The torchlight licked at the walls of the cavern, pulling Jon Snow's shadow long and thin across the stone. Its wavering glow also revealed what lay scattered at his feet—eggs the size of boulders, smooth and gleaming, yet strangely lifeless. The firelight painted their shells in hues of burgundy, black, and bone-white, each reflecting the flicker like a jewel.As Jon stepped closer, the light revealed something more somber. On the ground near the broken shards of a shell lay two tiny corpses, no longer than his boots. Hatchlings. Their delicate skeletons had long since dried into fragile ivory threads, but the shape was clear—the twisted remains of dragons that had never lived long enough to taste the sky.Jon crouched, lifting a piece of shell between his fingers. It was sharp, almost like glass, and carried a faint warmth despite centuries of stillness. His eyes fell again on the hatchlings. They must have starved in their first hours, their cries unanswered in the darkness, or perhaps they were simply too weak to survive. Even Targaryen dragons, born to fire and blood, often died within hours of hatching.The sight struck him harder than he expected. Two little smudges on the grand epic of dragons, the last footnotes in Sheepstealer's long legend. Desolate. Tragic. He placed the shard down gently, as though disturbing the dead was some quiet sacrilege.When he forced himself to look beyond the corpses, his breath caught.There were not three eggs, nor five, but more than twenty. Intact, untouched, perfectly preserved. He counted again, almost doubting his own eyes. Twenty-three.The Dragon Queen across the Narrow Sea had begun her rise with only three eggs. Three gifts, half-forgotten curiosities, that somehow birthed fire and blood anew. Yet here he stood, before a hoard that dwarfed hers tenfold.The air felt heavy with destiny.But reality quickly sobered him. Even if the gods themselves had placed these treasures in his hands, he could not carry them all. The dead pine tree he had used to climb could not bear such weight, and even if it could, he had neither the men nor the strength to protect so many. To carry even one dragon egg across Westeros would attract suspicion, greed, and death. To carry twenty-three would be suicide.Jon clenched his fists. He would take only three. The rest would remain hidden here, in this forgotten tomb of dragons. And when he left, he would destroy the path behind him. If he snapped the dead pine tree, no one else would climb to this place. These eggs would wait—silent, secret—until the day he might return with strength enough to claim them.Still, the choice weighed on him. Which three? Which colors? Which fates? His hand hovered over them, the shells cool and smooth beneath his fingers, as though each whispered its own story.---Far below, life continued in the Painted Dog Tribe.The tribe was quiet as it had been for centuries, its huts and fire pits unchanged by the drama unfolding above. Only the presence of the iron-skinned soldiers—the men Jon had brought—marked it as different from any other day.On a hillside overlooking Hidden Fire Peak, Elder Vido stood, watching the jagged silhouette of the mountain. His daughter had been gone for five days now, vanishing the same day Jon left. He had not needed anyone to tell him where she had gone. Sola's boldness was as plain as the sun.He folded his arms across his chest, his stern face betraying the faintest shadow of worry."Worried about your girl?"The voice belonged to Chick, the sly-eyed leader who had once tested Jon. His tone was teasing, though his gaze was sharp.Vido glanced at him but said nothing. Silence, however, did not deter Chick."Don't fret. That foreign lad—Jon—he's the most remarkable young man I've ever laid eyes on. Even if he can't reach the summit, he'll bring her back safely. Of that, I'm sure."Vido exhaled slowly. "If he does climb it," he said at last, "I will keep my word. More than that, if he marries my daughter, I will entrust him with the Painted Dog warriors. Better she be in his hands than bound to a fool who cannot hold her."Chick raised a brow, genuinely surprised. "You would give him so much? You truly value her that highly?"Vido's jaw tightened. "My concern for my daughter is my own affair. Her mother… was spoils of war, nothing more. But Sola is different. I know she longs to leave the tribe. If I can set her on a path with a man like him, then my heart will rest easy."For once, Chick had no mocking reply. He simply studied his old rival, seeing him in a new light. Then, lowering his voice, he muttered, "Be careful of Hughwolf. I smell treachery in him."Vido's lip curled. "Hughwolf is nothing. I do not even place him in my eyes."Chick might have said more, but then his head snapped up. A gasp escaped him. "Vido—look!"Across the jagged peaks, three thick plumes of smoke rose into the sky from the very summit of Hidden Fire Peak.Vido's eyes widened, and for once, even his composure cracked."He… he succeeded."---High above, Jon had already chosen his three. One burgundy, dark and regal. One blood-red, deep as fire itself. And one pale white, marbled with a single crimson spot at the crown. Together they gleamed like gems stolen from the gods.In the makeshift camp, the survivors gathered around them, awe written plainly on every face."These are dragon eggs?" Harken asked, his voice low with disbelief. He reached out, not daring to touch, as though the eggs might burn him. "How can such small things become such vast beasts?"Sola's hands trembled as she stroked one shell. It was heavy, cool, almost soothing. She cradled it as though it were alive.Old York was worse. The old man clutched the burgundy egg to his chest, rocking it like a child. His cloudy eyes were wet with tears, his lips trembling, and he muttered half-coherent prayers. The drool at his chin betrayed his ecstasy. He had spent his life studying stories of dragons, whispering their names into the night. Never had he dreamed he would hold one in his arms.Jon allowed the moment, but his own eyes grew hard. Awe was dangerous. Awe made men careless."Listen to me," he said, his voice sharp enough to cut through their reverie. He turned first to the two surviving old soldiers, their weathered faces lined with exhaustion. "If word of these dragon eggs reaches the barracks, even if you kill a thousand men for me, there will be no reward. If the secret remains safe, however, your families will receive five hundred catties of grain."The men's eyes widened. Five hundred catties was wealth beyond their imagining—food enough to keep a household alive through two harsh winters. They nodded eagerly, promising silence with frantic bows.Jon was about to turn to Sola and Harken when Sola's gasp froze him. She raised a trembling finger and pointed behind him.Jon spun around.The two old soldiers were bleeding from their mouths. Each held half a severed tongue in his hand, their eyes gleaming with grim pride. Smiling through the blood, they tossed the pieces off the cliff like scraps of meat.Jon stared, struck silent. They had not trusted themselves with words, not even with hunger driving them. Illiterate, unable to record, they had erased even the chance of speech. A final sacrifice to prove their loyalty.It was brutal. It was decisive. It was unforgettable.He looked away, jaw tightening. Part of him wanted to stop them, to say there was another way. But he knew the truth: words could always slip, whether by accident or torture. This way, there was no chance. Their families would eat because they had bled.He bowed his head for a heartbeat. "Your children will not want for bread," he murmured. "This, I swear."The silence that followed was heavy. Even Jon's enemies would have admitted the weight of such loyalty.Harken swallowed hard. His face was pale, but his voice carried as he asked, almost timidly, "Jon… do we… do we need to cut our tongues too?"Jon nearly laughed despite the grimness. "No, Harken. You and Sola keep my secret, and I'll keep yours. There are still eggs up there on the mountain. If one day you are elder, you can lead your people to claim them. Even if they no longer hatch, each egg is worth enough to arm your tribe in steel."Harken's eyes lit up with greedy wonder. "Truly?""Of course.""Then you have my word," he said quickly. "I will tell no one."But Jon had already seen the flicker in his gaze, the longing glance at the rope that still dangled from the dead pine. Harken wanted to climb now, to snatch fortune with his own hands.Jon moved first. With one hard pull, he wrenched the pine from its shallow roots. The brittle trunk cracked, then toppled, crashing down the cliff face into nothingness."Take your time," Jon said coolly. "Drive stakes into the rock if you must. This tree will not serve you."Harken flinched, but then nodded, gratitude and frustration warring in his eyes.Jon turned away. He had no more patience for greed. The eggs were his, and the rest would remain hidden until fate demanded otherwise.The time had come to return—not merely with dragon eggs, but with the beginnings of a wildling army that might change the fate of the North.---
Ãdvåñçé çhàptêr àvàilàble óñ pàtreøn (Gk31)
Offer is going on