The dream began as all nightmares do: with the creeping, absolute certainty that the world had broken.
Jon Snow lay in his narrow bed, the rough-hewn stones of Winterfell pressing cold against the thin wall beside him. The chamber smelled of old rushes and the lingering smoke of a dying hearth. He was five years old, and his concerns should have been the morrow's lessons with Maester Luwin or the way Lady Catelyn's eyes slid over him like he was a stain on the linen.
Then, the darkness dissolved. It did not fade; it shattered, peeling away like burnt skin.
He was no longer in the North. He stood upon a field of carnage that stretched to a horizon choked by smoke. The sky was bruised purple, unnatural and sick. Bodies sprawled in every direction—thousands of them. They wore armor made of lacquered plates bound with silk cords, strange and beautiful, now marred by mud and gore. But it was the faces that terrified him. Men with the features of the Yi Ti traders who sometimes came to White Harbor, their eyes staring sightlessly at the alien sky.
And the smell. It was not just the copper tang of blood or the bowel-loosening stench of death. It was acrid, chemical, a burning scent that made his five-year-old throat close up. It smelled of things that had no name in Westeros.
"You shouldn't be here, boy."
Jon spun, his small boots sliding in the bloody mud.
A man stood amidst the ruin. He leaned heavily on a sword that was broken halfway down the blade; the steel rippled like water frozen in an instant. He wore a haori—a coat, Jon's mind supplied a word he didn't know—checkered in green and black, soaked dark with blood. He looked to be perhaps thirty, though his eyes were ancient, hollowed out by a weariness that went deeper than bone.
"Where am I?" Jon's voice resembled a child's piping treble, thin and frightened, cutting through the heavy silence of the dead field. "Who are you?"
The man laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound, like dead leaves skittering over stone. "Someone who failed. Twice."
He stepped closer. The movement revealed a horrific wound; half his throat had been torn away, cauterized by something hot enough to boil blood. Dream logic insisted the condition was normal. Dream logic insisted the dead could speak.
"First life," the man rasped, gesturing with a hand that had lost two fingers. " Killed in a metal beast on a road of black stone. A drunk driver. "This death is meaningless, just like the life that preceded it." He swept his arm across the battlefield. "Second life. Died fighting monsters in the dark. I lacked the strength to defeat the demons. And now... I am nowhere. Between."
"I don't understand," Jon whispered, stepping back.
"You don't need to understand." The man's eyes sharpened, focusing on Jon with a terrifying intensity. They were the color of storm clouds. "But you are here. The wheel turns. The gods, or fate, or whatever cosmic jester runs this show—they aren't done with me."
The man dropped the broken sword. It vanished in the mud. He reached out, his hand glowing with a soft, crackling yellow light. The sound of thunder began to rumble, low and vibrating in Jon's chest.
"Wait," Jon said, panic fluttering in his ribs. "I don't—"
"You have no choice. Neither do I." The man's voice became desperate, urgent. "Three lifetimes of pain. Three lifetimes of technique. I will not let it fade into the void. Breathe, boy. Just breathe."
The hand pressed against Jon's forehead.
The touch was not cold. It was lightning. It was a spear of pure white fire driven into the center of his skull.
Jon opened his mouth to scream, but the scream was drowned in the flood.
Marcus Chen. Thirty-four. Historian at the University of Chicago. The scent of old paper and coffee fills the air. The sound of tires screeching on wet asphalt fills the air. The shattering of glass—
Rebirth. The smell of charcoal and wisteria. The mountain air, thinner than Winterfell's. Kuwajima-sensei's cane cracking across his shins. 'You are too slow, Marcus! You think too much! Be the lightning!'
The agony of the training. Lungs burning until they tasted of copper. The sword—the katana—becoming an extension of the arm. Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash. The sensation of muscles contracting in a specific, explosive sequence. The world slows down to a crawl.
Then, the demons. The creatures devoured flesh and sipped blood. The Upper Moon. The despair. The poison coursing through his veins, turning his blood to sludge.
Failure. Darkness. And now, a boy with grey eyes and black hair.
Jon was drowning. He was drowning in languages he had never heard—English, Japanese, and Latin. He was drowning in the muscle memory of a master swordsman, forcing it into the undeveloped limbs of a child. Formations of the Roman Legion clashed with the fluid, deadly grace of the Demon Slayer Corps. The logic of modern science warred with the arcane, mystical physics of Breath Styles.
"Your world is different," Marcus's voice echoed, sounding like it came from the bottom of a well. "No demons here. But there are monsters. Men are the monsters."
"Stop it!" Jon gasped, clutching his head, his small fingers tangling in his dark curls.
"Use the breath," the voice commanded, fading now, dissolving into the roar of the wind. "Trust the instincts. And boy..."
"What?!"
"Don't let others know your true nature." They will fear you. And fear makes people cruel."
Jon jolted awake.
He sat bolt upright in the dark, his chest heaving. He expected to be gasping, choking for air like a drowning fish. But he wasn't.
His lungs were moving in a rhythm that was alien yet entirely natural. A deep, sharp intake through the nose, filling the diaphragm, expanding the ribcage to its absolute limit, compressing the air, and sending it shooting through his blood like rivers of warm, liquid gold.
Total Concentration Breathing: Constant.
The name floated to the surface of his mind, labeled and categorized.
Jon froze. He looked at his hands. They were small and pale in the moonlight filtering through the narrow slit of the window. They were the hands of a five-year-old. But beneath the skin, he could feel the blood rushing with terrifying efficiency. He could feel the capillaries opening and closing.
He closed his eyes, and the world exploded with sensory detail.
Two rooms away, he heard the slow, rhythmic thump-thump of Robb's heart. He heard the muffled snore of Theon Greyjoy down the hall. Below, in the kitchens, the baker was kneading dough, the wet slap of flour and water distinct and clear against the wooden table. Outside, the wind howled, but within the howl, Jon could distinguish the rustle of the leaves in the Godswood and the heavy tread of the guards on the battlements.
"What happened to me?"
The words were a whisper, but they vibrated in his ears like a shout.
He slipped out of bed. His feet hit the cold stone floor, but he felt no chill. His body temperature was regulated, a furnace stoked by the specific rhythm of his breath. He moved to the window. The courtyard of Winterfell lay below, bathed in silver and shadow.
"Marcus Chen," Jon tested the name. It tasted foreign, like spices from Dorne. "I am Jon Snow. But I remember... I remember the I-95. I remember the smell of ozone before the strike."
He pressed his palms against his temples. The memories were not fading like a dream. They were settling, organizing themselves like books in a library he hadn't built. He knew the chemical composition of gunpowder. He knew the tactical breakdown of the Battle of Cannae. He knew how to kill a man in six different ways before the man could draw a breath.
"Am I mad?" he asked the moon. "Is this what madness is?"
But the moon offered no answer, and the energy thrumming in his veins—the thunder—felt more real than anything he had ever known.
Dawn came not with the sun but with a grey, steely light that bled through the clouds.
Jon had not slept again. He couldn't. His body was vibrating with a surplus of energy that made stillness physically painful. He dressed mechanically, pulling on his tunic and breeches.
He paused as he tied his laces. Usually, his fingers fumbled with the cold leather. Today, his movements were precise and economic. Economy of motion, Marcus's memory whispered. Waste nothing.
He walked out into the courtyard. The castle was waking up. Servants scurried with buckets of water; the blacksmith's hammer rang out like a bell. The familiar smells of Winterfell—horse manure, woodsmoke, unwashed bodies—hit him with new potency. He could smell the iron in the smithy's blood from a cut on his thumb across the yard.
"Jon! Jon, look!"
Robb Stark came bounding across the packed earth, his auburn hair a bright splash of color against the grey stone. He held a wooden practice sword in one hand, his face flushed with the easy joy of a trueborn son.
"Ser Rodrik says I can start drills with the older boys next moon's turn!" Robb skidded to a halt in front of him, grinning. "Come spar with me. I want to be ready."
Jon looked at his brother. For a moment, he didn't see Robb. He saw a biological breakdown: the slight favor of the left leg, the opening in his guard, and the pulse visible in his neck. He saw twenty ways to disarm him and five ways to kill him.
Jon recoiled, horrified by his mind. "I... I shouldn't, Robb."
"Oh, come on!" Robb shoved a second wooden waster into Jon's chest. "Don't be a sourface. Father's watching from the solarium. I want to show him I'm getting better."
Jon took the sword. The wood felt impossibly light. Wrong. It had no balance, no soul. It's a stick, Marcus's instincts scoffed. Give me steel. Give me a Nichirin blade.
"Ready?" Robb didn't wait. He swung—a clumsy, telegraphed overhead strike that seemed to move through molasses.
Jon didn't mean to move. It happened before I thought.
Breath of Thunder. First Form.
His leg muscles contracted. He sidestepped. The world tilted on its axis. Robb's sword slashed through empty air where Jon had been a microsecond before. Jon was now behind him, his wooden sword tapping gently against the back of Robb's knees.
"Whoa!" Robb stumbled, flailing to keep his balance. He spun around, eyes wide. "How did you move so fast? I didn't even see you!"
"I... I tripped," Jon lied, his heart hammering—not from exertion, but from fear. The power was intoxicating. It was dangerous.
"You didn't trip," Robb laughed, breathless. "You moved with the agility of a shadowcat! Do it again!"
"No." Jon dropped the sword. It clattered loudly on the stones. "I can't."
"What's going on here?"
The gruff voice of Ser Rodrik Cassel rumbled from the armory door. The Master-at-Arms strode into the sunlight, tugging on his magnificent white whiskers. "I saw that, Snow. Pick up the blade."
"I don't want to, Ser."
"I didn't ask what you wanted. Pick. It. Up." Ser Rodrik's tone brokered no argument.
Reluctantly, Jon retrieved the wood. It felt like a betrayal in his hands.
"Attack me," Ser Rodrik commanded, drawing his practice sword. He stood relaxed, confident in his decades of experience against a five-year-old bastard.
"Sir, I—"
"Now, boy!"
Jon ground his teeth. He reminded himself that the strike would be simple. Like a child.
He lunged forward, trying to be clumsy. But as he moved, a squire—a burly, ugly boy of twelve named Walder, whose father cleaned the stables—laughed from the sidelines.
"Look at the bastard dance! Maybe he fights like his mother lying on her back!"
The rage was instantaneous. It wasn't Jon's sullen resentment. It was Marcus's cold, disciplined fury at injustice.
The air shifted. The smell of ozone crackled in the yard.
Jon's breathing hitched—sharp, sharp, hold.
Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash.
He didn't launch at Ser Rodrik. He launched at the laughter.
To the onlookers, Jon Snow simply vanished. One moment he was standing before Ser Rodrik; the next, there was a crack like a whip breaking the sound barrier.
Jon reappeared ten feet away, standing over the stable boy. The wooden waster in Jon's hand had disintegrated, shattered by the force of the impact against the boy's own practice sword, which lay in splinters on the ground. Jon held the jagged remains of his hilt an inch from Walder's throat. The older boy was on his back, eyes rolled up in terror, a wet stain spreading on his breeches.
Silence descended on the courtyard. Absolute, heavy silence.
The dust kicked up by Jon's movement hung suspended in the air. Jon stood panting, his vision swimming. The Transparent World faded—the ability to see the blood flow and muscle contractions of his enemy vanished, leaving him a terrified child again.
"Jon?" Robb's voice was a squeak.
Jon looked at his hand. He looked at the shattered wood.
He looked up.
Standing on the gallery balcony, gripping the wooden railing until her knuckles were the color of bone, was Catelyn Stark. Her face was not angry. It was pale. It was the face of a woman looking at a monster.
Lady Catelyn Stark did not scream. She was a Tully of Riverrun, and she knew her duty. But as she swept through the stone corridors of the keep, her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
What was that?
She had come to watch Robb. She had seen... something else. No child moved like that. No human moved like that. It was a blur. A flicker. It was unnatural.
"Maester Luwin!" Her voice cracked as she threw open the door to the turret.
The old maester looked up from his lenses, startled. "My lady? Is something wrong? Is it Bran?"
"It's the bastard." Catelyn paced the small room, her skirts rustling furiously. "He... he did something in the yard. With the stable boy."
"A fight?" Luwin sighed, reaching for a ledger. "Boys will fight, my lady. Jon has a temper, but—"
"He moved faster than the eye could follow!" Catelyn slammed her hand on the table. "He shattered a solid oak waster against another sword with one blow. He is five years old, Luwin! Five!"
She leaned in, her blue eyes wide and trembling. "I have always feared... I have always known there was something wrong with him. Ned's sin. But this is not just a sin of the flesh. The North is full of old ghosts, Maester. Old, dark things."
"My Lady," Luwin soothed, standing to pour her water. "Adrenaline can make men do strange things. Perhaps—"
"He speaks in tongues!" she hissed. "The guards have heard him at night. Muttering in languages no one knows. Harsh, clacking tongues. This morning, I noticed the look in his eyes. It wasn't a child's look. It was old. It was cold."
She turned away, staring out the window toward the Kingsroad. "Ned is away. He is at Moat Cailin. He cannot protect the boy now."
"Protect him?" Luwin asked, confused.
"I will not have that thing sleeping near my trueborn children," Catelyn whispered. "I will not have a changeling in Winterfell. When Ned returns, I will demand he be sent away. To the Wall. To the Citadel. I don't care. But he leaves. If Ned refuses... then I will send him to the Umbers. Or the Boltons. Somewhere hard. Somewhere he cannot hurt Robb."
Jon huddled in the shadows of the stairwell, his back pressed against the cold stone.
He had not meant to eavesdrop. He had used a Shinobi technique—Silent Walk—unconsciously, seeking a place to hide from the staring eyes in the courtyard.
He heard every word. His enhanced hearing picked up the rustle of Catelyn's dress, the scratch of Luwin's quill, and the terror in her voice.
Changeling.The Boltons.The Wall.
He was five. The Wall would not take him. The Boltons... Marcus's history of this world was spotty, but the name Bolton smelled of flayed skin and blood.
Panic rose in his throat, hot and sour. But then, the breath took over.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
The panic receded, replaced by a crystalline clarity.
She would do it. She felt afraid, and she knew that fear could make people cruel. Marcus had said that. If he stayed, he would be locked away, or worse. He would be a prisoner in his own home, watched, feared, and hated.
I cannot stay.
The thought was simple, absolute.
I have the knowledge of a man who survived wars. I have the power of the Thunder. I can survive.
He pushed himself away from the wall. He did not go to his room. He went to the kitchens, moving like a ghost. He stole a loaf of black bread, a wedge of cheddar cheese, and a small paring knife. He found a rough wool sack used for onions and stuffed his treasures inside.
He was making for the Hunter's Gate when he heard footsteps behind him.
"Jon?"
He froze. He didn't turn. "Go back, Robb."
"You're leaving." It wasn't a question. Robb sounded small, broken. "I saw you take the bread."
Jon turned slowly. Robb stood there, tears tracking clean lines through the dirt on his face. He looked so young. So fragile.
"I have to," Jon said, his voice steady. "Your mother... she's right, Robb. I'm not... I'm not like you."
"I don't care!" Robb stepped forward, fists clenched. "You're my brother! I don't care if you're fast! I don't care if you're a bastard! Father will fix it. Just wait for Father!"
"Father can't fix this." Jon felt a tear slip down his cheek. He wiped it away angrily. "I'm dangerous, Robb. I don't know how to stop the thunder inside me. If I stay, I might hurt someone. I might hurt you."
"You wouldn't."
"I almost did today." Jon stepped closer and gripped Robb's shoulder. It was a gesture far too adult for a child. "Listen to me. You have to be the Stark in Winterfell now. Watch over Bran. Watch over the girls."
"Where will you go?" Robb sobbed.
"South. Or East. Somewhere far." Jon hesitated. "Tell Father... tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I didn't want to go."
Jon turned and ran. He didn't use the breathing. He ran like a little boy, scrambling through the mud, slipping through the heavy oak gate that the guards had left cracked open for the returning hunters.
He ran until his lungs burned, until the castle was a grey smudge against the darkening sky. Then, he vanished into the Wolfswood.
The storm broke three hours later.
It was a true Northern storm, a hammer blow of freezing rain and sleet that turned the world into a slurry of ice and mud.
Jon was huddled beneath the roots of a massive sentinel tree. He was shivering, his lips blue. The cold was a physical weight, pressing the life out of him. A normal child would have died before midnight. Hypothermia would have claimed him, drifting him into a sleep from which he would never wake.
"Concentrate," the voice of Marcus hissed. Total Concentration Breathing. Raise the body temperature.
Jon squeezed his eyes shut. He focused on the air. It was thin, wet, and biting. He drew it in.
Water Breathing. Tenth Form... no, that's for combat.
He shifted the pattern. Deep, slow bellows. He visualized the hearth at Winterfell. He visualized the sun over the Yi Ti plains. He forced the oxygen to burn hotter in his cells.
Slowly, the shivering stopped. Steam began to rise faintly from his wet tunic. He sat in the hollow of the tree, a small engine of heat in the freezing dark, waiting for the dawn.
For two weeks, he traveled.
He avoided the Kingsroad, sticking to the game trails. He ate berries that Marcus's knowledge identified as edible, though they tasted sour. He snared a rabbit using a wire trap he fashioned from a loose thread on his tunic—a survival trick from a training camp in the mountains of Japan.
He was hungry. He was dirty. He was lonely.
But he was alive.
He found the wagon on the fourteenth day.
It was stuck in a rut off the main road, a heavy cart laden with barrels of ale and bales of wool. A merchant—a portly man with a red beard—was arguing with three men who did not look like travelers. They wore boiled leather and carried rusted axes.
"I told you," the merchant pleaded, "I have no gold! Just the goods!"
"We'll take the goods, then," one of the bandits sneered. He raised his axe. "And your boots. And maybe your life, fat man."
Jon watched from the brush. He should run. He was a child. These were grown men, killers.
The strong exist to protect the weak, Marcus's master had said. Otherwise, strength is meaningless.
Jon sighed. "Damn it."
He stepped out of the bushes. He looked ridiculous—a scrawny five-year-old covered in mud, holding a paring knife the size of a toothpick.
"Hey!" Jon shouted.
The bandits turned. They blinked. Then, they roared with laughter.
"Look at this!" the leader crowed. "A lost puppy! Go home, boy, before we skin you."
"Leave him alone," Jon said, his voice trembling slightly. Not from fear, but from the buildup of pressure in his legs.
"Get lost, runt." The nearest bandit took a step toward him, raising a backhand to cuff him aside.
Jon inhaled.
The air tasted of rain and pine needles.
Thunder Breathing.
The bandit saw the boy blur.
Jon didn't cut him. The knife was too small to kill instantly. Instead, Jon slammed the pommel of the knife into the nerve cluster at the side of the man's knee.
Crack.
The bandit screamed, his leg buckling. He collapsed face-first into the mud.
The other two froze. The laughter died.
"What the hell?" The leader growled. He raised his axe. "Kill the little bastard!"
They charged.
To Jon, they moved in slow motion. He could see their weight shifting. He could see the openings in their crude armor.
First Form: Thunderclap and Flash. Sixfold.
Jon bounced off the tree trunk. He became a jagged line of yellow lightning. He darted between them, slashing the tendons of their wrists, kicking their kneecaps, and striking the solar plexus.
It was over in three seconds.
The three men lay on the ground, groaning, clutching useless limbs. Jon stood in the center of the road, steam rising from his mouth. His small chest heaved. The recoil of the technique tore at his young muscles; he would be sore for days.
The merchant stared at him, his mouth hanging open. "By the Seven... what are you?"
Jon sheathed his tiny knife. He looked at the merchant with eyes that were too old for his face.
"I'm Jon," he said. "Do you have any food?"
The merchant's name was Willem, and he was a good man.
He didn't ask questions. He didn't ask why a five-year-old boy fought like a demon. He simply fed Jon roast chicken and hot bread and let him ride in the back of the wagon all the way to White Harbor.
When the smell of salt and tar hit them, Jon sat up.
White Harbor. It was massive. White stone walls rose from the sea, gleaming in the sunlight. Ships crowded the harbor like a forest of stripped trees. The noise was deafening—gulls crying, sailors shouting, and the clang of bells.
"This is as far as I go, lad," Willem said as they pulled up to the docks. He reached into his purse and pulled out a heavy pouch. "There's enough silver here for passage. Or a start."
"I can't take this," Jon said.
"You saved my life." Willem pressed the coins into Jon's hand. "Go. Find whatever it is you're looking for. But stay away from the City Watch. They've been asking about a highborn boy with dark hair."
Jon nodded. "Thank you, Willem."
He walked down the docks, his senses overwhelmed. He saw flags from Braavos, Pentos, and Tyrosh. He saw a massive junk with red sails—a ship from Yi Ti.
He stopped.
The Golden Lotus. It was huge, alien, and beautiful. The crew moved with disciplined grace on the decks.
Marcus's memories surged. He knew the language. He knew the customs.
Jon walked up the gangplank. A sailor blocked his path, speaking in sharp, rapid Yiddish. "Lost, little mouse? The kitchen scraps are in the alley."
Jon looked up. He took a breath.
"I am not looking for scraps," Jon replied in perfect, flawless Yiddish. "I am seeking employment. I can read the charts. I can clean. And I can fight."
The sailor's jaw dropped. A man descended from the quarterdeck—the captain, dressed in silk, with a long, thin mustache. He looked at Jon with amused curiosity.
"A Westerosi child who speaks the tongue of the Golden Empire?" The captain raised an eyebrow. "Who taught you, boy?"
Jon responded, "A ghost." "Take me with you. I will prove my worth."
The captain laughed. "We sail for Yin in the morning. It is a long voyage. You might die."
Jon looked back at the land. At Westeros. Somewhere to the North, Robb was crying. Catelyn was rejoicing. Ned was riding home to an empty bed.
"I have already died," Jon said in the common tongue, then switched back to Yiddish. "I am ready."
The captain nodded. "Welcome aboard, Little Ghost."
That night, as the Golden Lotus slipped out of the harbor on the evening tide, Jon Snow stood at the stern. He watched the lights of White Harbor fade into the darkness.
He placed his hand over his heart. The beat was slow, steady, and powerful.
The dream is over, he thought. Now that life begins,
He turned his back on Westeros and looked toward the East, where the sun would rise.