He needs room to think but gets distracted

Jon rose slowly from the table, the chair legs scraping stone.

“You have both given me much to weigh,” he said, voice quiet, steady. “More than I expected this morning.”

He looked first at Sansa (her face flushed with triumph, certain he would choose wisely because he always did), then at Alayne (those winter-blue eyes lowered now, black hair a dark river over the grey cloak, every inch the perfect servant).

“I need the godswood,” he said. “A moment alone beneath the heart tree. Stay here. I will return when I know what must be done.”

Sansa inclined her head at once, gracious and trusting. Alayne dipped into a curtsey so smooth it might have been carved from ice.

Jon left them there, the solar door closing with a soft, final thud behind him.

The corridors were cold, the torches guttering in their sconces. He had taken no more than a dozen steps when a tall figure in mail and boiled leather stepped from an alcove.

Brienne of Tarth.

She had arrived only the day before (oath-sworn to Sansa, yet still uncertain where her duty truly lay now that Winterfell’s banners flew Stark grey once more). Her greatsword was peace-strapped across her back; her face, broad and plain and honest, was set in cautious lines.

“Your Grace,” she said, dipping her head awkwardly. “Lady Sansa asked me to keep watch outside the solar. She… insisted I follow if you left.”

Jon almost smiled. Of course Sansa had. She trusted no one fully, not even now.

“Come, then,” he said. “Walk with me.”

Brienne fell in at his left, a head taller than most men, stride long and careful. Snow crunched beneath their boots as they crossed the inner yard toward the godswood. The weirwood’s red leaves glowed like fresh blood against the grey sky.

Jon’s thoughts churned.

Four brides. Four futures.

• Alys Karstark: blood-right, justice, the North healed.

• Wylla Manderly: gold, ships, a port that would never freeze.

• Myranda Royce: the Vale bound in bronze and unbreakable loyalty.

• And Sansa… purest Stark blood, the old laws, but his sister

He could choose one. He could choose none.

Or…

The power stirred behind his eyes, warm and patient and hungry.

Could he speak once (quietly, beneath the heart tree) and gain every alliance without giving away a single thing that mattered? Could he bind castles and fleets and bloodlines to House Stark with a handful of sentences, leaving his bed and his heart his own?

His gaze drifted sideways to Brienne.

She walked like a man trying not to loom. Shoulders too broad, jaw too strong, freckled skin weathered by sun and steel. The armour did nothing to soften her; if anything it made the angles sharper. Men called her Brienne the Beauty only when they wished to wound her. She had heard it so often she no longer flinched.

Jon studied her openly now.

Tall (taller than him by an inch or two). Strong enough to break most knights in half. Loyal enough that oaths were branded on her bones. And beneath that plain face, beneath the cropped straw-coloured hair and the wary blue eyes, there was something fiercely, undeniably decent.

The power purred.

He could change her.

Not cruelly. Not the way he had changed Petyr (though the memory of Alayne’s perfect, lethal grace flashed behind his eyes). Something gentler. Something that would make the world **** to her, and her **** to the world.

He could make her beautiful (truly beautiful, the kind that stopped breath and turned heads). He could soften the jaw, lengthen the lashes, give her the sort of face that made men write songs instead of spitting mockery. He could give her curves that armour could not hide, a voice that carried like bells across water.

Or he could leave her exactly as she was (strong, plain, unbreakable) and simply speak one quiet truth into the world:

'Brienne of Tarth is the most beautiful woman any man has ever seen. Every heart that looks on her knows it, and none will ever mock her again.’

Or something subtler still.

He could make her his own shieldmaiden queen (loyal to the bone, bound by oath and something deeper). A marriage that would offend no lord because no lord would dare object to the woman who had slain the Kingslayer’s shadow and kept her vows when all others broke theirs.

The heart tree loomed ahead, bone-white bark and blood-red leaves, the carved face weeping slow crimson tears.

Brienne stopped at the edge of the godswood, uncertain whether to follow him beneath the canopy.

Jon paused beneath the branches and looked back at her (really looked).

“Ser Brienne,” he said quietly, “walk with me a little longer.”

She hesitated, then stepped forward, snow crunching beneath her boots.

Jon’s mind was already turning over the words he might speak, the futures he might weave, the woman he might make of the oathkeeper at his side.

The heart tree watched.

And somewhere inside him, the power waited, patient as winter, for whatever truth he chose to give the world next.