EDDARD I

From the stone balcony overlooking the training yard, Eddard Stark watched the spar unfold, his face a mask of granite that betrayed none of the turmoil within. He had come seeking a moment of peace, a brief respite from the endless accounts and petitions that cluttered his solar, but found none. Below, he witnessed the entire exchange, from Robb's first powerful, confident swing to Jon's final, quiet victory.

He observed the surprise on Robb's face—the boy's pride warring with confusion, then frustration, and finally, grudging respect for his opponent. But Eddard felt something else entirely: a profound sense of pride, sharp and fierce, followed by a wave of cold, familiar dread that settled deep in his bones.

He studied Jon as the boy stood over his brother, stance relaxed but ready, the blunted sword held with an easy grace. It was the technique that truly unsettled him. Ser Rodrik Cassel was a fine Master-at-Arms, a man of unquestionable loyalty and skill, but his style was distinctly Northern: straightforward, powerful, brutally effective—meant for breaking shields and shattering lines.

What Jon had just displayed was something else entirely. His was a swordsmanship of patience and redirection, using an opponent's strength against them with almost contemptuous ease. Each of Robb's powerful blows had been turned aside not with force, but with a flick of the wrist, a precise angling of the blade that Eddard had only ever seen once before, in a place of sun-scorched earth and broken dreams.

In that moment, the boy was a ghost, a perfect, heart-wrenching fusion of the girl Eddard had loved and lost. He saw the fierce, wild spirit of his sister Lyanna in Jon's focused intensity—that same untamable fire that had burned so brightly and so briefly. He remembered her at thirteen, out-riding and out-shooting her brothers, her laughter echoing through the Wolfswood, a sound he would give anything to hear again. And in the fluid economy of Jon's movements, the almost unnatural grace with which he'd dismantled Robb's brute force, he saw the ghost of Rhaegar Targaryen.

Not the monster Robert had painted, but the man at the great tourney at Harrenhal: the silver prince in dark armor inlaid with rubies, moving with a poet's grace and a warrior's lethality. He saw it in the sharp, intelligent lines of Jon's face, a handsomeness more refined than the rugged Stark features, and most of all, in those impossible violet eyes.

The sight was a dagger to his heart, a reminder of the secret he had carried for thirteen years, a burden heavier than Winterfell itself—a lie that had become the foundation of his life.

"He grows more skilled," Catelyn's voice, cool and measured, came from beside him. She had joined him on the balcony, her gaze fixed on the yard below, her expression unreadable but for the tight set of her jaw. "Too skilled, perhaps."

Eddard did not look at her, his eyes still locked on the two boys below. "He has a gift. It would be a waste not to nurture it."

"And to what end, Ned?" she pressed, the old, weary argument rising between them once more, as inevitable as the turning of seasons. "What future is there for him here? He is not a Stark. He cannot inherit. Every day he remains, he is a reminder—"

"He is my blood," Eddard said, his voice low and firm, cutting her off before she could finish. He knew what Jon was to her: a living symbol of his one dishonor. A truth that was a lie, a lie that was his shield. He felt the weight of her judgment, the years of quiet resentment. She saw a bastard who threatened her trueborn son's inheritance, a stain on the honor of her house.

But Catelyn was relentless, her worry for her children sharpening her words like a whetstone on a blade. "Your blood, yes, but not your heir. Robb is your heir. When you are gone, and Robb is Lord of Winterfell, what then? Will Jon be content to be his brother's sworn sword? Or will his skill, this 'gift' you nurture, become a seed of ambition? Men will flock to him, Ned. Ambitious lords, second sons with grievances. They will whisper that the bastard is the better swordsman, the more natural leader. They will use him to challenge Robb. It has happened before. The history of the Seven Kingdoms is littered with the bones of brothers who fought over their inheritance."

"Jon is not like that," Eddard insisted, though a cold sliver of doubt pricked at him. He knew she spoke a certain kind of truth—the cold, hard truth of politics.

"He is a boy now," she countered. "But boys become men. He needs a place to go. A purpose that is his own, far from here. The Night's Watch—"

"No," Eddard said, the word coming out sharper than intended. He would not send the boy there. Not to that frozen wasteland at the edge of the world. His brother had taken the black with honorable men in his youth, but he knew what the Watch had become: a sewer for the realm's rapists, thieves, and murderers.

There were still good men there, like his brother Benjen, but they were a dwindling few—honorable islands in a sea of scum. Jon deserved better than a lifetime guarding the realms of men from grumkins and snarks, surrounded by society's worst dregs. He deserved a life, a wife, children of his own.

He deserved to live.

The memory came unbidden, as it always did in moments of doubt, overwhelming the scent of pine and cold stone with the smell of blood and winter roses. The Tower of Joy. Three of Aerys's finest Kingsguard waiting for him, not in King's Landing, but in the middle of nowhere—not guarding a princess, but a secret. He remembered the desperate, brutal fight, the screams of dying men, his own grief and rage a storm in his heart. Only he and Howland Reed had walked away.

Inside, he had found her. Lyanna, pale and feverish in a bed soaked with blood, the scent of roses thick in the air. Her hand, so cold, clutching his, her eyes wide with fear, not for herself, but for the small, dark-haired babe in the cradle beside her.

'Promise me, Ned,' she had pleaded, her voice a desperate, cracking whisper. 'His name is Aemon Targaryen. If Robert finds out, he'll… you know he will. You have to protect him. Promise me.'

He had promised. He had taken the boy and claimed him as his own, staining his honor to save his sister's son. He had lied to his wife, his children, and to the man he called brother—Robert Baratheon. For thirteen years, that promise had been his silent, solitary creed.

A wave of disgust washed over him at the thought of the king. He remembered Robert not as the laughing, vibrant friend of his youth, but as a cold stranger in a familiar skin. He remembered Robert's booming laughter in the throne room after the Sack of King's Landing, when Tywin Lannister had presented the bodies of Rhaegar's children, wrapped in crimson cloaks.

Elia's children. A boy and a girl. Robert had looked at the small, broken forms and called them "dragonspawn," their murders a necessity. Eddard had seen not dragonspawn, but butchered children, and in that moment, the love he'd had for Robert had curdled into something cold and wary. The boy he had grown up with, the man he had fought a war for, had died that day, replaced by a king who could condone such an atrocity.

He knew, with iron certainty, that if Robert ever discovered Jon's true identity, he would not see Lyanna's son. He would see Rhaegar's get. Another dragonspawn to be extinguished. He would hunt him down with all the fury of the realm.

And so, Eddard was trapped in a cage of his own making. He could not keep Jon in Winterfell forever without tearing his own family apart, yet he could not send him away without breaking the most important promise he had ever made. He had considered other options, turning them over in the lonely hours before dawn.

Fostering him with another house? No Northern lord would take him without asking questions, and sending him south would put him closer to Robert's court. Sending him across the Narrow Sea, to Essos? To live as a sellsword, a stranger in a strange land? It might keep him safe, but it would be an exile, a life severed from his home and kin—a betrayal of a different kind.

The Wall, as much as he hated it, remained the only option that offered a true shield. The vows of the Night's Watch were absolute. Once a man took the black, his past was wiped away. He held no lands, fathered no children, and took no part in the realm's squabbles. He became a ghost, and ghosts could not threaten kings. It might one day be the only choice left, the only place Robert's gaze would never fall—a gilded cage to save him from a butcher's block.

His conversation with Catelyn had ended, as it always did, in a tense, unresolved silence. She had retreated back into the keep, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He looked down at the yard again.

Jon was now helping Robb to his feet, a quiet word passing between them. Robb, his initial frustration gone, clapped Jon on the shoulder, and for a fleeting moment, a small, rare smile touched Jon's lips. It was a sight so uncommon it struck Eddard with the force of a physical blow. In that smile, he saw not a Targaryen prince or a Stark bastard, but a boy who loved his brother.

He would protect him. He would honor his promise. Whatever the cost.