He will givei nto the temptation

He could do it.

He had already done far worse.

He had taken the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and her twin, the Kingslayer, and bent them to his will with nothing more than words.

What was one sour septa in a castle that still kept the old gods?

The thought slid through him like ice water: cold, clean, terrifying.

Because the answer was nothing.

She was nothing.

He was already damned.

Jon met her eyes, let the rage flicker openly for the first time.

“I’m going to the godswood,” he said, voice flat and hard. “You will follow me. You will keep shouting that I must listen to you, but you will not raise your voice loud enough to draw a crowd. And when we reach the heart tree, you will freeze. You will not move, not speak, not so much as blink until I allow it.”

The words settled into the air like frost.

Septa Mordane’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. Something flickered behind her eyes (confusion, the first dawning of fear), but her feet were already moving. She swept after him, skirts snapping, voice rising in a shrill, indignant stream.

“Insolent boy! You will heed me! The Seven demand respect! You dare walk away when a woman of the Faith—”

Jon did not look back. He strode across the yard, boots crunching on packed snow, past servants who glanced up and then away again, as though a bastard and a septa quarrelling was simply the way of the world.

The ironwood gate of the godswood creaked open at his approach. He passed beneath the arch of red leaves without slowing. Behind him, Septa Mordane’s voice grew thinner, more frantic, yet still obediently low, as though an invisible hand cupped her words and kept them from carrying too far.

They walked deeper. Past the sentinel trees, past the steaming pools, until the castle’s noise faded to a murmur and the heart tree loomed ahead: bone-white bark, red leaves rustling though there was no wind, carved face weeping slow crimson tears.

Jon stopped beneath its branches.

Septa Mordane halted three paces behind him. Her mouth snapped shut mid-sentence. Her arms dropped to her sides. She froze (utterly, perfectly still), eyes wide and fixed on the weirwood’s bloody face, chest no longer rising or falling.

Only the faint rustle of leaves and the distant drip of sap broke the silence.

Jon turned slowly, staring at her rigid form, at the woman who had spent years reminding him he was born wrong.

The power thrummed under his skin, eager, patient, waiting for whatever he decided to do next.