He will Assert that Robb is the heir

Winterfell.

The word settled in his chest and would not move. He saw the grey towers against fresh snow, heard the crunch of boots in the yard, smelled smoke drifting from the chimneys at dusk. Want rose sharp and sudden, catching him off guard. Shame followed close behind. The hunger had always been there, buried under habit and silence, waiting for a quiet moment to show its face.

Robb’s voice came back to him, thin with youth. You can’t be Lord of Winterfell. You’re bastard born. My lady mother says you never can. The words had tumbled out without thought, in more recent years at the memory Robb’s ears would turn red the moment he recalled his words. He could try to laugh it off, clap Jon on the shoulder, mumbled an apology before the day was done.

Even so, the memory stayed. Jon could still see the way Robb looked at him afterward, guilt plain in his eyes, wishing he could take the words back and not knowing how.

As a boy, before he understood the weight of a name, Jon would wander the yard and picture himself in the high seat. Snow clung to his boots, frost stung his cheeks, and in his mind the guards stepped aside while the great doors opened for him. Years later the thought returned in quieter moments, and he pushed it down, cheeks burning, as if someone might hear.

Shame never killed the wanting. It sat with him through meals, walked beside him on the walls, lingered in the dark when sleep would not come.

Why would the Queen send her sister to him with such a question? The answer stood plain once he let himself see it.

He had not changed the Queen’s nature. Ambition still lived in her smile, sharp as ever. She had once plotted to seat her own children on the Iron Throne and betrayed her husband with the man who shared her blood. Now that same will bent toward Jon, fierce and reckless, because he had given it a place to rest.

If Cersei had sent her sister to him with that question, she meant to place Winterfell in his hands or clear the path so he could take it.

“My brother Robb is my father’s heir,” Jon said, the words flat and certain.

Jaime’s pale brow lifted a fraction, a faint curve touching his mouth. Cersei’s sister leaned closer, voice low and warm with confidence. “That was not what I asked, my little direwolf.”

She thought she had caught him.

Desire had betrayed Jon already. He knew how easily a careless answer could twist into something real, something fixed beyond recall. So, he chose each word with care, holding the truth back behind his teeth, letting silence do the work he dared not trust to speech.

“Do you believe I stand poorly with my trueborn siblings?” Jon asked, shaping the thought as a question rather than a claim.

Jaime studied him for a beat, then gave a faint shrug. “The one who favours your father's looks seems close enough to you. She fidgets through her lessons, stares out the window, and asks to be dismissed so she can chase after her brothers.” Amusement flickered in her eyes. “She mentioned you as well. Said you have been avoiding her.”

Arya’s name tightened something low in Jon’s chest. He pictured her scowling over a needle and thread, dark hair falling into her eyes, impatience written in every sharp movement. The image brought a stab of guilt. Distance had been deliberate. Safer this way. Better she wonder at his absence than feel the weight of words he might one day regret speaking.

“I have not spent much time with your brothers,” Jaime went on, idly tracing a finger along the rim of his cup. “The eldest, Robb if I remember rightly, appears vexed. He thinks you have been keeping your distance. From what I gather, he lays the blame at his lady mother’s feet.”

A flicker crossed Jon’s face before he stilled it. “And that leads you to believe I would seek to take what is his?”

Jaime’s mouth curved, slow and assured. Pale light filtered through the weirwood branches, catching in her golden hair and tracing faint red across her cheek. “You know what the Seven teach of bastards,” she said, voice quiet beneath the leaves. “But that is not what I care to ask. Tell me this. Would Winterfell not rest more easily on your shoulders?”