The Neck fell away behind him, a world of mud and reeds and slow, sucking waters that even Ghost had grown weary of. Now, with Greywater Watch a memory behind his shoulders, Jon found himself on firmer ground, the air a touch clearer, the trees taller, and the scent of the riverlands creeping south on the wind. Ghost padded alongside, fur dirty from the swamps, but his red eyes bright and ever watchful.
Jon felt lighter than he ought to. Lighter, knowing all the questions he had regarding relationship of his mother and father, though the weight of it pressed on him whenever his thoughts strayed to the dead princess of Dorne and her children.
The Kingsroad stretched wide and lonely when he spied a man sitting astride a horse at the roadside, red robes dulled with travel-dust. His hair was wild and thinning, his cheeks ruddy, and he had the look of one who had drunk more ale than water on the ride from wherever he was coming from.
"Seven hells," the man muttered when Jon drew close, squinting through the sun. "A boy with his bloody wolf. I near thought it to be pony itself."
Jon reined up, his hand brushing the pommel of his sword. He knew that face. He had seen it once before—years ahead, when the world was ending. Thoros of Myr, the red priest who had gone with them beyond the Wall to snare a wight, and who had died in the snow before Jon's eyes.
"Ser," Jon said carefully.
The man grinned. "Not 'ser,' lad. Never knighted proper, though I've swung a sword in worse places than most knights ever dreamed. Thoros of Myr, sworn to the Lord of Light—though you may call me Thoros if the other's too heavy on the tongue."
Jon gave a nod, Ghost slipping ahead to sniff at Thoros's mount. The horse shied, but Thoros only chuckled. "Seven save me, I've shared a bedroll with worse. A direwolf's no madder than a Dothraki's stallion, if you know how to hold your ground."
They fell in together, southward bound. Thoros spoke as if silence was his sworn-enemy—stories of women, of taverns with wine sweet enough to drown in, of half-remembered brawls in cities Jon had never seen. Jon found himself laughing despite the ache in him; Thoros had a way of making even shameful things sound like triumphs.
And yet, when the sun dipped and they made camp, Thoros's manner shifted. He watched Jon unsheathe Dark Sister, his eyes narrowing in interest.
"Good steel, that," he said, his voice lower now, almost sober. "You hold it well, but your wrists are stiff. Too much stiffness in your body, boy. Swordplay's not only about strength. It's about flexibilty too."
That night, Thoros showed him. He moved with surprising grace for a man of his bulk, light on his feet, quick with a sword that looked older than he was. "Here, turn your hip—no, not so stiff! Let the weight carry itself."
Jon found himself sweating, breathless, but he listened. Each correction sharpened his stance. Thoros was no knight of shining stories, but he had been in more fights than any hedge knight in the Seven Kingdoms and have won almost all of them. His lessons were based on his experience, and though he himself had fought his fair share, something about learning from a veteran gave better results.
And each night thereafter, they did the same. They had been a week upon the Kingsroad when Ghost froze, head lifting, ears flat. Jon felt it too—the tang of smoke on the wind. He and Thoros exchanged a glance.
"South," Thoros said, pointing with his sword. Together they urged their mounts forward.
By the time they reached the rise, the smell was a reek. In front of them lay a hamlet—or what was left of it. The houses had burned to blackened shells, smoke still coiling skyward in greasy columns. Bodies lay in the mud, twisted shapes that had once been men, women, children.
Jon's stomach clenched. He had seen ugliness of men, Craster was just one of them, but it never grew easier.
"Gods…" Thoros muttered, his mirth gone, murmuring words in his foreign tongue.
Jon dismounted, his boots sinking into mud blackened by soot. Ghost padded ahead, ears alert, hackles high. Jon crouched beside a body—a girl, no more than twelve, her throat cut, her small frame left indecent and ruined. The sight clawed at him until bile rose sharp in his throat.
"This were raiders," Thoros muttered, voice hoarse. "Too much happened here."
But Jon only stared, his jaw tight, his hand gripping his valyrian sword's hilt. His voice, when it came, was raw and uneven."... ck of it."
Thoros turned his head, startled by the tone. The boy he'd been riding with had been quiet, polite, with that soft tone that didn't match his Northern heritage—but this voice sounded older, cracked by grief. "What did you say, lad?" Thoros asked carefully, as though he'd misheard.
Jon rose slowly, his eyes sweeping the village. Everywhere, women and girls lay sprawled in the mud, their bodies broken, their faces twisted in terror.
He turned, and Thoros caught the look in his eyes—burning with anger and wet. "I said I'm sick of all of it," Jon whispered. The words came with anger, but they cut sharper than steel.
Something inside him cracked then. Not the boy he had been, not the the last prince Reed had shown him, not even the Prince of prophecy that The Gods have made him to be, but the man who had lived another life, who had seen too much death, too many innocents slaughtered while kings played at crowns. It all came back in the ruin of this nameless hamlet.
Before he could take another step, he staggered, knees buckling. The world tilted, his vision swimming with fire and blood and the wide, empty eyes of the dead. He collapsed onto the ashen earth.
Thoros caught him before his head struck stone. The boy was pale as bone, sweat cold upon his brow, his breaths shallow. Thoros stared down at him, heart pounding, the stench of death and smoke thick around them.
And in that moment, Thoros understood. Understood why his god had sent him here, why the flames had shown him this boy beneath the great Sept days before. Not for drink, not for company on the road, but for this. For the weight this boy carried inside him, for the breaking and the remaking yet to come.
The red priest lifted his eyes to the sky, the smoke stinging them raw. "So this is it, then," he murmured to the unseen fire that burned beyond the clouds. "This is the one."