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Jon Flint
Jon couldn't sleep.
The guest chamber was warm enough, with heated stones beneath the bed and furs piled high, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw Bella's face. The blood. The way her eyes had been open, the look of shock in her face, and sadness.
Free Folk.
His great-grandfather had used that term. Had lived among them. Had learned from them.
Jon threw off the furs and sat up. The direwolf pup stirred against his chest, making a small sound of protest before settling back into sleep. Jon scratched behind one white ear, feeling the rapid heartbeat beneath the soft fur, then placed him on the bed.
"Sorry," he murmured. "Go back to sleep."
The pup ignored him and opened one red eye, watching.
Jon dressed quietly and slipped out of the chamber. The halls of Last Hearth were mostly dark now, the torches burned low, the revelry of the feast reduced to distant snores and the occasional shuffle of a guard's boots. He made his way toward the battlements, needing cold air and open sky.
He found Dacey there instead.
She stood at the edge of the wall, looking out over the darkened landscape. The moon was half-full, casting silver light across the snow-covered hills. Her dark hair was loose, freed from its warrior's braid, and she wore a heavy cloak against the chill.
She turned to look in his direction once she heard his footsteps; her face softened at the sight of his face. "Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.
Jon moved to stand beside her. "Too much ale."
"Liar. You barely drank. I was watching."
"Were you?"
"Someone has to make sure you don't do anything stupid." She studied his face. "You got angry tonight. During the feast. When Lord Umber mentioned your great-grandfather living beyond the Wall."
Jon said nothing.
"I saw your hands under the table," Dacey continued. "You were making fists. And afterward, you went quiet, and not because you were thinking of saying something smart."
"It's nothing."
"It's clearly something."
Jon turned away, looking out at the darkness. The cold bit at his face with teeth.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Dacey was silent for a long moment. Jon expected her to push, to demand answers the way she demanded everything else. Instead, she moved closer until their shoulders nearly touched.
"My father died when I was eleven," she said quietly.
Jon looked at her, her face showing sadness.
"I didn't know that."
"Most people forgot him. They know Lady Maege rules Bear Island. They know she has five daughters. They don't ask about the man who fathered us." Dacey's lips curved slightly, though it wasn't quite a smile. "His name was Gareth. The Soft Bear, some called him."
"Soft Bear?"
"He was huge. Almost as tall as your great-grandfather, I think, or close to it. Some said he had bear bones in his body, that he was half-beast. But he was the gentlest man I ever knew." Her voice softened. "He never wanted to fight. Always wanted to talk first, to find another way. Mother used to tease him about it. Said he was too kind for Bear Island, that he should have been born a septon instead of a warrior."
Jon watched her face as she spoke. The moonlight carved shadows beneath her cheekbones.
"For my eleventh name day, I begged him to take me hunting. Just the two of us. Mother said I was too young, but Father..." She paused. "He could never say no to any of us. So we went into the woods, just the two of us, bows on our backs and dreams of bringing home a stag."
"What happened?"
"A long-faced bear." Dacey's voice went flat. "The largest kind. They're rare on Bear Island, but they still live there; some call them the King of Bears because of how much bigger they are. This one was old and hungry and had no fear of men." She drew a breath. "It came out of nowhere. One moment we were tracking deer prints, the next there was this... this thing, all teeth and claws and rage, it was bigger than my father when it was on it's two feet."
Jon knew where this was going.
"Father told me to run. I didn't listen." A muscle worked in her jaw. "I tried to help. Tried to loose an arrow, but my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't draw. I had never seen a bear this big. The bear knocked me aside like I was nothing. Broke two of my ribs. And Father..."
She stopped. Jon didn't push.
"He fought it with his bare hands," Dacey said finally. "No weapon, no armor, just a man against a beast twice his size. At the end, when the bear had him pinned, he bit its neck. Tore out a chunk of flesh with his teeth." Her voice cracked slightly. "The bear bled out. Died right there on top of him. And Father... he died a few minutes later. In my arms. Telling me he loved me."
Jon didn't know what to say. He reached out and touched her arm.
"Alysane found us," Dacey continued. "She was nine then. She'd followed us into the woods because she was jealous that Father had taken not taken her with us." A hollow laugh. "She's never been the same since. She blames herself for not getting there sooner. She blames me for asking to go hunting in the first place. She's never said it, but I know."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not telling you this for pity." Dacey turned to face him fully. "I'm telling you because I believe my father's ghost is still watching over us. Protecting us. Whenever I'm in danger, whenever I need strength, I feel him there. Like a warmth at my back."
Jon shook his head slowly. "I don't believe in ghosts."
"No?"
"The dead are dead. They don't come back. They don't watch over anyone." His voice was hard like steel. "It's better for the living to move on than to live with them."
Dacey studied him. "Is that true for you?"
The question felt like a slap; he wondered how she knew that he had lost someone. Was it that clear on his face?
"Jon."
"Her name was Bella." The words came out before he could stop them. "She was my wet nurse. My caretaker. My..." He swallowed. "She was like a mother to me. The only mother I ever knew."
Dacey waited.
"When I was five, my great-grandfather took me hunting. We encountered wildlings in the woods. Ten of them. He killed most, but one surrendered. A woman. She begged for mercy." Jon's hands curled into fists at his sides. "I spared her. I told my great-grandfather we wouldn't kill her. I thought... I thought I was being honorable. Being good."
"What happened?"
"She killed Bella." Jon's voice was hollow. "Slit her throat in the night and tried to escape."
The wind picked up, cold and sharp. Neither of them moved.
"They found her in the morning," Jon said. "I killed her myself. Cut her throat with the same knife my great-grandfather gave me. Refused her burial. Let the animals take her." He looked at Dacey. "And I swore I would never show mercy again. Not to people like that. Not to people who would use kindness as a weapon."
"Jon..."
"That's why I got angry tonight. Because my great-grandfather lived among them. Learned from them. Called them Free Folk like they deserved respect." His jaw tightened. "The man who made me who I am, who taught me to be hard, to be strong, to never let anyone use my heart against me... he spent a year breaking bread with the same creatures who killed the woman I loved most in this world."
Dacey was quiet for a long moment. Then she reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was firm.
"I believe in ghosts because everyone needs someone watching over them," she said softly. "Most Northerners have the Old Gods. I have them too. But I also believe my father is there, still watching, still protecting us."
Jon looked at her.
"The South believes in their Seven gods," Dacey continued. "The Iron Islands believe in the Drowned God. Every land has a god, a spirit, something to watch over them. The Old Gods watch over the North, but they watch over everyone. My father..." She squeezed his hand. "My father watches over us. Over me and my sisters and my mother. That's his purpose now." Her grey eyes held his. "Everyone needs someone to watch over them, Jon. Even you."
Before Jon could respond, something moved at the edge of his vision.
The direwolf pup had followed him. It stood at the top of the stairs leading to the battlements, white fur silver in the moonlight, red eyes fixed on Jon. It made no sound as it padded toward them, paws silent on the cold stone.
Dacey let out a small laugh. "How long has he been there?"
"I don't know." Jon watched the pup approach. "I didn't hear him."
"Neither did I. He's very quiet." She released Jon's hand and crouched, extending her fingers toward the pup. "Come here, little one."
The pup ignored her completely. It walked past her outstretched hand and pressed itself against Jon's leg, looking up at him with those unsettling red eyes.
Jon knelt and lifted the pup into his arms. It was heavier than it had been even a few days ago, growing faster than any normal dog. The red eyes watched him.
"You need a name," Jon murmured.
The pup said nothing. Of course it didn't. But something in those eyes seemed to understand.
Jon thought of Bella. Of her ghost, if such things existed. Of the way she had called him her son in that moment before sleep, the word slipping out like a secret she had kept too long. He thought of his great-grandfather's words about the dead, about honor, about what it meant to be worthy of a name.
He thought of Dacey's father, the Soft Bear, watching over his daughters from wherever the dead went.
And he thought of this creature in his arms. Always there, even when Jon didn't notice. Following him like a shadow, like a spirit, like something that existed between the living and the dead.
"Ghost," Jon said.
The pup's ears perked up.
"His name is Ghost."
Dacey smiled, the expression softening her warrior's face. "It suits him."
Jon held Ghost close to his chest and looked out at the darkness beyond the Wall. Somewhere out there, the wildlings lived and died and called themselves Free Folk. Somewhere out there, the truth about his great-grandfather waited to be understood.
But that was a problem for another day.
Tonight, he had named his wolf.
And somehow, that felt like the beginning of something.
Three Days Later
The cold deepened with every mile north.
Three days out from Last Hearth, even the Flint soldiers pulled their cloaks tighter. Jon watched Derek adjust his fur collar for the third time in an hour and said nothing. The wind had claws this far north, and the air itself seemed to freeze in his lungs with each breath.
Ghost had grown again. The pup no longer fit comfortably in the saddlebag and now rode pressed against Jon's chest inside his cloak, a warm weight that shifted with each step of his horse. Those red eyes watched the landscape with an expression of familiarity.
"Getting colder," Dacey said, bringing her horse alongside his. Her breath misted white in the air.
"We're getting closer."
"Have you ever seen it before? The Wall?"
Jon shook his head. "Only in books. Drawings."
"The drawings lie." Dacey said with a smile. "They make it look like a wall. It's not a wall. It's..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "You'll see."
Jon saw it that afternoon.
They crested a low ridge, and there it was on the horizon. A line of white-blue stretching across the entire world, east to west, as far as the eye could follow. Jon's horse stopped without being commanded, and for a long moment, he simply stared.
It didn't look real.
The Wall was still a day's ride away, perhaps more, but already it dominated the landscape; it felt like looking at the edge of the world. It seemed to hold up the sky itself, a barrier between the world Jon knew and something else entirely.
"Seven hells," one of the Flint soldiers murmured behind him.
Jon said nothing. Words seemed inadequate.
They rode on. And with every mile, the Wall grew larger.
By the time they made camp that night, the Wall filled half the northern sky. Jon lay in his tent, Ghost curled against his side, and stared at the canvas above him. He could feel the Wall's presence even with his eyes closed.
The Flints have climbed this for generations, he thought. Now it's my turn.
Sleep came slowly, and when it did, his dreams were full of ice.
Castle Black appeared the following morning.
Jon had expected something grand. The seat of the Night's Watch, the shield that guarded the realms of men, the fortress that had stood for eight thousand years. He had imagined towers and battlements, ranks of black-cloaked warriors, the strength of ages.
What he found was smaller. Grimmer. Older.
The castle huddled against the base of the Wall like a child seeking shelter from a storm. Black stone buildings, some clearly abandoned, others showing signs of hasty repair. Smoke rose from a handful of chimneys, but not nearly enough for a fortress this size. Men in black moved on the walls and in the yard, but their numbers were thin. Far too thin.
"The Night's Watch is dying," Jon murmured.
His grandmother, riding beside him, nodded once. "Slowly. But yes."
"How many men do they have?"
"Less than a thousand across all the castles. Castle Black holds perhaps three hundred." Her grey eyes were fixed on the fortress ahead. "In my great grandfather's time, they had ten times that number. In the Age of Heroes, a hundred times."
Jon looked at the crumbling walls, the empty towers, the gaps in the battlements where men should have stood. The Night's Watch protected the realm from whatever lay beyond the Wall. And the realm had forgotten them.
That's why the fish shipments matter, Jon realized. That's why every barrel of food I send north keeps men alive who might otherwise starve.
The gates opened as they approached. Black brothers watched from the walls, their faces weathered and hard. Jon met their eyes and saw men who had nothing left to lose. Criminals. Exiles. The unwanted sons of unwanted houses. And yet they stood here, at the edge of the world, guarding a realm that had abandoned them.
The party rode into the courtyard, horses' hooves clattering on frozen stone. Jon dismounted and immediately felt Ghost squirm inside his cloak. He loosened the fabric, and the direwolf pup dropped to the ground, red eyes scanning this new place.
"Lord Anden."
Jon turned to see a man approaching from the main hall.
Lord Commander Jeor Mormont was old. His beard was white, and his face, it felt like looking at a male version of Lady Maege. He wore the black of the Night's Watch without decoration, without vanity. A raven perched on his shoulder.
The raven's eyes found Ghost.
"Snow!" the bird squawked. "Snow! Snow!"
"It's been too long, old friend," Jeor said, crossing the courtyard to meet Lord Anden.
Jon's great-grandfather dismounted and approached the old bear. Jeor looked up at Lord Anden, who gave a grin.
"You've gotten old," Anden said.
"So have you." Jeor's lips twitched. "Though you're still too big for any coffin they could build."
"They'll have to burn me. Won't fit in the ground."
"Are you here to finally take the black? We could use a man who can actually swing an axe."
Anden laughed. "The Watch couldn't handle me, Jeor. The Wall would fall."
"Probably true." Jeor's attention shifted to the Mormont party, his eyes found Lady Maegar, and his expression softened.
"Sister."
Maege dismounted and crossed to him. For a moment, she looked less like the fearsome Lady of Bear Island and more like a woman who hadn't seen her brother in far too long. She embraced him, and Jeor held her, before stepping back.
"You look well," he said.
"You look old."
"The Wall does that to a man." Jeor's eyes moved to his nieces, who had dismounted behind their mother. "And these must be the she-bears I've heard so much about."
Dacey stepped forward first. "Uncle. It's good to see you."
"Dacey. You've grown into a proper warrior, from what I hear." His gaze moved to Alysane, then Lyra, then Jorelle. "All of you have. Your father would be proud."
Dacey nodded with a smile, while Alysanne looked away.
"Is that a talking bird?"
Little Lyanna had pushed her way to the front, her eyes fixed on the raven. The bird cocked its head and regarded her.
"Talk!" it squawked. "Talk! Talk!"
Lyanna's face lit up with delight. "It does talk! What's its name?"
"He doesn't have one. He's a raven, not a pet." But Jeor's voice had softened further. "Though he seems to like you well enough."
"Can I pet him?"
"You can try. He bites."
Lyanna reached up anyway. The raven allowed her to stroke his feathers, and Jon could have sworn the bird looked smug about it.
Jeor's attention finally landed on Jon.
"Snow! Snow!"
"Jon Flint," Jeor said. "The one sending food to my men."
"Lord Commander." Jon inclined his head. "The Night's Watch protects the realm. The least we can do is make sure they eat."
Jeor's expression was unreadable, and even the raven was giving him odd looks.
Then Jeor nodded slowly. "Good answer. Most lords forget we exist until they need us. Until the wildlings come raiding or the snows grow too deep. Then they remember the men in black." His voice held no bitterness. "Your fish has kept my men fed through two hard months. The Watch remembers."
"I hope to do more," Jon said. "The ice houses I'm building in the North will preserve food through the summer. When they're ready, Castle Black will receive a share."
Jeor's eyebrows rose slightly. "Ice houses. I've heard whispers of this." He studied Jon with renewed interest. "You think like a lord, not a boy."
"I try, Lord Commander."
Grandmother Lyarra approached, and Jeor turned to greet her with a smile. "Lyarra. It has been many years. As beautiful as always."
"Too many, Jeor." Lyarra's voice was warm. "You've done well here. Your father would be proud."
Jeor nodded reluctantly. "We do what we can with what we have." He gestured toward the main hall. "Come. Castle Black has little to offer, but what we have is yours. Food, shelter, warm fires. Tonight, we feast as well as we're able."
The party began moving toward the hall, but Jeor caught Jon's arm.
"The climb," Jeor said quietly. "Your great-grandfather sent me a letter a few weeks ago, telling me you're ready."
"I am."
"The Wall has killed better men than you." Jeor said. "Stronger men. More experienced men. Men who thought they knew what they were doing."
Jon met his eyes. "Then I'll have to be better than them."
Jeor almost smiled. "Confident. Good. The Wall likes confidence." The almost-smile faded. "It also likes humility. Remember that when you're clinging to the ice with nothing but your fingers keeping you alive."
"I will, Lord Commander."
Jeor released his arm and walked toward the hall. The raven on his shoulder turned its head to look back at Jon.
"Snow," it said, softer this time. "Snow."
Jon watched them go. Then he looked up.
The Wall filled the sky.
Seven hundred feet of ice. Up close, it was even more overwhelming than it had been from a distance. The surface gleamed in the pale light, looking like a giant mirror reflecting the world it saw. He could see the wooden staircase that switchbacked up one side, the lift that carried supplies to the top. But he wouldn't be using either.
He would climb. Hand over hand, foot over foot, the way the Flints had climbed for generations.
Ghost pressed against his leg, making a small sound. Jon looked down at those red eyes, then back up at the Wall.
"A few more days," he murmured. "Then we climb."
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