The words hung in the cold air of Ned Stark's solar like executioner's blades.
"Your mother was Lyanna Stark. Your father was Rhaegar Targaryen."
Jon felt the world tilt beneath his feet. Everything he'd known—every insult, every cautious look from Lady Catelyn, every moment he'd called himself a bastard—shattered like thin ice under a warhammer.
"I'm... I'm a Targaryen?" His voice came out strangled.
Ned—the man he'd called father—nodded slowly. His grey eyes carried years of hidden pain. "Your true name is Aegon Targaryen. Sixth of your name. I promised your mother I'd protect you. Robert would have killed you if he'd known."
Jon staggered backward. The room felt too small, the air too thick. "Why tell me now?"
"Because you're nearly a man grown. Because the secret has poisoned this family long enough. Because you deserve the truth."
Jon couldn't breathe. Without a word, he turned and walked out. Past the guards. Past Robb calling his name. Past the courtyard where Arya was practicing with her wooden sword. He walked through Winterfell's gates and into the Wolfswood, his feet crunching through fresh snow.
The trees closed around him like old friends. He walked deeper, not knowing where he was going, not caring. Everything he was had been a lie. Every prayer to the Old Gods, every dream of proving himself worthy of the Stark name—meaningless.
He didn't hear the footsteps behind him until it was too late.
The knife slid between his ribs with almost no resistance. Cold steel, colder than winter itself. Jon gasped, spinning to see a figure in dark leathers. The man's face was covered, but his eyes were empty, professional.
"Nothing personal, boy. Someone wants Targaryen blood spilled before it becomes a problem."
Jon collapsed into the snow. His blood steamed in the frozen air. The assassin vanished between the trees like smoke. The world grew dim. The cold spread from the wound outward, claiming him inch by inch.
Ghost, he thought, reaching for his direwolf through a connection that was already fading. I'm sorry.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Part Two: Between Worlds
Jun-ho's last memory was the van's headlights, the children's screams, and his own body moving before his mind could catch up. He'd pushed the kids clear. The impact had been instant, final.
Now he stood in... nothing. An endless white void that hurt to look at, yet somehow felt peaceful.
"Hello, Jun-ho."
The voice was everywhere and nowhere. A woman appeared before him—tall, radiant, neither young nor old, with eyes that held galaxies.
"Am I dead?" His voice echoed strangely here.
"Yes and no." She smiled. "You are between moments. You saved five children today. Threw your life away without hesitation. Such selflessness has power, even in death."
"Who are you?"
"I am called many things. The Weaver. The Lady Between. The Pattern sometimes bends to me, and I to it." She circled him slowly. "I offer you a choice, Jun-ho. Return to Earth for another ordinary life, or be reborn in a world of magic and dragons, of ice and fire, where your actions might reshape entire kingdoms."
His heart—or whatever passed for it here—raced. "Another world? Like in the stories?"
"Exactly like the stories. Because all stories are true somewhere." Her smile widened. "But there is a cost. The world I send you to is dangerous beyond measure. You will face dragons, ancient evils, political schemes that would make emperors weep. To survive, you will need power."
Jun-ho thought of his small apartment, his dead-end job, the grateful faces of those children he'd saved. "What kind of power?"
"You may choose. One gift from me, to help you in this new life."
He considered carefully. Super strength? Magic? His mind raced through every fantasy novel he'd ever read. But one truth kept surfacing—in those stories, heroes always fell to age, poison, betrayal. They won battles but lost in the end.
"Immortality," he said firmly. "I want to be immortal. To heal from any wound, to never age, to never truly die."
The goddess's eyes gleamed with something like approval. "Bold. Most ask for power to dominate others. You ask for power to endure. Very well."
She touched his forehead with one finger. Heat flooded through him—not painful, but intense, like liquid sunlight in his veins.
"You will heal from any injury given time. Poison will sicken but never kill you. Age will not touch you. You can still feel pain, still suffer, still know loss—immortality is not invincibility. But death itself cannot hold you." Her expression turned serious. "Use this gift wisely, Jun-ho. The world you enter is dying in ways its people don't yet understand. You may be exactly what it needs. Or you may watch it burn for a thousand years."
The white void began to dissolve. Jun-ho felt himself falling, being pulled toward something distant and cold.
"Wait! Where am I going? Whose body—"
"You will know," her voice echoed as she faded. "The Pattern weaves as the Pattern wills. And sometimes, the Pattern needs a thread that cannot break."
Then there was only cold, and snow, and the taste of blood in his mouth.
Part Three: Awakening
Jon's eyes snapped open.
He was lying in snow, blood soaking through his tunic. The wound between his ribs burned like molten iron. His mind felt strange, crowded—two sets of memories trying to occupy the same space.
I'm Jon Snow, one part of him insisted. Bastard of Winterfell. No—Aegon Targaryen.
I'm Jun-ho, another part argued. I pushed kids from a van. I died. I met a goddess.
Both were true. Somehow, impossibly, both were true.
He pressed his hand to the wound. Even as he watched, the bleeding slowed. The torn flesh began to knit together, not instantly, but far faster than any normal healing. Within minutes, only blood-stained clothing remained as evidence.
Jun-ho's—no, his memories now—flooded back. The goddess. The gift. Immortality.
And beneath that, Jon's memories. Winterfell. Robb. Arya. The truth about his parents. The assassin who'd just murdered him.
Should have murdered him.
Jon stood on shaking legs. His body felt different—stronger somehow, thrumming with energy that hadn't been there before. The wound had fully healed, leaving only a white scar. He looked at his hands, flexing fingers that were his but also not his.
Two souls, one body. Two lifetimes of memory. And the knowledge that he would never die, not truly, not permanently.
A direwolf's howl split the air. Ghost burst from the trees, red eyes wide, and crashed into Jon hard enough to knock him down. The wolf whined and licked his face frantically, sensing something was different but not understanding what.
"I'm here, boy," Jon whispered, burying his face in white fur. "I'm here."
But which "I" was speaking? The lordling who'd just learned he was a prince? Or the man from another world who'd been given a second chance?
In the end, did it matter?
He had Jon Snow's memories, his skills, his loves and hatreds. He had Jun-ho's perspective, his knowledge of sacrifice, his understanding that life was precious because it was brief—except his wasn't brief anymore. Not ever again.
And he had one absolute certainty: an assassin had just tried to kill him. Someone knew what Ned had just revealed. Someone wanted Targaryen blood spilled before it could threaten the throne.
Jon stood, Ghost at his side. The sun was setting through the trees, painting the snow crimson. He had to get back to Winterfell. Had to warn Ned. Had to figure out what this new existence meant.
But as he turned toward home, a strange sensation washed over him—like the world itself was watching, waiting. Like threads of destiny were wrapping around him, binding him to something far larger than one boy's life or death.
The Pattern weaves as the Pattern wills, the goddess's words echoed.
Jon Snow—Aegon Targaryen—Jun-ho reborn—walked out of the Wolfswood with Ghost at his heels, immortal and utterly unprepared for the game of thrones that was about to begin.
Behind him, unnoticed, the Old Gods' faces carved in the weirwood trees seemed to watch with new interest. And far to the south, in King's Landing, a different sort of power was stirring.
The dance of dragons was coming. And this time, one of the dancers would never fall.