A Wraith in Winter

Jon awoke with a gasp. “Ghost,” he coughed out with blurred vision. His chest felt cold. His entire body felt cold, and once his vision cleared, he realized why. Jon lay in a snowy, flat field. There were rolling hills of snow in every direction. Snow, but no trees, no Wall, no Castle Black. Jon struggled to raise his head, and felt the wind blow on his face.

They dragged me north of the Wall to die, Jon thought numbly, but it made no sense. They had stabbed him in the courtyard, in front of everyone. As his senses returned to him, Jon realized he laid on the snow naked. They stripped my clothes and left me. With a hiss of effort, he raised his head and looked for the Wall, or the Haunted Forest. Anything.

The sky to the east was tinged an unnatural pink, and the sun peeked through the clouds to the west. There were no landmarks, nothing but a vast expanse of white in every direction. Jon sluggishly blinked and tried to roll over, but his legs moved awkwardly. He tried to brush the snow from his chest, but his hands moved clumsily and knocked against hard mail. Jon coughed again and looked to his left, finding a snarling wolf gaping at him.

Longclaw. The Valyrian steel sword was buried in the snow. Only the hilt stuck out, showing the carved snarling wolf that Jeor Mormont had made, before he gave it to Jon. Once, it was the head of a bear, the sigil of House Mormont, but the Old Bear and previous Lord Commander had it remade after the fire.

The blue-eyed corpses, Jon remembered. He burned them, burned the Lord Commander’s room, and burned his hand. It felt like a lifetime ago, when Jon first arrived at the Wall to join the Night’s Watch, when his brothers and father were still alive. Eddard Stark had been named a traitor and beheaded by the boy-king Joffrey Baratheon, and his brother Robb had rallied the North and the Riverlands to his side in the resulting war. Now, all of them were dead, killed by more treachery at the Red Wedding.

And now I’ll join them. Jon had been dragged north of the Wall to die, left only his blade. Why wouldn’t they take Valyrian steel? It was worth a fortune, there were only a few blades left in the world of that metal. Nothing made sense. With another grunt of effort, Jon reached out to grab the hilt.

A black arm with only four fingers grabbed the pommel. Jon blinked at it. His vision swam again and the wind blew into his face. There was a dark mass in the center of his eyesight and he pawed at it with his other arm. Jon hit himself in the nose and an inhuman hiss left his mouth on reflex. He rolled over into the snow and felt a sharp pain between his shoulder blades, then rolled back and forced himself up onto clumsy legs.

Longclaw came with him, pulled out of the snow by the unfamiliar arm. Jon felt the familiar weight of the blade and dropped it back into the snow, raising his mangled hands to his face. His immediate thought was that he had been burned. His arms were charred black and the bone exposed on his fingertips. He was missing a finger on both hands. Jon struggled to focus and shook his head.

Claws. These are claws. They bent a bit stiffly, but far better than the joints on his burned hand. The white tips were sharp talons jutting from fingers coated in black scales. He followed the arms to his chest, which was equally white and crossed in a pattern. Scales. Jon touched an unfamiliar hand to his chest, feeling the hard scales that he first thought were mail. He could feel the cold claw rub against his chest. There were no stab wounds. While his chest and belly were white, the black scales traveled around his sides. Jon twisted his head to look, and a leathery cape struck him in the face.

He recoiled and coughed, and a sudden burst of heat and flame shot out of his mouth. The shock sent him tripping over his legs and back into the snow. Jon looked down; his legs bent strangely, as if there were too many joints, but he did not trip over them. A thin, snakelike tail with white ridges and a red-flared tip was wrapped around his left foot. His foot was now a claw like his hands, missing one toe. The wicked white talons on the end looked very sharp.

Tail. Claws. Talons. Jon pawed at the black leathery cape and felt the sensation on both ends. With some effort, he pulled it taut and hissed again at the sharp pain. There was only one thing it could be. Wing. Jon felt another on his other shoulder. Wings, he corrected. Jon stood up again, and he felt the tail swing to counter-balance. There was only one scaled creature with wings, one that breathed fire. Dragon.

Jon stood in the snow for a moment. I’m hallucinating from the cold, he concluded. I’m dying in the snow in Castle Black, and this is the Seven Hells. Jon believed in the Old Gods, the carved faces of the Weirwood trees, but the Old Gods could be cruel. Was this a punishment? For doing the right thing? Or what he thought was right. Some of the men disagreed. Jon flumped down into the snow and snorted another small plume of flame. His felt his mouth twist in a smile. It felt too long.

If he was meant to be a dragon, he still felt cold. The wind bit into his skin and scales, and the sun was setting. He would die out here. Again, he corrected himself. I’ve already died once.

Jon closed his eyes. Death would not be so bad. Robb was gone, killed at the Red Wedding with his mother. Ned, his father, loved Jon like his own proper children, despite Jon’s status as a baseborn bastard. Bran and Rickon were dead, killed by Theon Greyjoy in Winterfell. Sansa had been missing since Joffrey’s poisoning.

Arya. Jon opened his eyes. She was alive, married to Ramsay Bolton, the son of Roose Bolton, the man who betrayed and killed Robb with the Freys and Lannisters. Ramsay fed his enemies to dogs, or flayed them, or both. He had sent a letter on tanned skin, apparently believing that Jon had stolen Arya away from him. Melisandre had told Jon that she would arrive at Castle Black, but instead Alys Karstark found her way there, fleeing from her treacherous family. She’s still alive. I gave her the sword. Needle. Stick them with the pointy end.

Jon stood up and gripped Longclaw with both hands. “I have to try,” he said aloud, testing his voice. It sounded the same, but his tongue felt long and awkward. Jon took one step, and felt the tail sway and balance. The leathery wings shifted naturally. He took another, then another, then another, marching through the snow with the sword held in front of him. He walked through the snow towards the distant pink glow, squinting in the wind. "I have to try," he repeated. The Old Bear's words echoed in his mind. "I will not sit here meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds."

He walked until nightfall. The sun set unnaturally fast, and the moon rose equally quick. Jon paused to stare up at the full moon, it was far larger than it should have been. Where am I? The Seven Hells are supposed to be hot. But it was bitterly cold, far too cold. Dragons should not get cold, but Jon couldn’t manage to summon another flame. He had no idea how he had done it in the first place. Even if he did, the wind still blew snow that stuck to his scales faster than he could brush it away.

The pink glow to the east seemed brighter and closer at night, but Jon’s pace slowed to a staggering, swaying gait. He was tired, lost, disoriented, and confused. He thought idly of his family, and Longclaw nearly slipped from his claws twice, only caught with a fumble. Finally, he fell forward into the snow, and did not rise again. He turned his head to the left, and his muzzle carved a track in the snow. Muzzle, he thought with a grin, but his mouth didn’t respond.

There was a cave a few yards away, the mouth half-buried by the snow. Jon tried to lift his arms, but they wouldn’t respond. I should’ve stayed in that cave, Ygritte. Her gap-toothed smile danced between his eyes and she shook out her fiery hair. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she teased and beckoned him into the cave. The wildling was naked, just like the day they spent in the hot spring. Jon wanted to go with her so badly, but he couldn't. “I’m sorry,” he said to the approaching shadow and closed his eyes.