less dangerous throne is a girl who must be the Princess Rhaenyra.
Jon stops before the Kingsguard step in and block his way. He bows deeply and hopes it’s at least partially correct.
“You don’t look like one of us.”
The man who speaks steps out from the crowd. He wears his silver hair long and loose except for a few braids to keep it from falling in his face. He is dressed in black and red, and he rests his hand on the pommel of his sword. A sword that Jon recognizes from the stories. Dark Sister.
Jon bows again, this time to a prince. “Not all of us have two Targaryens for parents,” he says.
Belatedly, he realizes his words might be taken as an insult, but Daemon only laughs. “I suppose you have proof of your claim?”
Jon pulls the leather thong from around his neck. In a small satchel kept against his chest, under his clothes and armor, is the note Saera wrote for him. He removes the letter and hands it to the prince. The man raises his eyebrows at the seal and looks Jon over again. “It’s quite the trip from Volantis.”
“It is,” Jon agrees, as more whispers travel through the room.
The anticipation in the room only rises as Daemon reads the letter. He’s careful to hide his expression now, giving nothing away. After he finishes, he hands the letter to King Viserys, much to visible ire of the Hand of the King. After the king reads the letter, the Hand all but snatches it from him.
“Why have you come here?” Daemon asks. “Was there not enough adventure in Essos?”
“Not enough family,” Jon answers. He quirks a smile at the visible shock on Daemon’s face. Apparently, Northern honesty is still as disarming as ever. “I did not come for the throne, and I will swear to never sit on it if you like. I did not come for a dragon either. I simply want to know my family.”
“Are you another uncle?” Princess Rhaenyra asks. She glances at Daemon with a small frown, as if she doesn’t want another uncle.
“Our exact kinship is unknown,” Jon answers. “It would honor me if you called me cousin, but it’s an honor I do not dare ask for.”
“I like him,” Daemon decides. “What say you, brother? Shall we grow our family by one?”
“Your Grace,” the Hand says, speaking up before the king can answer. “This boy is unknown, his story unverified, and his sponsor is a woman of ill-repute.”
The king looks at Jon, uncertain, but Jon has nothing to offer in his defense. All three of those things are true. He is here to somehow stop a Targaryen civil war from breaking out. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to do it or who he’s supposed to back.
“Then we will make it two for two,” Daemon declares. “Jon shall join the City Watch and remain under my guidance.”
“What say you, Jon?” King Viserys asks. “My kin says you are trueborn kin of mine. You say you came to King’s Landing with no expectation. Will you accept my brother’s guidance?”
“I am your trueborn kin,” Jon says, even if it is a distant, distant relation. “I know some do not honor it, but my parents were wed beneath a weirwood tree. I am trueborn and a Targaryen, even if I did not inherit any of the looks. You are the king, and I hesitate to correct you, your Grace, but I must. I did come with one expectation.” He removes his blade as he takes a knee before the throne. “Valar dohaeris, your Grace. All men must serve.” Jon waits for the noise of the court to die down before he speaks again. “I, Jon Targaryen, do swear upon the old gods and the new that I have no desire for the Iron Throne. I henceforth remove myself from the line of succession. I am simply Jon, with no titles to accompany it. I am here to learn and serve my family until the gods determine my service complete.”
“Then arise, Jon, and be welcome,” Viserys says. The king levers himself off his throne and walks down the steps of the dais. Jon hurriedly rises and sheathes Longclaw before the king reaches him. He is shocked to be embraced, and he is stiff at first, before he hesitantly returns the embrace. “Rhaenyra, come greet your cousin.”
The princess rises from her throne as well. She doesn’t embrace Jon as her father did, but she does extend her hand. Jon lightly grasps it in his and bows over it. He doesn’t dare kiss her skin, but his lips touch the air several inches above it.
Daemon laughs and then pulls Jon into a sideways hug, rougher than Viserys’s embrace, something more akin to what Jon experienced with the Night’s Watch.
“My wife and queen is in our chambers,” Viserys says and to Jon’s alarm, he looks almost misty-eyed. “You will dine with us this evening and meet her.”
“We’re going to add to the family again soon,” Rhaenyra says.
“Congratulations,” Jon says. Is it this child which sparks the war? He doesn’t think so. Arya knew far more about the Targaryen histories than Jon did, but he thinks Rhaenyra was the first queen in her own right. She was usurped, but not by her sibling. Because a son of the king would inherit before her. Was it her uncle? Jon wishes he had been a more attentive student.
“You have very good timing,” Viserys says, showing no intention of returning to his throne or resuming court. “The lords and ladies of the realm will be arriving in the next few moons for the tournament for my heir.”
“Will you compete?” Rhaenyra asks.
“I am not a knight,” Jon answers.
“But you know battle,” Daemon says. He looks not to Jon’s sword first but the scar that curves around his eye. His gaze drops to the sword second. “That is Valyrian steel.”
“Aye. Tournaments are for fun and for show. I would not know how to do it, and I would risk injuring someone.”
“I would call you a braggart, but you are not,” Daemon says. He studies Jon for a long moment. “There is Northern blood in you.”
“My mother. They say I take so much after her, she gave everything to me. She died in childbirth. My father gave me his name and nothing else. Everything I am, I have to make for myself.”
“A familiar refrain.” Daemon claps him on the back. “Brother, I will have Jon at your quarters for supper, but I will steal him away until then. I’m sure court will be quite dull after this.”
“May I go with you?” Rhaenyra asks, a hopeful look on her face.
Daemon doesn’t seem to even notice as he dismisses her. “We’re going to the City Watch barracks, which is no place for a girl, let alone a princess. We will see you this evening.”
Rhaenyra pouts but her uncle isn’t swayed, and Jon finds himself almost hustled out of the throne room. Daemon is taller than Jon, as many men are, but he is lithe, honed muscle, where Jon has more thickness to him. He idly wonders who would win in a fight, the famed Rogue Prince or Jon.
“I will have servants take your things to your rooms,” Daemon tells him. “Where are they?” He looks around the entrance hall as if there will be a stack of trunks.
Jon unslings the satchel from his shoulder. “Everything I own is in here. I would carry it with me, if it doesn’t offend you.”
Daemon stares at the small bag long enough that Jon is worried he is offended. “You brought so little with you?”
“I will earn my keep here,” Jon says, uncomfortable with the look he’s being given. “The barracks will suffice.”
“You are a Targaryen, and you will be treated as one,” Daemon says. He starts walking, clearly expecting Jon to follow. “Not as a prince, mind you, but as one of ours. You will have room in the Red Keep and an allowance. You will want for nothing. But generosity comes with a price.” Daemon’s tone deepens, darkens, but he doesn’t slow his pace. “You will ask for no more than you are given. You will not take anything that isn’t yours to take.”
“I would never.” Jon feels a prickling of anger at his integrity being questioned. “And if you recall, I already swore off the throne.”
“You think the throne is the only treasure the Targaryens have?” Daemon stops now, outside the gates of the keep. “My niece, Rhaenyra. You will not touch her.”
“I will not,” Jon agrees. He can’t help his horror at the suggestion. “She is a child.”
Daemon huffs. “She is ten and three, the same age her mother was when she went to the marriage bed.”
Jon thinks back to the throne room. Rhaenyra is that old? She seems so much younger. Is it because the North and the war aged everyone so quickly? Is it because Jon is on his third life and feels ancient? He tries to imagine Rhaenyra and Sansa side by side. Sansa only has a few years on the girl and yet, it seems so vast.
“Regardless,” Jon says. “I have no interest in taking Princess Rhaenyra to wed or to bed.”
“Good,” Daemon says.
“You are protective of her,” Jon says as they continue their way back down into the city.
“Someone must be. Her mother is too often bedridden, and her father is too busy. Viserys has always intended for her to wed her brother, so she has not been raised to rule or know the treachery that lives in men’s minds. She is innocent.”
Jon tries to remember Sansa before she left with Lord Stark for King’s Landing and her betrothal. Had she been so innocent and young, then? He finds his memories of his childhood vague. He recalls better the cold and hardened beauty who rode for Castle Black. The way her icy armor melted at the sight of him and how she’d thrown herself into his arms. Sansa Stark, the girl who dreamed of a white knight, so eagerly embracing a black crow.
Jon’s heart aches for her loss. While he told Daemon the truth, he has no intention of wedding or bedding a child, because that is what Rhaenyra is, he has no intention of being with any woman. His love is dead, and Jon’s heart died with her. He will serve the gods and then pray they finally let him be at peace.
“She’s old now for that kind of betrothal, isn’t she?” Jon asks.
“My brother hasn’t figured it out yet.” Daemon rolls his eyes, clearly feeling freer outside the keep’s walls.
“Do you intend to take her to wife?” Jon asks. He personally thinks she’s too young for Daemon, especially now, but he’s aware that Targaryens have always done things…differently than others.
“I have a wife.” Daemon doesn’t sound pleased with that fact, nor did he answer Jon’s question.
Still, wary of provoking Daemon’s temper, Jon doesn’t ask any additional questions as they continue their journey. The barracks for the City Watch aren’t far from the main gate to the Red Keep, which makes sense. They are loud, rowdy, with a different kind of energy than the Night’s Watch had. Jon suspects most of it is because of the temperature difference and the rest of it is because the City Watch doesn’t swear the same kind of oaths.
There is an immediate change as Daemon enters the barracks. The men don’t come to attention, but they do call out a few hellos, even some invitations to share a drink or visit a whorehouse together. Jon tries not to grimace.
“You lot shut up for a moment!” Daemon shouts, his voice ringing out above the rest. It’s only a moment before the room settles. Daemon places a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “This here is Jon Targaryen, kin from across the sea. He is part of my family by blood, and he’s come to join my family by choice.”
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” the men shout in unison.
“Someone get this man a gold cloak!” Daemon shouts.
Jon is separated from Daemon as the two of them are swarmed, an equal number of men wanting to speak to their commander as well as the newcomer. The first man who makes it to Jon is…large. Jon has to tilt his head far back in order to meet the man’s eyes. He isn’t intimidated, not after Tormund and the other Free Folk and even some of the giants he allied with against the Others. Still, he didn’t realize they made men this large south of the Wall.
“Luthor Largent,” the man says. “Captain.”
“Well met,” Jon says.
Another large man approaches, not as tall as Largent but broader, with obvious muscle. “Ser Harwin Strong of Harrenhal.”
“Well met,” Jon repeats.
He meets far more men than he can remember, but he trusts as he settles into training and patrols the names and faces will begin to stick in his mind. At some point, he is awarded the promised gold cloak, and he can’t help but wish it were black instead.
#
Jon’s afternoon with the gold cloaks is over before he’d like. Daemon ushers him back up to the Red Keep, and Jon is feeling more like a squire than a man grown as he follows Daemon around. This time, Jon is shown to the rooms he’s been given in the keep. They are far larger and better appointed than he needs, but he doesn’t protest. He arrived declaring himself a Targaryen and wishing to be treated as family, and this is what it means to be Targaryen.
Part of him wonders what it would have been like to grow up at Rhaegar’s trueborn son. Would the realm still have dissolved into chaos? Would he feel more comfortable here and with the name Targaryen if he was raised to be one instead of fear them?
Jon is left to bathe and then change into the simple clothes left out for him. He is grateful for the extra set, as the clothes he arrived in while not charred or singed, have certainly seen better days. He is grateful for the Targaryen colors being red and black, as no one will look at him strangely if he chooses to dress in as much black as he can. Tonight, since his clothes were already set aside for him, he wears what he was given; a blood red shirt with a black doublet over it and black pants with red detailing. He thinks the embroidery might be flames, but he’s not entirely certain.
He pulls on a fresh pair of boots, black leather that is as soft as a pair already broken in, and then he attempts to arrange his curls in some kind of order. He strokes a hand over his beard and wonders if he should trim it. Daemon’s hair is long and pin-straight, and he boasts no facial hair. Jon already stands out with the black curls. Does his beard even matter at that point?
Jon has just finished strapping Longclaw to his waist when a servant appears to tell him Prince Daemon is at the door.
Once again, Jon is escorted by Daemon through the halls until they reach the king’s rooms. At least the family is smart enough not to put Jon too close to the others. He isn’t sure whether their trust in him is humbling or foolish.
There is a woman already seated at the table and though she looks tired, she offers Jon a warm and welcoming smile. “You must be the one everyone has been talking about. I am Aemma.”
“Your queen,” Daemon says, half-growl, full threat.
“Your Grace,” Jon greets. He bows. “Thank you for welcoming me to your family and to your table.”
“Finally, a Targaryen with manners.” Aemma’s smile brightens. “Come, sit. Once my husband and daughter arrive, we can eat.”
“How are you feeling today?” Daemon asks as he points to the chair next to the one he takes. Jon obediently sits where told.
“I am fine. You worry too much.”
Daemon’s face suggests that he doesn’t worry enough. Jon wonders if the pregnancy is a difficult one, but he knows better than to ask. He has vague memories of Lady Catelyn being pregnant, but he was never encouraged to speak to her, pregnant or not. And, obviously, he was not around any pregnant women at Castle Black either. He knows he has been terrified of it all his life, impregnating a woman, condemning a child to the same fate he suffered. It’s why his affairs have been exceedingly rare.
If the dead hadn’t risen, would he and Sansa—no. Silly thought. The dead did rise. Thinking of anything else is only torturing himself.
“Jon shall join the gold cloaks,” Daemon is saying as Jon pays attention again to the conversation. “If he has the skill to back-up the sword he wields then he will be a great asset.”
“I wouldn’t carry a blade I wasn’t worthy of,” Jon says before he can think of a more polite response.
“Does it have a name?” Aemma asks.
Jon is about to answer when he realizes that if this is House Mormont’s blade, House Mormont might already have it. “Ghost,” he answers, giving the blade a new name.
“Hmm,” Daemon says, clearly not thinking much of it.
The king and his daughter arrive together, and Daemon tugs Jon up so they both stand as the king enters.
“You didn’t come get me,” Rhaenyra tells her uncle, clearly cross with him. “Is this how it will be when mother has her babe? I will be replaced?”
“No,” Daemon promises with more conviction than Jon had anticipated. He kneels in front of the princess and thumbs away her pout. “You are my favorite, niece, and you always will be.”
“This is why she’s spoiled,” Aemma says but she sounds resigned to it. “Everyone come sit, so we can eat.”
Jon waits for everyone else to be seated before he takes his own seat. He eats quietly, willing to listen to the conversation around him but without any real desire to join in. He samples a little bit of everything, a little in awe of the spread on the table. He has never seen such rich food before. They were rationed as the Long Night fell, and before the Wall certainly wasn’t a place of fine cuisine. Even when he was a boy at Winterfell, they didn’t dine like this. He never went hungry, unless he was being punished, but the food in the North was hearty and simple. This is decadent.
For a brief moment, he wonders if it’s because he’s here, and the thought almost makes him laugh. This isn’t a feast or a meal honoring long lost kin. He sits at a king’s table, and this is clearly how kings eat. Even as he enjoys the varied fare, he hopes he will be allowed to dine with the Watch going forward. He doesn’t belong at a table like this, no matter what his name is.