Go deeper into the Godswood

Jon drew slow breaths, the godswood's cold air scraping the back of his throat with each inhale. His pulse thudded heavy against his ribs; he willed it slower, quieter, until the rhythm dulled to something he could ignore.

He had dodged Robb again.

Not much was spoken between them, no carless slip that might have let the power loose. The encounter had passed without damage, leaving Robb exactly as he had been—still the heir, still carrying Winterfell's future on his shoulders, untouched and whole.

Jocelyn cut in before the silence stretched too far. Her voice sliced sharp across the yard, no pause, no softening. She pinned Robb’s auburn hair and blue eyes as Tully marks, plain and obvious, and called them the reason he fell short. Too much of his mother. Too little of Lord Stark.

She turned to Jon then, eyes lingering on the dark curls, the grey stare, the lines of cheek and jaw that echoed Ned Stark’s own. No effort to hide the comparison. She preferred what she saw.

That resemblance had followed Jon since childhood, more pronounced than in any of his half-brothers. The same dark hair, the same grey stare, the same hard line of mouth and brow. Bastardy had sharpened the likeness rather than softened it, turning a family echo into something impossible to miss. It drew eyes, sometimes admiration, sometimes something colder. A legacy he had never asked for, yet one that marked him every day.

The deeper paths pulled Jon in, boots sinking into needle strewn snow that muffled every step. Branches drew tighter overhead, knitting a low ceiling until the heart tree appeared suddenly—trunk pale as bone, red leaves hanging motionless despite the faint stir in the air. Crimson sap wept from the carved face in slow trails, dripping into the black pool without a ripple at first.

He dropped onto the curved root, elbows on knees, staring down.

The water held an inverted weirwood, red tears climbing upward against reason, the reflection bending time backward.

Ripples spread from a fallen leaf, then shrank and vanished.

Only his breathing remained, steady and alone, joined after a while by the soft, irregular drip of sap somewhere high in the branches.

Each time Robb’s name surfaced, something tightened low in Jon’s chest. The thought arrived softly, almost reasonable. A few careful words, spoken in the right tone, and Robb would lean closer. His brother’s gaze would steady, his doubts ease, the space between them thinning to nothing. It would be simple. So simple.

The impulse lingered at the edge of his mind, steady as a hand resting on his shoulder. It did not rush him. It waited. Patient. Certain he would turn to it eventually.

Jon drew a slow breath and let the moment pass. His jaw set. He felt the pull like a current against his ribs, urging him forward, promising warmth and certainty. Pushing back required intention. He held the silence instead, swallowed the words before they could take shape, and let the distance remain.

Robb.

Arya.

Bran.

Rickon.

Some instances the pressure built behind his teeth, urging him to speak. The power gathered on his tongue, warm and eager, pressing for release. It promised many things, much of which Jon knew he wanted. A nudge in the right direction. A shift so slight no one would notice Even after it was done.

Theon had been the exception. Rage had burned hot and sudden, stripping away caution. He remembered the heat in his throat, the snap of his voice. The words left him before he weighed them. And the result changing who Theon would be forever.

That fresh memory lingered whenever the urge returned.

It helped Jon resist the desire for now.

The pool lay dark beneath the branches, its surface smooth as polished stone. It gave nothing back but a warped fragment of sky and the pale blur of bark above. Carved eyes looked down from the weirwood, fixed and ancient, while slow beads of red sap traced the grooves of its face and slipped into the water without a sound.

In the reflection, the tree hung inverted. Crimson threaded upward through the black mirror as though the world beneath obeyed a different order. Jon watched until his own features blurred into the shadowed ripples, the boundary between flesh and reflection thinning.

Names pressed forward in his thoughts, insistent, refusing to be held at bay.

The Queen.

Her twin sister.

Her younger sister.

Her eldest daughter.

That daughter's sworn shield.

His father's ward.

Septa Mordane.

The maester.

The servant who once carried Lady Stark's messages with open disdain.

All of them now bound to him. Eyes softened when they looked at him. Voices lowered with something close to reverence. Bodies leaned closer whenever he entered a room. All except the maester had felt his touch, taken him inside them, carried his seed. He had claimed them one by one, reshaping them with words until even those not changed physically would be mostly unrecognizable.

Lady Stark's voice echoed in memory, sharp and certain: bastards are treacherous by nature, born of lust and lies, wanton and deceitful.

The Seven taught it.

The Faith preached it.

Lady Stark had made sure to had repeated it often enough that the words had carved grooves in him. Now those same words turned back on him like a blade.

It was no question; Jon had betrayed the king—cuckolded Robert Baratheon under his Father's roof, spilled his seed into the queen's womb while the man drank, laughed and groped serving girl in the Great hall.

The act itself was treason enough. But the power made it worse: he had not merely taken her body; he had taken her will, twisted her thoughts and mind until she looked at him the way she should never look at any man but her husband. Not that the Queen ever looked at the king in that way.

"Like father like son," a new voice spoke up, low and laced with amusement.

Jon turned, and there stood Jaime Lannister.

She leaned casually against the weirwood's pale trunk, arms crossed beneath the swell of her breasts, white cloak draped loosely over her shoulders. Her emerald eyes gleamed with the same sharp wit they always had, but the face framing them was softer now, high cheekbones, full lips curved in a familiar smirk, skin smooth and glowing under the godswood's dim light.

The Kingsguard armour still clung to her, white-enameled plate chased with gold lions, but it fit differently now: the breastplate curved over generous breasts, the waist cinched tight above flaring hips, greaves hugging long, muscled legs that ended in polished boots. A sword hung at her hip, hilt glinting, the white cloak fastened with a golden lion brooch whose ruby eyes winked in the low light.

She pushed off the tree and stepped closer, the movement fluid and unhurried, every inch the lioness she had always been—only now the lines were smoother, the presence more commanding in its feminine grace.

Jaime stepped closer, the hem of her white cloak brushing the snow dusted ground. Her hand found the side of Jon's neck, fingers sliding up to cradle the back of his skull, thumb resting just behind his ear in the same spot she had pressed last night when she rode him through his release. The touch was familiar, possessive in a way it hadn't been before the royal chambers, before she had whispered his name like a vow while he filled her.

Leaning in until their foreheads nearly touched, Jaime's green eyes searching his with the same intensity she had shown when she clenched around him, when her body had shuddered and taken everything he gave. "You look like him," she murmured, voice low enough that the words stayed between them. "Same eyes, same jaw, same way you carry silence like it's armour. But Ned Stark never had a woman like me begging to carry his child."

Her free hand drifted down, palm flattening over his stomach, fingers splaying wide. The gesture was deliberate, intimate, a reminder of the heat they had shared only hours ago—her thighs locked around his hips, her moans muffled against his shoulder as he spilled inside her, the power ensuring the seed took root. She had felt it happen, had gasped against his ear that she could sense the change, the beginning of something growing because of him.

Jaime's lips curved, not quite a smile, more a private acknowledgment as she pressed a slow kiss to the corner of his mouth, lingering there, breath warm against his skin. When Jaime drew back, her eyes held his without flinching.

"My Sister has many desires, but now she has tasked me with asking you question my dear white wolf," Jaime purred. "Do you desire Winterfell?"

And at once Jon gelt his blood run cold.