"Empires are built from small things. A song played well enough that strangers stop to listen. A knot tied correctly when it matters. A word of thanks to a man who pulled you back from the water. I've commanded armies, burned cities, made kings kneel — but I learned how to lead on a merchant cog, earning my place one small thing at a time. Anyone can seize power. Keeping it requires the people around you to believe you've earned it."
— Fire Made Flesh, Chapter V: "The Crossing"
The cabin is small.
I stand in the doorway, measuring. Eight feet by six, maybe. A single narrow bunk built into the wall—four feet wide at best, meant for one Braavosi first mate who presumably didn't share his quarters with two girls and two growing wolves.
My hand drops to my hip out of habit, finds nothing. Keskydoso is wrapped in oilcloth beneath the bunk—no point wearing a sword on a working ship, much as the absence itches. Invictus rides at my belt instead, the seax useful enough to justify its presence. A blade for cutting rope, not men. For now.
"This is it?" Arya peers around my shoulder. "This is where we're sleeping?"
"Yorko's berth. He's berthing with the crew so we can have privacy."
"Privacy." She steps inside. Takes three steps. Hits the far wall. "There's no room to turn around."
Ghost pads in behind her, sniffs the bunk, and immediately claims the only floor space. Nymeria follows, circling twice before dropping beside him. Their bodies fill the gap between bunk and wall completely—and they're noticeably larger than when we left White Harbor. Growing faster every day, these two. By the time we reach Braavos, they won't fit in saddlebags anymore.
"I'm not sleeping on the floor," Wylla says from behind me.
"I'm not sleeping on the floor either," Arya adds.
"There is no floor." I gesture at the wolf-covered planking. "It's all fur."
We stare at the problem. The bunk. The wolves. The three of us.
Three humans. Two wolves. One bunk. This is fine.
"We'll figure it out," I say, with more confidence than I feel.
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
We do not figure it out.
The first night, we try sleeping in shifts. Arya takes the bunk while Wylla and I sit on deck, wrapped in cloaks against the wind. The stars are impossibly bright—no light for hundreds of miles to dim them—but by the second hour my teeth are chattering and Wylla has stopped pretending she's not miserable.
Then Wylla takes the bunk while Arya and I freeze in the pre-dawn wind. By the time it's my turn, the sun is rising and Matthos is calling for hands to adjust the sails.
The second night, we try fitting all three of us on the bunk side by side.
I fall off twice.
Survived ambushes, killers, and a reincarnation. Defeated by furniture.
The third night, we find the configuration that works: I lie flat on my back in the center of the bunk, one arm around each of them. Arya curls against my left side, head on my shoulder, small enough to fit into the space between my arm and the wall. Wylla presses against my right, her head finding the hollow of my chest, my arm keeping her from rolling off the edge onto the wolves below.
It's not comfortable. The bunk is hard beneath my spine, the wool blanket scratchy against my neck. But it's warm—body heat pooling between us, their breath soft against my shirt—and no one falls, and the wolves have the floor to themselves. Their fur brushes my dangling hand when they shift, coarse and slightly damp from the sea air.
Kutkh perches on the tiny shelf above the bunk, watching us with beady black eyes. The first morning, he lands on Arya's face at dawn.
"I will pluck you," she snarls, swatting at him. "I will make you bald."
An image comes through the bond: my face, seen from above, with a feeling of good-welcome. Then Arya's face, with not-welcome, threat-noise. The comparison is pointed.
I don't tell her what he sent. Some things are better left unmade.
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
By the third day, we've found a decent rhythm.
Mornings belong to Matthos. I'm on deck before dawn, learning the ship—every line has a name, every sail, every part of the vessel. The language is Braavosi-inflected Common Tongue, technical and precise. A backstay is not a halyard. A sheet is not a shroud. Get them wrong and the crew corrects you with varying degrees of patience.
"You want to learn sailing," Matthos said on the second day. Not a question. He'd watched me watching the crew, watched me asking questions, watched me trying to make myself useful when most passengers would stay in their cabins and complain about the food. "Then learn."
So I learn.
The smell stops bothering me by the third morning—tar and bilge water, bodies and salt, the wolves when their fur gets wet. You stop noticing. Then, somehow, you notice again. The damp never stops; salt crusts on skin, on clothes, on every surface. Nothing ever fully dries.
Afternoons, I spar with Arya on the small clear space of deck that Matthos allows us—a ten-foot square between the mainmast and the water barrels, rope coiled at the edges to mark our boundaries. Her short spear against the wooden practice blade I carved during the first day at sea.
I fight at her level. Always have. The point isn't to crush her—it's to push her just past what she thinks she can handle, then help her realize she was wrong. You don't forge steel by shattering it.
The deck tilts. I shift my weight without thinking—eight years of training on solid ground, learning to read new footing in five days. Arya stumbles, catches herself on the mast, spear clattering against wood.
"The ship moves," I say. "You have to move with it."
"I know." She pushes off the wood. Resets her stance—spear leveled, butt held with her back hand the way I taught her.
"Again."
She comes. The spearhead flickers toward my chest—fast, committed. Good. I turn my body, let the point slide past, and step inside her reach. My practice sword taps her ribs before she can reset the shaft.
"You're dead."
"You're bigger."
"Everyone's bigger. That's the point. But you had the reach—you gave it up." I step back, reset. Above us, Old Marq pauses his work on the rigging to watch. Two other sailors have found reasons to be nearby. We have an audience now. "Again. Keep me at distance."
The ship rolls. Arya waits for it this time—plants her feet as the deck levels, then launches.
Better. She thrusts, recovers, thrusts again—not letting me close the gap. I circle, looking for an angle. She pivots, keeps the spearhead between us. The shaft hums through the air, forcing me to respect the range.
"Good," I say. "You're learning."
She doesn't answer. Her breath comes faster now—we've been at this for twenty minutes, and her arms are starting to burn. The spearhead droops slightly. Her feet drag instead of glide.
She attacks anyway.
Feint high, thrust low—trying to catch my belly. I slap the shaft aside, step in—
The spear whips around.
Not a thrust. She's reversed it, sweeping the shaft behind my leading leg as I commit to the step. Wood cracks against the back of my knee. My balance goes. I'm falling before I realize what happened.
The deck hits my back. Air leaves my lungs in a whoosh. The tip of her spear hovers an inch from my throat, Arya's grey eyes fierce above it.
"You're dead," she says.
I laugh. Can't help it. She used my aggression against me—waited for the step, timed the sweep, caught me mid-weight-transfer when I couldn't recover. That's my girl. I could have stopped it. If I'd been fighting at full speed, I'd have used my read of her shoulder rotation, blocked the sweep. But I wasn't. And she found the gap I left her.
That's exactly what she's supposed to do.
The sailors are grinning too. Old Marq shakes his head and goes back to his rope.
Arya offers her hand to pull me up. I take it—and yank her down.
She yelps, hits the deck beside me, and then I'm tickling her ribs and she's shrieking and squirming and trying to stab me with her elbows. "No—stop—that's not—TERRO—"
I relent. We lie there on the deck, both breathing hard, staring up at the sails.
"I hate you," she says.
"No you don't."
"No," she agrees. "I don't."
I push myself up. My back aches where the deck caught me—I let her have the sweep, but the planking wasnt a pleasant fall. Arya's still on her back, chest heaving. She looks exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes, arms trembling slightly even at rest. She's been pushing too hard.
If I tell her that, she'll insist on another round just to prove me wrong.
Give her an out.
"I need to help Matthos with the rigging," I say. "He mentioned something about the foremast stays. Take a break. Get some water. Your form gets sloppy when you're tired."
The relief that flickers across her face is brief, but I catch it. She needed the excuse more than she'd ever admit.
"Fine." She pulls herself up, grabs her spear, and bounces away toward the water barrel. The bounce is a little less bouncy than usual, but she'd die before admitting it. Nymeria pads after her, tail wagging.
I watch her go. Think about what just happened.
She's improving. Faster than I expected. The hesitation that plagued her first two days is fading—she's learning to commit, to trust her instincts, to fight like her life depends on it even when it doesn't.
But she's still thinking too much. Still telegraphing her attacks a half-second before she launches them. Still leaving openings a more experienced fighter would punish. And when I got inside her spear's reach, she had nothing—no answer except a strike that only worked because I let it.
She needs to understand the gap. And she needs another tool to help close it.
I have just the thing.
Evenings belong to all of us. Narbo's fish stew is good—better than good. Chunks of white fish in a broth thick with onion and pepper, the kind of heat that warms you from the inside out. Salt and smoke and something almost sweet beneath it. Better than anything I expected from a merchant cog's galley. Everyone eats the same, crew and passengers alike, crammed together on deck in good weather, below in bad. The bowls are wooden, worn smooth by a thousand hands. After dinner I bring out my harp, fingers finding the strings by memory, playing soft northern songs while the crew drifts closer to listen.
By the third night, Matthos nods toward me when dinner's done. An expectation now. A small place I've carved in the rhythm of this ship.
Small victories.
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
The fourth morning, Arya is up in the rigging with Old Marq before I wake.
I find Wylla alone in the cabin, journal open in her lap, though she's not writing. Just looking at the page. At nothing. Through Ghost's drowsy awareness, Nymeria's presence pulses nearby—sister-wolf, Arya-scent, safe. The wolves know each other now. Accept each other. That bond is growing too, separate from mine but connected through me.
The cabin is dim, lit only by the grey light filtering through the single porthole. It smells of wool and ink and the faint mustiness of damp wood.
"Can I come in?"
She looks up. "It's your cabin too."
I sit across from her. The ship rolls beneath us, the bunk frame creaking, and I wait for the right words to come.
"You've been quiet," I say finally. "Since we left."
"I've been thinking." She doesn't meet my eyes. Her hand rises to her head—touching the short hair there. She touches it like she's still surprised to find it short.
I pull the wrapped bundle from inside my coat. The cloth is rough sailcloth, practical.
"I have something for you."
The cloth falls away. The knife gleams in the dim light—good steel, practical blade, the kind of tool that's meant for daily use. A mermaid worked into the pommel, scales picked out in silver wire. Good craftsmanship. I bought it in White Harbor before we left. Balanced. Solid. A blade that will last.
But it's not the blade that matters.
"I know how much it hurt," I say. "Cutting your hair."
Her hand freezes mid-motion.
"You'd had it green since you were five. It was yours—who you were, not just another Manderly girl in proper colors. And you cut it off without hesitating."
I turn the knife so she can see the pommel properly. The mermaid's tail wraps around it, and braided into that tail, secured with careful knots I spent hours getting right– fuck I hate knot work—
A loop of bright green hair.
"I wanted you to have something to carry it forward," I say. "So you'd remember who you are. Even when you're far from home."
She's frozen.
Her thumb finds the braid. Presses against the familiar texture like she can't believe it's real.
"You kept it." Her voice is strange. Thick. "When you cut it. You kept it."
"Of course I kept it."
"I thought it was just..." She stops. Swallows. "Gone. I thought I'd lost it forever and that was the price and I was fine with that, I chose it, I—"
The knife clutches against her chest. Her composure is cracking—really cracking, not the controlled breaks she allows. Manderly dignity giving way to something rawer underneath.
"Thank you." Barely a whisper. Eyes wet but not spilling. "Jon. Thank you."
I don't say anything. Some moments don't need words.
We sit in silence for a while. The ship creaks. The waves slap against the hull. Somewhere above, Arya's laugh rings out.
"I learned to draw watching the clerks in my grandfather's court," Wylla says finally. Her voice is steadier now. "The ones who keep the trade records. They sketch cargo manifests, ship diagrams, anything that needs documenting." She looks down at her journal. "Lord Manderly expects his household to be useful. I made myself useful."
"You're still useful. More than useful."
She almost smiles. "I know. I just..." She shakes her head. "I grew up on ships like this. Manderly ships. I used to love the smell of tar and salt. Now it reminds me of everything I left behind."
"Do you regret it?"
"No." No hesitation. "I just need time."
I understand that better than she knows.
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
That afternoon, I fail at knots.
Old Marq has the three of us on coiled rope, teaching bowlines. Calm weather, sun breaking through the clouds for once. Kutkh circles high above—on clear days he ranges far, scouting the horizon, returning with images of empty sea in every direction. The kind of day that makes you forget how miserable the sea can be.
"The rabbit comes out of the hole," Marq says, gnarled fingers making the motions look effortless. "Around the tree. Back down the hole. See?"
A perfect loop. Tight, secure, the kind that won't slip under load but releases clean when you want it to.
Benjen taught me different knots. I've tied those a hundred times in training.
But my hands fumble while the ship shifts under us. The rope doesn't cooperate. The loop forms wrong—almost a bowline, not quite. I undo it. Try again.
Fucking knots.
Beside me, Wylla finishes her second attempt—not perfect, but clean. Her third is better. By her fifth, she's got it, her fingers remembering something mine don't, the familiarity of growing up around rope and rigging.
"Not bad," Old Marq tells her. Highest praise he offers.
Then he looks at my tangle of loops and doesn't say anything at all.
It rankles. Not because I expect instant mastery—I know better—but because Wylla makes it look natural, and I've never been good at being worse than someone at anything.
Seventy years of experience. Reincarnated with all my memories intact. Can forge steel, speak multiple languages, kill a man from two hundred miles with skinchanging.
Can't tie a fucking bowline.
"Your hands are choking it," Marq says finally. He takes my wrists, adjusts the grip. "See? Too tight at the start. The rabbit needs room to run before you close the hole."
"Once more?" I ask.
He shrugs. "Some hands are made for rope, some for steel. Knew a helmsman once—best I ever sailed with. Couldn't tie a clove hitch to save his mother. We put him on the tiller and kept him away from the rigging." He glances at Wylla. "That one's got ropework hands. You—you've got other uses."
Other uses.
Marq meant it kindly. I know he did. But seventy years of my old life trained me to hear "you can't" in any sentence that doesn't end with "you're the best."
Get over yourself. You're not here to be the best sailor. You're here to survive long enough to reforge the empire.
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
That evening, I gather them in the cabin.
Four days at sea. Land gone from sight since the second morning. Nothing but water in every direction—grey sea meeting grey sky at a horizon that seems impossibly far. No turning back now. Not that I would. But the finality of it has settled into my bones, and there are things they need to know.
The cabin feels smaller than ever. Close. Warm with three bodies and two wolves in a space meant for one. The lantern swings with the ship's motion, shadows sliding across the walls. I can smell the wolves—musk and damp fur—and beneath that, the ever-present salt.
"There's something I need to tell you," I say. "Both of you."
Arya stops fidgeting. Wylla sets down her journal—the knife with its green-braided pommel resting on top like a paperweight. Ghost raises his head from his paws, red eyes finding mine. Through the bond: attention, alertness. He doesn't understand words, but he feels the shift in me.
The cabin is too small for this conversation. But everywhere is too small for this conversation. My hand finds the hammer pendant through my shirt, presses it against my chest. An old habit. Grounding.
"The day before we left," I say, "Ned told me the truth about my parents."
I let that land. Watch their faces shift—confusion, then attention. The framing matters. Make it fresh. Make the departure a direct response.
"Ned Stark isn't my father." The words come out steady. "He's my uncle. My mother was Lyanna Stark."
Arya's eyes go wide. "Aunt Lyanna? But she—"
"My father was Rhaegar Targaryen."
Silence.
The ship creaks. Waves slap against the hull. Someone laughs on deck above us—one of the sailors, distant and unaware. I watch Arya's face, reading the micro-expressions. Shock first. Then the gears turning. Then—
There. The anger. Directed at Ned, not me.
Good.
"He told me the night before I came to your room," I continue. "Fourteen years of lies, and then he just... told me. Like it was nothing. Like he hadn't let me think I was a bastard my whole life. Let me think my mother was some tavern whore he couldn't be bothered to name. Let everyone treat me like I was shameful, like I was less."
The lie settles into place. Ned told me; I reacted; I left. Clean. Simple. Gives them a narrative that makes sense.
"That's why I had to go. That's why I couldn't stay. Not after that."
But as the words come out, something real surfaces beneath the manipulation.
The echo of the original Jon. The boy who spent his childhood wondering why he wasn't good enough. Why his father never told him about his mother. Why Lady Stark hated him with such cold, constant fury.
For a moment—just a moment—the manipulation and the truth are the same thing.
I feel it. The anger. Genuine, burning anger at a man who loved me and lied to me in the same breath.
It surprises me. I have to master myself. Push it down. File it away. Deal with it later, or never.
Focus. The play isn't finished.
Arya moves first.
Not toward questions about politics or thrones or what this means for the realm. She comes to me. Grabs my arm. Her grey eyes—our grey eyes, Stark eyes, the eyes we share because we're cousins, not siblings—locked on mine.
"He let everyone treat you like that," she says. "And he knew."
I can see her processing—the crack in the pedestal, the first real flaw she's ever acknowledged in the father she worships. It doesn't shatter the statue. But it's there now. A fracture that will change how she sees him.
Then something sharper crosses her face. Curiosity cutting through loyalty.
"Does this mean you could claim something? A throne?"
"I don't want a throne. I want to be free."
She studies me. Weighing it. Then she nods, once, sharp—accepting this the way she accepts everything I tell her.
"You're still my brother." Her voice goes flat. Certain. Daring me to argue. "I don't care whose blood you have. You're mine. That doesn't change."
"It doesn't change," I agree. "Not for me either."
Ghost's head rises from his paws. Through the bond: pack-stronger. Bonds tightening. The three of us becoming more solid, more certain. More pack. His tail thumps once against the planking.
Wylla hasn't spoken.
I look at her. She's staring at me like she's seeing me for the first time. Her hand has found the knife I gave her this morning, thumb pressing against the green braid like an anchor.
A Targaryen prince. I ran away with a Targaryen prince.
"Does this change anything?" she asks finally. Her voice is carefully controlled. "Between us?"
"Of course not. You're dear to me, and I love you."
The blush is immediate. Furious. Red floods from her collar to her hairline—she can't stop it. She looks away, jaw tight.
Ah.
The signs are all there, now that I'm looking. The way her breathing changed when I said "love." The pulse visible in her throat. The white-knuckled grip on the knife I gave her. She's almost thirteen, and I just told her I love her in a cabin the size of a closet after revealing I'm secretly a prince.
Well done, you manipulative bastard. Really threading the needle there.
I file it away. Might be something to act on eventually, but not now. Not for a while. She's not even the age Dalla was yet..
Move forward. Don't make it weird.
She forces the grin. "It changes everything," she says. "It's even better than I thought."
"Better?"
"I ran away to have adventures with a prince. Do you know how much better that story is?" The grin widens, turns genuine around the edges. "When I'm old and telling my grandchildren about this, 'I helped a secret Targaryen reclaim his birthright' sounds much better than 'I sailed around with some bastard from the North.'"
Arya snorts. "Trust you to think about the story."
"Someone has to. You'll both do impressive things and forget to write them down. I'll be the one who remembers."
I pull Arya into a hug. Ghost pushes into the tangle immediately—through the bond, simple and vast: all-here, together, good. The wolf's understanding that this is what matters. His fur is coarse against my arm, still damp from lying on the planks. Nymeria circles and shoves in from Arya's side. My arm hooks out and drags Wylla in before she can hang back.
Two wolves, three people, fur and hair and elbows. Far too small for this. Someone knees someone else in the ribs. Ghost's tail hits Wylla in the face. Kutkh caws from his shelf, outraged at being excluded. Heartbeats everywhere—mine, theirs, the wolves'—all slightly out of sync, all very much alive.
Someone laughs. I'm not sure who.
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
The fifth day, I almost die.
I've been hauling lines since dawn—five hours, maybe six. Arms burning, shoulders screaming, but I won't stop while the crew works. Won't be the passenger who watches while other men labor. Every rope I pull is a lesson learned, a callus earned, a step closer to understanding the ship that carries us. The hemp bites into my palms, rough fiber against skin already raw from days of this. My rings are in the cabin—learned that lesson the first day, when the arm ring caught on a line and nearly cost me skin. The hammer pendant stays, tucked inside my shirt where it can't snag.
Every spare moment I have rope in my hands. Dawn, while the others sleep. Dusk, while they eat. The crew has noticed—the purple-haired boy working rope like it owes him money, like he's got a personal grudge against the bowline that must be settled.
The wind shifts.
Gust. Hard. The sheet jerks—
Pain.
Rope tearing through my grip. Skin shredding. I stumble forward. Can't stop. Momentum wrong. Hip hits the rail—cold iron through my shirt—and I'm tilting, tipping, the grey sea rushing up beneath me—
Salt spray on my face. The pendant swings forward on its cord, dangling over nothing. My fingers scrabble at slick wood. Find nothing.
One more inch.
One more—
A hand closes on my belt.
Yanks me back. Hard. I hit the deck on my ass, palms up, bleeding, heart slamming against my ribs so hard I can taste copper in the back of my throat.
Pollyo looks down at me.
Says nothing.
Goes back to work.
Well. That was almost embarrassing.
I sit there. Breathing. The world slowly stops spinning. My palms throb in time with my pulse—angry red lines where the rope stripped skin away. Blood wells in the creases, mixes with salt water, stings like fire.
Survived a reincarnation. Survived eight years of training. Almost died because I was too stubborn to let go of a rope.
The irony doesn't escape me. Pollyo can't swim. He told me that the first day, matter-of-fact, when I asked about the crew. Most sailors can't, apparently. Never learned, never needed to. The water takes them or it doesn't, and knowing how to swim just prolongs the drowning.
The man who would sink like a stone just saved me from the waves.
The universe has a sense of humor. I've always known that. Nice to get a reminder.
I flex my bleeding hands. The rope burns are shallow but they sting, angry red lines across both palms. I should wrap them. Should rest.
I pick up the rope instead.
Different section, lighter work. The hemp feels like broken glass against my wounds. But I don't stop. Won't stop.
Matthos adjusts the rotation after that. I still work, but the heaviest hauling happens when I'm elsewhere. He doesn't explain. I don't ask. Some arrangements don't need words.
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
That afternoon, I find Arya on deck.
She's at our usual spot—the ten-foot square between mainmast and water barrels—running through forms with her spear. The sequences I taught her, refined over years of intermittent practice. The shaft traces clean lines through the salt air. Thrust. Recover. Circle. Thrust again. She's favoring her left side slightly, shoulder still sore from yesterday's fall, but she hasn't complained. Won't complain. The hesitation is gone now. That hit yesterday was good for her
Good. But not good enough. Not yet.
"You're getting good," I say.
She finishes the form. Turns. Sweat darkens her hairline despite the cool sea air. "But?"
"Spar with me. One exchange."
She grins. Settles into her stance—spear leveled, weight balanced, butt braced against her hip. Ready.
I don't match her energy. Don't settle into teaching mode. Don't give her the half-second handicap I usually build in.
This is going to hurt her. Maybe her body, definitely her pride.
She needs it. Same as I did when my teacher first did this to me.
"Ready?" I ask.
She nods.
I move.
Full speed.
The spear comes up. Too slow.
I'm past the point. Inside. My blade bats the shaft—wood cracks against wood. Shoulder into her chest. She staggers. I follow. Don't let her reset. Blade finds her wrist—smack. Tendons. Spear clatters to the deck. Her hand reaches for Needle—
Too late.
My foot hooks her ankle. My pommel smashes into her chest. She's falling. Hits the planks. Air driven from her lungs in a gasp I feel in my own chest.
My practice sword touches her throat.
Two heartbeats. Maybe less.
Arya stares up at me. Shock in her grey eyes. Not fear—she's not afraid of me—but realization. The gap she thought she was closing just revealed itself as a chasm.
Good. Now she knows.
I step back. Offer my hand.
"That," I say quietly, "is what a man fighting to kill looks like. Not sparring. Not teaching. Fighting."
She takes my hand. Pulls herself up. Her face is pale beneath the flush of exertion, and she presses a hand to her ribs where the deck caught her.
"You've been going easy on me." Not a question. "The whole time."
"I've been teaching you. There's a difference." I pick up her spear, hand it back to her. "You're good, Arry. But you need to understand something."
Be honest. She deserves that much.
I step closer, keep my voice low. The crew doesn't need to hear this.
"Beyond my experience—and you know I've been training almost a decade now—you're at a disadvantage. You'll always be at a disadvantage."
The flash in her eyes. The jaw setting tight.
"You're a woman," I continue, before she can interrupt. "You'll never outpower a trained man. Reach, strength, speed—in almost every physical measure, a man with equivalent training will have you beat."
"I know that." Flat. Angry. "Everyone tells me that."
"I'm not telling you it to discourage you. I'm telling you because ignoring the truth gets you killed." I hold her gaze. "But there are ways to cover the gap. Tools that let skill and timing beat raw physicality."
"What tools?"
"I have something for you." I nod toward the hatch. "Wait here."
I duck below, find the bundle where I stowed it beneath our bunk. When I come back up, she's standing where I left her, spear in hand, curious despite the bruises.
The cloth falls away.
A buckler. Small shield, Talhoffer style—meant to be gripped in the fist behind a central boss, not strapped to the arm. Steel, twelve inches across, the boss prominent enough to punch with.
But the face—
Red eyes stare up at her. White bark, dark carved lines. The weirwood face from Winterfell's godswood, painted with careful precision onto the shield's surface.
She knows this face. She's seen it on my shield, the one I left behind because it was too large to bring.
"The Old Gods," she breathes.
"We're going to a land of foreign gods and no weirwoods." I press the buckler into her hands. The wood is smooth under her fingers, sanded until it won't splinter. "I wanted you to have them with you. To carry them on your arm. For them to protect you."
She traces the red eyes. The paint is fresh, still slightly tacky—I finished it last night while they slept. The lacquer smells faintly of pine.
"It matches yours."
"It does."
I take the buckler back. "Grip it. I want to show you something."
She wraps her fingers around the bar behind the boss, adjusting until it sits right in her fist. Winces slightly when the motion pulls at her bruised chest. The weight is forward, balanced for punching. She picks up her spear in her right hand, buckler in her left.
"Now. Watch." I drop into guard, practice blade ready. "I'm going to do exactly what I just did. Same moves. But slow—so you can see them coming."
I step forward. Very slowly.
"Here's where I get past your point." I push the spear aside with my blade. "Your spear's useless now. I'm too close. But—"
I tap the buckler on her left arm.
"This here. When I bat the shaft aside—" I repeat the motion. "You catch my blade on the buckler. See? You're not trying to stop the force. You're redirecting it. Sending it past you."
I continue the sequence. Slow. Teaching.
"My shoulder comes for your chest." I press forward. "Buckler comes up. Catches me here." I tap the boss. "Doesn't stop me—can't stop me, I'm bigger—but it buys you a half-second. Puts something between us."
"And in that half-second?"
"What happens when someone gets inside your spear's reach?"
Her eyes light up. Understanding. "It's not my weapon anymore."
"So?"
She drops the spear. Needle whispers from its sheath, appearing in her right hand like it grew there.
"Good." I can't keep the pride from my voice. "The spear gives you reach. The buckler gives you defense. And when they get past both—"
"Needle." She grins, gap-toothed and fierce. "Close work."
"Close work. " I step back. "Again. Full sequence. I come at you—slow."
We run it again. And again. And again.
By the fifth repetition, she's starting to do better—the buckler comes up a half-beat faster, the spear drops with less hesitation. Still thinking. Still mechanical. The transitions are clunky, the timing off. But she's got the idea now, the sequence in her head if not yet in her muscles.
That part takes months. Years. We'll drill this every day until it's reflex, and even then she'll fumble it under real pressure the first few times.
But she understands it's possible. That's the first step.
"Better," I say finally. "You're getting it."
She's breathing hard. Sweat plasters her hair to her forehead. Her ribs have to be screaming—she took a hard fall not twenty minutes ago—but her eyes are bright. Not with the frustration of earlier, but with the fierce joy of understanding.
"Now they'll know," she says, looking at the painted face on her buckler. "When they see us. They'll know we're—"
She stops. Doesn't have the word.
Doesn't need one.
She punches my shoulder. Hard enough to mean it.
"Again tomorrow?"
"Every day until it's reflex."
-DT-
-DT-
-DT-
Night.
The ship rocks beneath me. Arya and Wylla are asleep in the cabin, warm and tangled together with the wolves. I should be there. Should be resting.
Instead I sit on deck with a lantern and a length of rope.
The cold gnaws through my cloak—sea cold, wet cold, the kind that finds every gap in your clothing and settles into your bones. My breath fogs in the lantern light. The bandages on my palms are already damp, salt water seeping through linen, stinging the raw skin beneath. I ignore it. The arm ring is back on my bicep—no need to remove it for this, just sitting, just practicing—and the weight grounds me.
Bowline. The rabbit out of the hole, around the tree, down again.
My fingers form the loop. The rope is rough hemp, coarse against my wounds. Wrong. I undo it. Try again.
Wrong.
Again.
Closer.
Kutkh perches on my shoulder, his weight familiar, his talons pricking through the wool of my cloak. Through the bond: an image of my hands, the rope, the repeated motion. Same-same-same?
Learning, I confirm.
Good. The feeling of approval, warm through the bond. Again-again. Good.
The knot forms under my fingers. Not perfect. Not clean. But correct—the structure is sound even if the execution is ugly.
I hold it up to the lantern light. Examine the loops. The crossing.
It would hold. Under load, under pressure, it would hold.
I undo it. Start again.
Somewhere ahead of us, past the horizon, Braavos waits. Then Pentos. Then Daenerys, trapped in Illyrio's manse, waiting to be sold to a horselord for an army her brother will never use.
Then Valyria. Dragons. Fire and blood and everything I've been planning for eight years.
But right now, in this moment, there's just this. The rope. The cold. The sting of salt in my wounds. The slow accumulation of skill that will someday mean the difference between living and dying.
The ship creaks beneath me. The sails whisper overhead. The stars wheel slowly in the endless dark, and the hammer pendant rests cold against my chest, a weight I've carried across worlds.
I tie another knot.
And another.
And another.