A/N: Hope I make Hardhome epic for ya'll! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a comment if you did! :)
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Year 300 AC
Gates of the Moon, The Vale
The first tilts were nothing special—hedge knights and younger sons breaking lances for glory and ransoms. Harry didn't ride until the afternoon, when the crowds were primed and eager. His opponent was Ser Morton Waynwood, solid and experienced but past his prime.
It was over in two passes. Harry's lance took Ser Morton clean in the chest, lifting him from his saddle in a crash of steel and splintered wood. The crowd roared approval. Harry raised his broken lance to the stands, his eyes finding Sansa.
She smiled and applauded with the rest, playing her part. The wolf on her sleeve caught the light as she clapped—such a small thing, but Bronze Yohn had noticed it when she'd taken her seat. His weathered face had creased in what might have been approval.
Harry's next opponent fell even faster. Young Ser Wallace Waynwood barely lasted one pass before Harry's lance sent him tumbling into the dirt. The heir to the Vale removed his helm, golden hair gleaming as he accepted another favor—this time from Myranda Royce, who simpered prettily as she tied her scarf to his lance.
Let her have him, Sansa thought, watching Myranda preen. For all the good it will do her.
The sun climbed higher, and Harry kept winning. Each victory made his shoulders straighter, his waves to the crowd more confident. By the time he'd unhorsed his fifth opponent—a Redfort knight who'd lasted an admirable two tilts—Harry looked ready to crown himself king of the tourney.
Petyr watched from his box, surrounded by his usual coterie of minor lords and merchants. Even from here, Sansa could read the satisfaction in his posture. Everything proceeding according to plan. Harry triumphant, the Vale lords impressed, and soon—very soon—the reveal that would bind them all to Littlefinger's ambitions.
The herald's voice cut through the crowd's chatter. "Ser Harrold Hardyng will face Ser Lyn Corbray!"
A different energy rippled through the stands. Corbray had already killed one man today—some hedge knight who'd been too slow with his shield. The crowd loved blood almost as much as they loved glory.
Sansa studied Corbray as he rode onto the field. Lean as a blade and just as cold, his grey armor unmarked by the day's combat. Where Harry blazed like the sun, Corbray was winter steel—patient, precise, deadly.
They took their positions. The crowd fell silent.
The first pass was clean—both lances struck true and shattered, neither man giving ground. Harry wheeled his destrier around with a flourish, already reaching for his second lance. Still playing to the crowd, still drunk on admiration.
The second pass came faster. Corbray's lance found Harry's shield while Harry's went wide, scraping uselessly along Corbray's shoulder. A few boos rose from Harry's admirers, quickly hushed as the knights prepared for the final tilt.
Sansa found herself leaning forward despite herself. Something in Corbray's stillness, the way he held his lance...
They charged.
Harry's lance dipped—too eager, too soon. Corbray's held steady as stone. At the last instant, Corbray shifted in his saddle, angling his lance up and in. The blunted tip found the gap between Harry's gorget and breastplate.
The crack echoed across the field.
Harry's head snapped back. His lance fell from nerveless fingers. For a heartbeat he stayed upright, momentum carrying him forward. Then he toppled backward, hitting the ground with a crash that sent up a cloud of dust.
Silence. Then screams.
Sansa didn't scream. She watched Harry's squires rush onto the field, watched them pry off his helm to reveal his face—handsome still, but wrong somehow, neck bent at an angle that made her stomach turn. Blood trickled from his mouth, bright against pale skin.
Dead. The word sat heavy in her mind. Harry the Heir, who'd abandoned two bastard children without a backward glance, who'd have used her claim and tossed her aside when convenient. She waited for sadness, found only a cold kind of frustration. All those plans, all that careful maneuvering, undone by one perfect lance strike.
Movement in Petyr's box caught her eye. For just a moment—barely longer than a heartbeat—genuine shock crossed Littlefinger's face. Real surprise, real dismay. Then the mask slipped back into place, and she watched him turn to Lord Royce's cousin, murmuring something that made the man nod gravely.
Already calculating, she realized. Already adapting.
Bronze Yohn had half-risen from his seat, one hand on his sword pommel. Not from grief—he'd never loved Harry—but from instinct. A warrior's reaction to sudden violence. His eyes swept the crowd, the field, then found Sansa.
She met his gaze steadily. Saw the same understanding dawn in his weathered features. Without Harry, Petyr would need another path to power. And there was only one Arryn left to use.
Sweetrobin.
Bronze Yohn's jaw tightened. Ever so slightly, he inclined his head. Not quite a nod—nothing so obvious with Littlefinger's creatures everywhere—but acknowledgment nonetheless.
The crowd surged and swirled around them, some calling for Corbray's arrest, others insisting it had been a clean death, a tourney accident. But Sansa and Bronze Yohn remained still, two stones in a rushing river, bound now by shared understanding.
They would have to move first. Before Petyr could sink his claws into Robert. Before another child could be twisted to serve Littlefinger's endless hunger.
The game had changed. Time to play it better than her teacher.
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The White Knife
The waters churned beneath the Merman's Pride, its darkness carrying them ever closer to White Harbor. Lord Wyman Manderly sat propped against cushions on the deck, his massive frame requiring three sailors to help position him where he could watch the northern shore slide past. The cold wind bit at his fleshy cheeks, but he welcomed it. Better the honest bite of winter than the false warmth of Bolton hearths.
"Wine," he called, and a servant scrambled to fill his cup. Good Arbor gold, one of the last casks from before the war. He savored the taste, letting it wash away the lingering flavor of his performance at Winterfell. All those smiles, all those jests, playing the fat fool while Roose Bolton's pale eyes watched him like a hawk studies a mouse.
But this mouse has teeth, Wyman thought, allowing himself a small smile.
The ship creaked as it navigated a bend in the river. Somewhere behind them, his son Wylis rode with the Freys toward their doom. The boy—no, the man, Wyman corrected himself—had played his part perfectly. Feigning loyalty to that weasel Hosteen, enduring their insults, all while knowing what awaited them in the snow.
"My lord?" Captain Bartimus approached, his wooden leg tapping against the deck. "Wind's picking up. We'll make good time if it holds."
"Excellent." Wyman shifted his bulk, grimacing as his knees protested. "Tell me, Bartimus, do you remember when Lord Eddard came to White Harbor? After the rebellion?"
The old captain's weathered face softened. "Aye, my lord. Came to return Lord Wyman's bones, he did. A hard man, but honorable."
"Honorable." Wyman tasted the word like wine. "The Freys know nothing of honor. They broke guest right, spilled blood beneath my roof, murdered boys at a wedding feast." His voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than a shout. "The North remembers, Bartimus. And the mermen of White Harbor do not forget."
He thought of the Frey pies, served hot at Ramsay's wedding. How Roose Bolton's eyes had narrowed as Wyman called for another helping, and another. Did you taste them, Lord Leech? Did you savor the flavor of your allies?
But the Freys were only the appetizer. The Boltons... they would require more careful preparation.
"How long until we reach White Harbor?" he asked.
"Two days, my lord, if the wind holds."
Two days to perfect his plans. Already, his granddaughters were spreading whispers in the right ears. Lady Arya escaped. The girl at Winterfell was false. The Boltons and Freys are at each others throats. That last bit sounded like mummer's farce, but in these dark days, who could say what was possible?
The important thing was that doubt would spread. The northern lords who bent the knee to Bolton out of fear would remember their true loyalties. And when the time came...
Wyman closed his eyes, offering a silent prayer to the old gods he'd never quite abandoned, despite the sept in White Harbor. Let Wylis reach the Wall safely. Let him find Jon Snow. Let him carry word that House Manderly stands ready.
The ship lurched over a rough patch of water, and Wyman's stomach churned—not from seasickness, but from memory. His sweet Wendel, laughing at the Twins, raising his cup in toast moments before the crossbow bolts began to fly. His son's blood on Frey hands, crying out for vengeance.
"My lord?" Bartimus still waited.
"Send word to Lord Godric when we dock," Wyman commanded. "Tell him to ready every ship in our fleet. When the ice breaks, we sail for the Sisters. Lord Sunderland owes me a debt, and it's time to collect."
"The Sisters, my lord?"
"Insurance, good captain. The Freys think themselves safe in their stone keep, but rivers flow both ways. And when summer comes..." He smiled, and it was not a pleasant thing. "But first, I have some old friends to meet."
He would see House Stark restored if it took his last breath. Rickon still lived—Davos would find him, the onion knight was reliable as sunrise. And if that failed, he had a second plan...
Then game was set, Wyman thought. And the pieces will fall, one by one.
The wine cup was empty. He called for more, already composing the letters he would write once safe in his own castle. The game of thrones was far from over, and House Manderly would play its part.
The North remembers. And soon, very soon, the North would have its revenge.
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Hardhome, Beyond the Wall
The ancient woman shuffled closer, her milky eyes fixed on something beyond Jon's massive form. Frost clung to her tangled grey hair like cobwebs, and her breath misted in the frigid air. The other Free Folk pressed back, creating a circle of fearful faces in the firelight.
"Mother Mole." Val stepped forward, chin raised despite the tremor in her voice. "This is Jon Snow. The Lord Commander—"
"Aye, I know the one." Mother Mole's cracked lips curved into a smile that made Jon's scales prickle. "Seen 'im in the salt spray when the waves turned black an' mean. Seen 'im in the bloody-weepin' ice. Dead ones whisper his name when I sleep, gods help me." She pointed a gnarled finger at Jon. "They say the bloody dragon ain't lyin'. Death's comin' for all of us, aye—but this one? This one brings life, curse it or praise it."
Jon's claws scraped against the frozen ground, leaving deep furrows in the permafrost. The sound made several children whimper and press closer to their mothers, their small bodies trembling beneath layers of torn furs and rags. Ice crystals scattered where his talons carved through the earth, glittering like broken glass in the firelight.
The crowd shifted uneasily, a mass of hollow-eyed faces and frost-rimed beards. The stench of unwashed bodies, sickness, and fear hung thick in the air despite the biting wind. Jon could smell their desperation—sour and sharp, mixing with the smoke from their meager fires and the salt spray from the distant sea.
"Slaves to them crows, is it?" A one-eyed woman pushed through the crowd, shouldering past a man clutching a makeshift crutch. Her face twisted with rage, the empty socket where her left eye should have been puckered and scarred. Her furs were patched with what looked like human skin, badly cured and yellowing at the edges. She spat on the ground between them, the spittle freezing before it hit the ice. "Bowin' to soft southern kneelers what reckon we ain't worth piss on snow? My boys died free, dragon-thing. Free! Not bendin' knee to no crow-lover, not takin' orders from—"
"Life." The word rumbled from Jon's throat like distant thunder, cutting through her tirade. His massive head swung toward her, red eyes burning in the darkness like hot coals. The woman stood her ground, but Jon could see the slight tremor in her remaining hand, the way her fingers tightened on the dragonglass knife at her belt.
His gaze swept across the huddled masses. Gaunt faces carved hollow by hunger, frost-bitten fingers blackened at the tips, children with hollow cheeks and eyes too large for their skulls. A babe cried weakly somewhere in the crowd, the sound thin and reedy. Its mother tried to hush it, rocking back and forth, but Jon could hear the emptiness in her movements, see the way her own ribs showed through gaps in her furs.
"That's all I offer. A chance to fight the real enemy. To stand with the living against the dead." His voice carried across the frozen beach, deep and resonant, making the ground vibrate beneath their feet. "Or stay. Eat your dead. Wait for the cold to take you."
He paused, letting the words sink in. Somewhere behind the one-eyed woman, an old man collapsed to his knees, too weak to stand any longer. No one moved to help him.
"But when you rise again with blue eyes," Jon continued, his head lowering until he was eye-level with the defiant woman, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his scales, "remember—you had a choice."
Mother Mole cackled, a sound like ice cracking on a frozen lake. "Hah. The dragon, he knows. Knows what rides the wind. I seen it, gods be damned—I seen it. Ships with sails black as a crow's heart, but the dead—aye, the dead sail quicker. Swim quiet under the sea, waitin' like winter, cold an' cruel."
Could she see visions like Bran? Jon's massive form tensed. "Yes, I have sent for ships from Eastwatch that are coming to save your people."
"Think they're comin' to save us, do they? Hah. Bloody salvation, they say..." She trailed off, staring at something none of them could see. "Salvation has teeth."
Val exchanged a worried glance with Toregg. The big warrior's hand had moved to his dragonglass weapon, turning to look at the sea.
"How many can fight?" Val asked the gathered Free Folk. "Real fighters—not just folk what've touched a spear once?"
"Nine thousand, maybe. Fewer, likely." a grizzled man with a bone-pierced beard answered. "Half can't even stand. Too many babes sucklin' at the breast. Too many wee ones starin' wide-eyed."
"And too many dead..." Mother Mole added softly. "Aye, the hungry dead. They wait, quiet-like, under the snow, under the ice. Waitin' for that icy horn."
Jon's head snapped toward her. "What horn?"
But the old woman had turned away, muttering to herself in a singsong voice that made his scales ripple with unease. "Black wings bring black words. Fire dances with ice. Ice bites back. The dragon's flyin' now—but winter? Winter's always a comin'."
"She's been like this for days," a gruff freefolk elder said quietly. "Ever since the cold grew worse. Half the time she makes sense, half the time..." She shrugged.
A shout rose from the shoreline. "Ships! Ships in the bay!"
Jon's massive form pivoted, his tail sweeping snow into the air. Through the eternal twilight of the far north, he could make out dark shapes on the water. Six ships, their sails black against the grey horizon.
"The ships we saw earlier." Toregg confirmed, squinting.
The Free Folk began pushing toward the shore, desperate hope replacing fear. Mothers lifted children, the strong helped the weak. But Jon caught the scent of terror on the wind—not from the wildlings, but from the ships.
He launched himself into the air with a thunderous beat of wings, soaring over the crowd. From his height, he could see men on the ships' decks, and even from here, he could smell their fear. They'd spotted him.
The lead ship was already trying to turn, oars flashing as the crew fought to reverse course. Jon tucked his wings and dove, landing in the shallow water with a crash that sent waves surging onto the beach. Ice cracked beneath his weight.
"Stop!" His roar shook snow from the cliffs. "I am your Lord Commander and I do not give you permission to leave!"
Crossbow bolts whistled past his head. One sparked off his scales. On the deck of the nearest ship, men scrambled over each other to get away from the rail. Someone was screaming orders—
Jon's heart clenched. He knew that voice.
"Grenn!" He surged forward, careful not to swamp the ship with his wake. "Grenn, it's me!"
A familiar broad-shouldered figure appeared at the rail, crossbow aimed at Jon's eye. Grenn's face was pale with terror, his hands shaking. Beside him, Pyp clutched a dragonglass dagger like it might protect him from a creature out of legend.
"Stay back, demon!" Pyp's voice cracked, eyes red with tears of fear. "Whatever you are—"
"The first time we met, you made fun of my brooding," Jon said, fighting to keep his voice gentle despite its draconic rumble. "Said I had a face like a lord who'd found a turd in his porridge. You sang bawdy songs all the way from Castle Black to the haunted forest."
Pyp's dagger wavered.
"Jon?" Grenn's crossbow lowered a fraction. "That's... that's not possible. How…when..how?!"
"They put knives in me." The words scraped out like grinding stone, each syllable dragging obsidian scales against memory. Jon's massive head dipped lower, red eyes reflecting Grenn's terrified face back at him. "My own brothers. I bled out in the snow at Castle Black." His claws flexed beneath the waves, sending ripples toward the ship. "Then I woke in fire and shadow and... this." A shudder ran the length of his serpentine form. "The man you knew is ash. But the oath remains."
"Prove it," Pyp demanded, though tears were streaming down his cheeks. "Tell us something only Jon would know."
Jon's massive head drooped. "The night before the Great Ranging, you snuck into the kitchens and stole a wheel of cheese. Shared it with me and Grenn in the armory. Grenn ate so much he was sick for days. Mormont made him muck out the stables as punishment."
"Seven hells," Grenn breathed. The crossbow clattered to the deck. "It is you."
"Jon?" Pyp's voice was small, broken. "What have you become?!"
Jon's massive form drew back through the churning water, each movement sending waves lapping higher against the ship's hull. Steam rose where his heated scales met the frigid sea. "What I am now—" His voice caught, rumbling deep in his chest like distant thunder. "—is the only way to survive what's coming."
Behind him, the shoreline writhed with bodies—a mass of fur-wrapped figures pressed shoulder to shoulder, their breath misting in desperate clouds. A babe's wail cut through the wind. An old woman stumbled, caught by younger hands before she could fall into the surf.
Jon's head swung toward the chaos, then back to the ship. His claws gouged furrows in the seabed. "Those ships' holds, can they take them all? The babes at their mothers' breasts, the grandfathers who can barely stand?" Red eyes fixed on Pyp's face. "Because if we don't move now—"
From somewhere beyond the treeline, a horn blast split the air. Long and low.
The wildlings' cries sharpened to screams.
"The wights… they march," Jon rumbled.
"The dead?" Grenn was already turning to the crew. "You heard the Lord Commander! Lower the boats! Ready the gangplanks!"
But the men stood frozen, staring at the impossible creature in the water.
"That's an order!" Pyp's voice rang with newfound authority. "You took vows, same as us! We serve the realm of men, not our own fears! Move!"
Slowly, uncertainly, the crew began to obey. Other ships were drawing closer, their captains taking courage from the first vessel's example.
Jon turned back to the shore where Val and Toregg were already organizing the evacuation. "Old ones first!" Val shouted. "Mothers carryin' babes go first! Any bastard tries shovin' past a wee one gets me spear through his godsdamned skull!"
The Free Folk surged forward—not in panic, but with desperate order. They'd survived too much to die now. Jon positioned himself between the ships and shore, using his bulk as a bridge for those too weak to wade through the icy shallows.
"Careful," he rumbled as an ancient woman clutched one of his claws for support. Her hands were like twigs against his scales.
"Bless ye, crow dragon," she whispered. "Bless ye for rememberin' us."
Child after child was passed up to the ships. Some screamed at the sight of him, but their mothers hushed them, desperation overcoming terror. Jon kept perfectly still, a bridge of scales and flame in the frozen water.
"How many o' them floatin' coffins can you cram full?" Val had waded out to stand near his massive head.
"Maybe fifteen hundred, if we pack them tight," Grenn called down. "But there's far more than that here."
"We'll make multiple trips," Jon decided. "Get these to safety first, then—"
Mother Mole's voice cut through the organized chaos, high and keening. "Too late, too godsdamn late! They ride the wind like death itself!"
Jon's head snapped up. The temperature, already brutal, plummeted. His breath, hot enough to melt steel, suddenly misted in air that burned with cold. The wind shifted, bringing with it a smell that made his scales bristle—frozen death and ancient malice.
On the cliffs above Hardhome, figures appeared. They stood motionless, watching. Waiting.
"They gettin' ready to attack!" Toregg breathed.
"Get them on the ships," Jon snarled. "Now!"
The evacuation became a stampede. Jon used his hands to shield the gangplanks, taking the brunt of the crowd's panic. Someone fell into the water—he scooped them up with his tail, depositing them on deck.
"They're coming down!" Val's sword was in her hand, the steel gleaming. "The dead are coming!"
From the cliffs, an avalanche of bodies poured down—not running, but falling, tumbling, rising again. Wights. Hundreds. Thousands. Their blue eyes burned in the twilight like frozen stars.
"Cut the lines!" someone screamed from the ships.
"No!" Jon roared. "We don't leave them!"
Grenn was at the rail, reaching down to pull up a child. "Help me get them on board!" Grenn roared causing his brothers to scramble.
Jon launched himself from the water with a thunderous beat of wings, sending spray cascading over fleeing wildlings. The dead poured down the cliffside like an avalanche of frozen flesh, their movements wrong—jerky, unnatural, bodies bent at impossible angles as they tumbled and rose and stumbled forward again.
The shield that guards the realms of men.
The words echoed in his skull as he soared toward the advancing horde. Fire built in his chest, a furnace of rage that begged for release. These things had no right to walk, no right to hunt the living with their cold blue eyes. He'd burn them all, turn this frozen shore to glass—
Val's scream pierced the air. A wight had grabbed a child from its mother's arms, broken fingers digging into soft flesh but Jon didn't need to act as Val and Toregg quickly reacted and destroyed the wight with dragonglass.
"Keep loading!" Grenn's voice carried over the chaos. "Don't stop for nothin'!"
The temperature dropped again. Jon's wings faltered mid-beat as frost formed on his scales—impossible, with the heat that burned within him. His breath came out in great clouds of steam that froze instantly, falling as snow.
He crashed down, permafrost exploding beneath his weight, shards of frozen earth spraying outward in a crystalline arc. His talons punched through layers of ice and soil, finding purchase in bedrock. Heat surged up from his belly, climbing his throat in waves that made his scales glow cherry-red from within.
Then movement caught his eye—not the lurching stumble of corpses, but something that flowed.
From the heights they descended, their mounts' legs moving in perfect silence across the ice. Eight-legged shadows larger than destriers, their bodies gleaming like polished glass, mandibles clicking without sound. The creatures' movements rippled with predatory grace, each step placed with delicate precision on the frozen cliff face.
Their riders sat straight-backed in saddles of woven ice.
The Others' armor shifted with each movement, capturing errant moonlight and fracturing it into prismatic shards that danced across Jon's retinas. Their faces—gods, those faces—might have been carved by master sculptors from blocks of perfect winter crystal. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut, skin that seemed to emit its own pale luminescence, lips the color of frozen blood. One tilted its head, studying him, and ice-blue eyes met his own—not dead like the wights', but alive with terrible, ancient awareness.
Wind chimes. That's what their voices resembled as they spoke amongst themselves, but wind chimes forged from breaking glaciers and dying stars, notes that resonated in his bones rather than his ears.
Gods, Jon thought, his prepared flames dying in his throat. Old Nan never said they were beautiful.
One of them—taller than the rest, with hair like spun moonlight—raised a blade that seemed to be made of frozen starlight. It pointed at Jon, and when it spoke, the sound bypassed his ears entirely, ringing inside his skull like cracking ice.
The wights stopped their advance. Thousands of blue eyes turned toward their masters, waiting.