A/N: Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! Though I would appreciate your thoughts on the last scene.
Enjoy my writing? Support me on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/FullHorizon] and get early access to 10 chapters for each of my stories!
----------------------------------------
Year 300 AC
Winterfell, The North
"Lord Umber, I must congratulate you on your survival and escape from the Freys." The bastard's voice carried across the blood-soaked courtyard. "And it seems you have brought us a gift too."
Those dark eyes never left Jaime, and something cold crawled up his spine. Jon Snow stood there with blood splattered across his scarred face, a naked blade in his hand, surrounded by corpses. The boy Jaime remembered from Winterfell had grown harder, sharper, like steel tempered in winter's forge.
But Jaime found himself staring at the bastard's face, at the sharp angles of jaw and cheekbone beneath the blood. Why do I know that set to the mouth? The way Snow held his shoulders, the tilt of his head—it scratched at something buried in Jaime's memory, some half-forgotten echo he couldn't place. I've seen that exact expression before. But where? When? It wasn't just the boy's features, though those nagged at him too.
Jaime's gaze swept the courtyard, cataloging faces both expected and impossible. Northern lords clustered near the scaffold—Manderly's bulk unmistakable even at distance, the Mormont women with their bears on their surcoats. Bronze Yohn Royce stood among Vale knights, which made no sense at all. Where was Stannis?
The man should be here if he'd taken Winterfell. Unless...
His eyes caught movement near the walls. Wildlings. Actual bloody wildlings standing casually among civilized men, their furs and bone ornaments marking them as clearly as any banner. One giant of a man with a white beard watched the proceedings with amusement. Another wildling woman stood close to where Snow had been, her hand resting on a spear. They weren't prisoners. They weren't being driven off. They simply... belonged.
Then he saw her. Sansa Stark, alive and whole, standing near the great hall's entrance. The girl who'd vanished from King's Landing, who Cersei had searched for with increasing desperation. How in seven hells had she gotten here?
"Can't believe you beat the Boltons and Freys, boy," the Greatjon rumbled, his ruined voice carrying despite its weakness. "Though I'm surprised to see Vale lords here. And Baratheon men?" He squinted at the assembled crowd. "But why aren't you at the Wall—"
The Greatjon stopped mid-sentence, his gaze landing on two figures. "Maege? Galbart? You're alive?" Understanding dawned on his weathered face. "Robb's will. You got Robb's will to the boy."
What will? Jaime's mind raced. What had the Young Wolf done before his death?
The Greatjon's eyes found the wildlings now, and his face went purple with rage. "What are these savages doing south of the Wall? In Winterfell?" He fumbled for his sword, his weakened hand barely able to grip the hilt.
Two other Umbers, both bearing the giant-in-chains sigil, grabbed the Greatjon's arms. "Easy, nephew," one said. "Things have changed."
"Changed? These are wildlings!"
Jon Snow walked closer, each step deliberate. The crowd parted before him like water before a ship's prow. His eyes remained fixed on Jaime with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"There must be quite a story to your freedom, Lord Umber. And how you came to be traveling with the Kingslayer."
The Greatjon's eyes flicked to the hooded figure beside Jaime. Lady Stoneheart remained silent, her face hidden in shadow. "Oh, there's a story alright." The old lord's voice dripped with dark amusement.
Jamie offered a wry smile and tossed his own piece of venom into the conversation. "Though it seems I'm not the only oathbreaker here, am I, Lord Commander? You must have quite the story yourself."
The words barely left his mouth, before he could even regret saying them, when Jon Snow moved. Jaime never saw it coming. One moment the bastard stood three paces away, the next his hand closed around Jaime's throat with impossible strength. The ground disappeared beneath his feet as Snow lifted him one-handed, as easily as a man might lift a child.
Jaime's hands clawed at the iron grip crushing his windpipe. His legs kicked uselessly in the air. Through the growing darkness at the edges of his vision, he saw Jon Snow's eyes change. The pupils elongated, becoming vertical slits. The dark grey iris flickered red, like looking into a pyre.
"Your Grace, yes!" someone shouted. "Give the Kingslayer what he deserves!"
"My lord, no!" Brienne's voice, desperate. Her hands pulling at Snow's arm with no effect whatsoever. The bastard might have been carved from stone for all she moved him.
"You and your family—" Snow's voice had dropped an octave, resonating in a way that made Jaime's bones ache.
"Mother!"
Sansa Stark's cry cut through everything. Jon Snow released his grip instantly, and Jaime crashed to the mud, gasping and retching. His throat felt crushed, each breath a burning struggle. Through watering eyes, he looked up to see Lady Stoneheart had lowered her hood.
The creature that had been Catelyn Stark stood revealed in daylight. Her throat bore the terrible smile of the Freys' knives. Her skin had the grey pallor of a drowned corpse pulled from a river. Water still seemed to drip from her matted hair.
Jaime's lungs burned as he struggled to his knees in the mud, one hand pressed to his crushed throat. Above him, the bastard's monstrous eyes had returned to their normal grey, but the memory of those vertical slits would haunt him until his dying day.
"Lady Stark?!" Jon Snow's voice cracked like a boy's, all that terrifying power vanishing in an instant. The bastard stumbled backward, his face draining of color as he stared at the walking corpse.
The courtyard had gone silent as a sept. Even the wildlings, who Jaime suspected had seen their share of horrors beyond the Wall, gaped at Lady Stoneheart and took out weapons… made of dragonglass? Several Vale knights made the sign of the seven. One young fool actually fainted.
Thoros of Myr pushed through the crowd, his red robes mud-splattered from travel. The drunk priest Jaime remembered from King's Landing had been replaced by something harder, leaner. His eyes fixed on Jon Snow with an intensity that suggested he was solving some theological puzzle.
"She cannot speak," Thoros said slowly, never breaking his gaze from the bastard. "The Freys cut too deep. But she remembers. Everything."
Lady Stoneheart's dead eyes moved between her daughters' supposed savior and the Kingslayer at his feet. Her ruined fingers flexed at her sides. Jaime could practically feel her weighing which of them she wanted to kill more.
Sansa Stark hadn't moved since her mother lowered her hood. The girl stood frozen, her face a light with horror with trembling hands where they gripped her skirts. The younger boy beside her—gods, was that actually Rickon Stark?—hid behind her legs, peering out with wild eyes.
Sansa drifted forward, drawn toward the hooded figure like iron filings to a lodestone. The world narrowed to that ruined throat, those milk-pale fingers that had once braided her hair.
Jon's hand shot out, fingers closing around her wrist, stopping her in her tracks.
"No." The single word came out raw, scraped from Jon's throat. His other hand caught Sansa's shoulder, physically turning her away from the walking corpse that wore their mother's face. "Not here. Not like this."
Sansa twisted in his grip, her composure fracturing. "Let me go. Please! That's—she's—"
"Dead." Jon's voice dropped to something barely human. "She's dead, Sansa. What's standing there isn't..." He swallowed hard, adam's apple working. "Trust me. Please."
"Bloody hell," the Greatjon wheezed, looking between the resurrected woman and the bastard who'd just lifted a grown man one-handed. "We're standing in a courtyard with a dead woman walking and a boy who..." He trailed off, shaking his massive head. "We should take this inside before the whole North sees what madness we've brought to Winterfell."
"My nephew speaks sense," Mors said quickly. "The men are already spooked enough."
"Inside," Jon Snow agreed, his voice rough. He looked down at Jaime, and for a heartbeat those eyes flickered red again. "Bring the Kingslayer. And his... companions."
Strong hands hauled Jaime to his feet. His legs barely held him, but he forced himself to stand straight. Pride was all he had left, after all. Brienne hovered at his elbow, ready to catch him if he fell. Sweet, loyal, foolish Brienne, who'd somehow convinced a vengeful corpse to spare his life.
The wildling woman with the spear fell into step beside Jon Snow, her hand briefly touching his arm. A lover's gesture, intimate and familiar. The bastard's fingers brushed hers in response before pulling away.
What in seven hells happened here? Jaime thought, his mind reeling. How did Ned Stark's bastard conquer the North? Where is Stannis? And what was that thing with his eyes?
-----------------------------------------------------
The crowd parted before them, giving their strange procession a wide berth. Jaime noticed how men stepped back with hands drifting to sword hilts, their faces twisted between fear and revulsion. Not at him, even the Kingslayer barely warranted a second glance. Their horror fixed on the figure beside him, as if Lady Stoneheart's wrongness radiated through wool and shadow.
Near the entrance to the Great Hall, Theon Greyjoy stood unchained between two others as guards surrounded them, his ruined face twitching with that perpetual flinch Jaime recognized from his own time in captivity. The creature that had been Ramsay's plaything looked healthier than when Jaime had last seen him at the Twins, but his fingers still trembled against his breeches.
Why hasn't Snow executed him? Jaime wondered. The Ironborn had burned Winterfell, murdered those children who everyone thought were the Stark princes. Maybe he did murder Bran Stark even if Rickon Stark got away. Yet here he stood, breathing free air while better men rotted in the mud outside.
Jon Snow paused at the threshold, Sansa and Rickon flanking him like mismatched shadows. The bastard sent a guard sprinting toward somewhere with urgent whispers. Then he turned, and those grey eyes found Lady Stoneheart with an intensity one never expects from a bastard to look at their Lord father's wife.
Sansa leaned close to her half brother, her lips barely moving. Whatever she whispered only brought more dismay on Snow's face, but he only nodded, jaw tight as a drawn bowstring.
"How?"
The single word fell from Jon Snow's lips like a stone into still water. Not a greeting, not an accusation—just stunned incomprehension aimed at the walking corpse of Catelyn Stark.
Lady Stoneheart's dead eyes shifted between Jon and her living children. In that ruined face, Jaime caught something that might have been contempt mixing with relief, then sliding into shame as her gaze lingered on Sansa and Rickon. Her grey fingers flexed at her sides, and for a heartbeat Jaime thought she might try to speak. But that second smile across her throat would allow no words.
"The Brotherhood found her body days after the Red Wedding," Thoros said, his voice carrying the weight of old grief. "Pulled from the river, throat cut, most of her blood gone. Lord Beric..." The red priest paused, rubbing his shaved head. "Lord Beric gave her the kiss of life. Gave her everything he had left. His last life for hers."
Melisandre stepped forward from where she'd been hovering near the hearth, her red eyes wide with something approaching religious ecstasy. "The Lord of Light's power manifests again! First you, now her—R'hllor shows his hand!"
Jaime watched the northerners' faces, expecting horror to match his own when he'd first seen Lady Stoneheart rise. Instead, he found grim acceptance, as if walking corpses were just another regular day in the North now. Lord Manderly's chins wobbled with what might have been sympathy. The Umber lords exchanged dark looks. Even the wildlings seemed more curious than frightened.
What in seven hells have these people seen that makes this seem normal?
"Mother?" Sansa's voice cracked like a girl half her age. "Are you... is it really you? Are you still there?"
The thing that had been Catelyn Stark turned its awful gaze on its eldest daughter. Slowly, deliberately, it shook its head. Sansa's shoulders began trembling again, the careful composure she'd maintained since entering the hall fracturing like ice beneath spring warmth. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, and she pressed the heel of her palm against her mouth, muffling a sound that wanted to be a sob.
Jaime found himself shifting his weight, the chains at his wrists clinking softly. The girl's grief struck something uncomfortable in his chest. The way Sansa's jaw clenched, fighting for control even as her body betrayed her—gods, she couldn't be more than five-and-ten.
"Why are you crying?" Rickon's voice piped up, wild and confused. The boy peered around Sansa's skirts at the hooded figure. "Who is that scary lady?"
If Lady Stoneheart could have sobbed, Jaime thought she would have. Her shoulders shook with the effort of grief her ruined throat couldn't voice. Those milk-pale fingers reached toward the boy, then pulled back as if burned.
Sansa's mouth opened and closed, searching for words to explain the unexplainable to a six-year-old who'd already seen too much. Tears tracked down her cheeks.
Jon's hand settled on Sansa's back, gentle but firm. He leaned close, whispering something Jaime couldn't catch. Whatever he said made Sansa nod shakily. She took Rickon's hand, the boy protesting as she led him deeper into the castle. A wildling woman, followed like a shadow, her hand on the knife at her belt.
"You have traversed a war torn North to be here so I must ask, what is your purpose here?" Jon asked once the children were gone. The question came out reluctant, as if dragged from somewhere deep.
"We brought the Kingslayer as prisoner," Thoros answered when Lady Stoneheart remained silent. "He helped us take the Twins, helped us kill Freys, but he's still a Lannister. We came to help against the Boltons, but..." He gestured at the blood-soaked yard, the northern banners flying from Winterfell's towers. "It seems you didn't need us. Your combined forces must have been formidable."
Several northern lords developed sudden interests in their boots. Wyman Manderly cleared his throat wetly. The Greatjon looked as confused as Jamie as he looked at the various lords.
"We were not part of the battle," Bronze Yohn Royce said carefully, his voice carrying the weight of confusion. "The Knights of the Vale arrived after the victory."
"The victory," Lord Manderly said with obvious relish, "was mostly King Aemon's doing."
Jaime's head snapped up so fast his neck cracked. "I am sorry Lord Manderly but I don't think I heard you correctly. Aemon is a Targaryen name and there is no such king named Aemon."
"Ah, forgive me, Ser Jaime," Wyman Manderly interrupted with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "In the excitement, we neglected proper introductions. You stand before King Aemon Targaryen, trueborn son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lady Lyanna Stark… formerly known as Lord Commander Jon Snow."
The world tilted. Jaime stared at Jon Snow—Aemon Targaryen and suddenly those familiar features clicked into place like a key in a lock. The sharp jaw, the set of those shoulders, that particular tilt of the head when considering something, he'd seen them all before. In Rhaegar. In the crown prince who'd started a war for love or prophecy or madness.
Those aren't Stark features at all. How did I not see it? The thoughts clawed their way up from somewhere deep in Jaime's chest, past the constriction in his throat that felt like invisible fingers squeezing. Forgive me, Rhaegar. Gods, forgive me for failing you. The thought burned behind his eyes, hot and shameful, as his knees actually buckled. Just slightly, enough that he had to catch himself stumbling.
Bitter laughter bubbled up from Jaime's chest before he could stop it. "Ned fucking Stark." He couldn't stop laughing like a madman as he continued. "The honorable Ned Stark kept the biggest secret in the Seven Kingdoms. What a fool we all were!"
"No." The word tore from Lady Stoneheart's ruined throat, barely human but unmistakably denial.
"Yes," Jon said firmly, meeting her dead eyes without flinching. "He lied to protect me from Robert's wrath. To protect his sister's son. I am your nephew, not your husband's bastard."
Jon's hand cut through the air, sharp and dismissive. "But none of that matters now."
"How can it not matter?" Jaime sputtered. "This changes—"
"Because they're coming." Jon's voice dropped to something colder than winter wind. He nodded to the guards by the door. "Bring it in."
Two men entered carrying a struggling figure bound in heavy chains. At first Jaime thought it was a prisoner, but then he saw the eyes—bright blue as winter sky, glowing with unnatural light. The thing's mouth opened and closed soundlessly, teeth clicking together with mechanical precision. Its flesh was grey-white, like a drowned man pulled from a frozen river.
The Brotherhood members scrambled back. Lady Stoneheart's dead eyes widened, if such a thing were possible. Even Thoros, who'd seen his share of unnatural things, grimaced.
"This is Bowen Marsh," Jon said conversationally. "He murdered me. I executed him. Now he serves the real enemy." The thing lunged at Jon, chains rattling. Jon didn't move as dead fingers scraped harmlessly against his skin. "The dead are coming. An army of them, led by creatures that make this look like a mummer's trick. And when they arrive, every petty southern conflict becomes meaningless."
Jon's eyes found Jaime's, and there was something terrible in them now. "The Lannisters will submit to me, or they will die. Either by my hand, or theirs. Winter is coming for us all."
"Your Grace," Thoros said hesitantly, "there's something else. Lady Stoneheart wanted you to know… the Kingslayer confessed to us. He pushed Brandon Stark from the tower. Pushed a child to his death to hide his sins with the queen. The only reason he lives is because we need Lord Edmure, who remains hostage at Casterly Rock."
The change happened between one heartbeat and the next.
Jon's eyes shifted first—the grey bleeding to red. Then his voice dropped into something that belonged in nightmares, resonating from somewhere deeper than human throats could produce.
"You?! It was you?!"
Violet flames erupted from Jon's skin, consuming his clothes in an instant. The fire didn't burn him but it danced across his flesh like water, growing brighter, hungrier. The heat hit Jaime like a physical force, driving him to his knees.
"Your Grace, no!" Lord Manderly's voice cracked like ice breaking. "We're—"
"Seven hells!" Mors Umber bellowed from somewhere behind the fat lord. "Not in the bloody hall!"
"Please stop, Lord Commander!" A feminine looking member of the Night's Watch pleaded.
Bronze Yohn stepped between Jon and the crowd, his rune-carved armor catching the purple light. "Your Grace, I beg you—remember yourself!"
"Jon!" Tormund's roar cut through the rest. "You burn this place down and where the fuck do we sleep tonight?"
The wildling chieftain shoved a Vale knight aside, earning a curse. More voices joined the chaos trying to reach their King through the wall of bodies pressing back from the heat.
Mance exclaimed "Jon, you have to calm down!"
The heat drove them all back another step, benches toppling, cups spilling, the great hall erupting into barely controlled panic as purple fire licked higher, casting shadows
"Jon, stop!" The wildling woman that touched Aemon before, pushed through the crowd, seemingly unaffected by the heat that had everyone else scrambling back. "Control it! You're still in the hall!"
The flames swirled higher, and for a moment Jaime saw something impossible in the fire—scales forming along Jon's arms, his fingers elongating into claws but the woman voice seemed to pierce through the anger, and the flames died as suddenly as they'd appeared.
Jon stood naked in the hall, his skin unmarked by the fire that had consumed everything else. His eyes remained those terrible slits for three more heartbeats before returning to grey. When he spoke again, his voice was human but no less terrifying for it.
"The Lannisters are parasites who've fed on the realm's corpse for too long." He didn't look at Jaime, addressing the room at large. "Take him to the dungeons. Put him in the cell next to the wights. Let him see what's coming for us all."
As guards hauled Jaime to his feet, he caught one last glimpse of Lady Stoneheart. The walking corpse stood perfectly still, but something in those dead eyes had changed. For the first time since her resurrection, Catelyn Stark looked afraid.
-----------------------------------------------------
Sansa's hands trembled as she closed the heavy oak door behind her. She pressed her back against the wood, trying to steady her breathing, trying to make sense of what she'd just seen.
Mother. Not mother. Something wearing mother's face.
"Sansa?" Rickon's voice drifted from his chamber down the hall. "Are you coming?"
She forced her legs to move, each step measured and deliberate the way Septa Mordane had taught her. A lady maintains her composure. But there had been nothing in those lessons about walking corpses or brothers who burst into flames.
Rickon sat cross-legged on his bed, Shaggydog sprawled beside him like a massive black rug. The direwolf's eyes tracked her entrance, golden and knowing. Her youngest brother looked up from scratching behind the wolf's ears, and for a moment Sansa saw him as he'd been, a three year old demanding stories about knights and monsters.
Now he was asking about real monsters.
"Did you see her?" Rickon's voice held an edge she'd never heard before. Wild. Older than his years.
Sansa lowered herself onto the bed's edge, smoothing her skirts with practiced grace. "Yes."
"Is she really Mother?"
Sansa tries to answer but is at a loss of words. Sansa remembered their mother's last words to her at Winterfell, before everything fell apart. She'd never hear that warm voice again, only the broken rasp that needed translation.
"She was Mother," Sansa said carefully. "She died at the Twins, when they... when they killed Robb." Her throat tightened. "The red priest brought her back, but she's different now."
Rickon tilted his head, studying her with those too-old eyes. "How did Mother die?"
The memory of Joffrey's cruel recounting surfaced unbidden. They say your brother's wolf head looked splendid on his body. Your mother got a smile too, from ear to ear.
"Bad men hurt her," Sansa managed. "At a wedding feast. They betrayed guest right."
"Is she like the bad wights on Skagos?"
Sansa's breath caught. "What wights on Skagos?"
Rickon shrugged, returning his attention to Shaggydog. "The dead ones. They swam there. Tried to get us but the Skagosi had dragonglass. Osha said they came from the sea, all blue-eyed and grabbing."
Ice spread through Sansa's chest. If wights had reached Skagos, an island leagues from the Wall...
A knock interrupted her spiraling thoughts. Osha's gruff voice carried through the door. "The dead woman wants to speak with you, little lord. Both of you."
Sansa stood, torn between desperate longing and bone-deep dread. She wanted her mother's embrace, her guidance, her love. But what waited outside was something else, something that wore her mother's face like an ill-fitting mask.
"Let them in," Rickon said before Sansa could decide. He slid off the bed, Shaggydog rising with him. "I want to meet her!"
The door opened to reveal Lady Stoneheart, her grey face half-hidden by a hood, the terrible necklace of scars visible at her throat. Thoros of Myr stood beside her, his red robes stained with road dust, while Osha lingered in the doorway, hand on her spear.
Silence stretched with unsaid thoughts. Sansa's courtesies fled. What did one say to the dead?
Rickon had no such hesitation. He marched forward, chin raised, every inch the little lord despite his wild appearance. "Did you kill all the Freys who killed Robb?"
Lady Stoneheart's dead eyes widened slightly. She nodded once, slow and deliberate.
"Good," Rickon said with casual bloodthirst in his voice that made her stomach turn., and something flickered across their mother's ruined features. Surprise? Sorrow? It was impossible to tell.
"I missed you," Sansa whispered, and the tears came without warning, hot trails down her cheeks.
She crossed the space between them in three quick steps and threw her arms around Lady Stoneheart. The body beneath the cloak felt wrong—too cold, too stiff, like embracing winter itself. But their mother's arms rose to return the embrace, and Sansa heard the broken attempt at speech.
"Sw...eet...li...ng."
The mangled endearment shattered what remained of Sansa's composure. She sobbed into the rough fabric of her mother's cloak, feeling Rickon press against them both, his small arms barely reaching around them. Lady Stoneheart's cold fingers found their heads, stroking their hair with gestures that transcended death.
They held each other for a long moment, three broken pieces of House Stark trying to fit together again.
Finally, Sansa pulled back, wiping her eyes. Her mother's lessons surfaced through grief. "Please, sit. You must be..." She caught herself before saying 'tired.' Do the dead grow weary?
Lady Stoneheart settled into the chair by the window, movements careful and deliberate. She raised one hand to her throat, then gestured to Thoros.
"She asks how you both have fared," the red priest translated, though his eyes remained fixed on the floor.
Sansa straightened her spine. "King's Landing was... difficult. Joffrey made me watch when he... After Father. Cersei had me beaten when Robb won battles. I learned to lie, to survive." The words came easier than expected. "Then Lord Baelish took me from the capital. He killed Aunt Lysa, pushed her through the Moon Door and blamed it on a singer. He made me pretend to be his bastard daughter, trying to manupliate..."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Lady Stoneheart's fingers dug into the chair's arms, wood creaking under the pressure.
"He wanted to use me to claim the North," Sansa continued. "But I escaped his plans. The Vale lords helped me once they knew the truth."
Rickon's account came in fragments. "Theon burned everything. We hid in the crypts with Hodor and Osha. Then we ran. Lived in the woods, ate what we could find. Osha took me to Skagos. The people there are strange but they kept us safe. But Davos came for us!"
Their mother's grief was written in every line of her destroyed face. She reached out, and both children moved closer, letting her cold hands cup their cheeks.
"Bran and Arya are alive," Sansa said suddenly.
Lady Stoneheart went absolutely still. Her mouth worked, producing a single tortured sound. "Wh...ere?"
"Where is Bran and Arya now?" Thoros translated unnecessarily.
Sansa's hands twisted in her skirts. "Beyond the Wall. With Hodor and Meera Reed. Jon says..." She hesitated. "Jon says he can't reach them, but Bran has protection. Something ancient. I don't understand it fully, but he's alive and he's... learning things. And Arya... is somewhere in Braavos."
This seemed to calm Lady Stoneheart slightly, though her damaged features remained tense with unspoken questions.
Then she spoke again, a single word that emerged clear despite her ruined throat. "J...on."
It was both question and statement, weighted with implications Sansa didn't want to examine.
She released a heavy sigh. "That… that is complicated."