The darkness in the cargo hold was absolute, a living thing that pressed against Jon's eyes like wet wool.
He was wedged into a narrow gap between the ship's hull and towering bales of Northern wool—the irony of which was not lost on him, even at six years old. The wood against his back was slick with condensation and bilge water. The air was thick, a suffocating soup of tar, unwashed sheep, rotting wood, and the overwhelming, metallic tang of the sea.
The ship, The Mermaid's Grace, groaned. It was a sound like a dying beast, timber rubbing against timber as the vessel crested a swell and slammed down into the trough.
Jon's stomach lurched in perfect sympathy with the ship. Bile rose in his throat, hot and sour.
Do not vomit, Marcus Chen's memory commanded. Vomit smells. Smell attracts predators.
"I can't help it," Jon's child-mind wailed.
"Breathe," the memory insisted. Center the breath in the Hara—the belly. Let it flow like water. You are not fighting the ocean; you are moving with it.
Jon squeezed his eyes shut. He placed small, dirty hands over his diaphragm. He tried to ignore the spinning of his head and focused on the rhythm of the waves.
Inhale...
The ship rolled to port.
Exhale...
The ship rolled starboard.
He shifted his breathing pattern. Not the explosive, crackling rhythm of Thunder, but the gentle, fluid cadence of Water Breathing. Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux. But he wasn't using it to attack; he was using it to align his equilibrium with the chaotic motion of the Narrow Sea.
Slowly, the nausea receded, replaced by a dull, gnawing emptiness in his belly.
Above him, the heavy oak planks of the deck thumped with the rhythm of boots. Jon's hearing, sharpened by the breathing technique, turned the ship into a map of sound. He could distinguish the heavy, rhythmic tread of the Bosun, a man who walked as if he hated the wood beneath him. He heard the lighter, scurrying steps of the cabin boys. He heard the snap of canvas catching the wind and the singing tension of the ropes.
"Wind's picking up," a voice rumbled directly above his head. It sounded as loud as a shout. "We'll make good time to Braavos if it holds."
"Aye," a second voice replied, gravelly with age. "And if the storms hold off. Winter storms in the Narrow Sea are nothing to laugh at. I've seen ships snapped like twigs in this channel."
Jon shivered. The Water Breathing warmed his blood, keeping hypothermia at bay in the damp cold, but it could not stop the hunger. He had stolen aboard with a small sack of hard bread and a waterskin. That had been—how long? Two days? Three?
Time dissolved in the dark.
He took a sip of water, holding the liquid in his mouth to trick his stomach before swallowing. The bread was gone.
Survival, Marcus whispered. In the mountains of Natagumo, we ate tree bark. We ate insects.
Jon shuddered. He was a Stark—or near enough. He was raised in a castle. The thought of eating bugs made him want to retch again.
"You are not a Stark right now," the voice was merciless. You are an organism trying not to die. Adapt or perish.
The ship rolled violently. A barrel somewhere in the dark slid across the floorboards and slammed into a crate.
Jon curled tighter into a ball, his knees pressed to his chest. He was six years old. He wanted his bed. He wanted Robb. He wanted to wake up and find that Marcus Chen was just a bad dream brought on by a fever.
But when he closed his eyes, he didn't see Winterfell. He saw a highway illuminated by headlights. He saw a demon with eyes like spiderwebs. He saw a sword glowing with sunlight.
"I'm not you," Jon whispered to the darkness, his voice cracking. "I'm just Jon."
But in the silence of the hold, the darkness offered no agreement.
By the fourth day, the hunger was no longer a gnawing pain; it was a cold, sharp clarity.
Jon developed a routine born of desperation and discipline. He waited until the deep hours of the night, the "wolf hour," as they called it in the North, when the moon was hidden and the watch was weary.
He would shift his breathing. Thunder Breathing: First Form. Not to strike, but to move. To make his footsteps lighter than falling snow.
He crept from his hiding spot, navigating the treacherous, shifting landscape of the cargo hold. He climbed the ladder, freezing every time a timber creaked. He reached the galley door.
If he was lucky, there was a heel of stale bread left on a counter. If he was very lucky, there were dried peas soaked in water. He stole only what he thought wouldn't be missed—a handful here, a crust there. He filled his waterskin from the scuttlebutt barrel, the water tasting of algae and wood.
But on the fifth night, there was nothing. The galley was scrubbed clean.
Jon stood in the shadow of the doorframe, his stomach cramping so hard he nearly doubled over. He needed protein. His body, altered by the breathing techniques and the strange energy of the transition, burned fuel like a furnace.
A scratching sound caught his ear.
Skritch. Skritch.
Jon froze. He closed his eyes. Beast Breathing: Seventh Form, Spatial Awareness.
He didn't have the swords to stab into the ground, but he didn't need them. He pushed his senses outward, feeling the vibrations in the air.
There. Behind the sack of flour. A small, frantic heartbeat.
A rat.
Meat, Marcus's instinct supplied cold, hard logic.
It's a rat, Jon argued. It eats garbage.
Meat is fuel. Fuel is life.
Jon moved. He didn't think about it. He lunged, his hand moving faster than the rodent could react. His fingers closed around the squirming, furry body. The rat bit him, sharp teeth sinking into his thumb, but Jon didn't flinch. He squeezed.
The distinct crack of the small spine ended the struggle.
Jon sat in the dark of the galley, holding the dead weight. Tears pricked his eyes. He was the son of Lord Eddard Stark. He had eaten roast venison and lemon cakes at the high table.
He stripped the skin as best he could with his fingernails. He couldn't cook it. The fire was banked, and the smell would wake the cook.
He ate it raw.
It tasted of copper and musk. It was the foulest thing he had ever put in his mouth. He gagged and retched but forced himself to swallow.
"Good," Marcus whispered. You will live.
Jon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, silently weeping in the dark. He felt less human than he had an hour ago. He felt like a creature of the dark, something that belonged in the nightmares he was fleeing.
He retreated to the hold, the taste of blood lingering on his tongue.
The mistake happened on the seventh day.
The sea had grown rougher, tossing the ship with a violence that made stealth nearly impossible. Jon had gone up for water, his thirst a burning agony.
He was creeping back toward the ladder when the ship lurched violently to starboard. Jon was thrown off balance. He grabbed a stack of crates to steady himself.
The top crate, unsecured, slid free.
Crash.
The sound was deafening in the confined space. It sounded like a thunderclap inside a drum.
"Who's there?"
The voice came from the galley. It was sharp, female, and awake.
Jon scrambled toward the ladder, panic flaring. He needed to hide. He needed to vanish.
A lantern flared to life, casting a swinging, nauseating yellow light across the deck. A woman stepped out, holding the lantern high in one hand and a heavy iron ladle in the other like a mace.
She was broad-shouldered, with grey hair pulled back in a severe braid and a face carved from granite. Dalla. Jon knew her name from listening to the crew.
"I said, Who goes there?" She swung the light.
The beam caught him.
Jon froze. He was crouched by the ladder, small and ragged. He looked like a specter—pale skin, dark circles under wild eyes, his tunic stained with grease and rat blood.
Dalla blinked. She lowered the ladle slightly.
"A rat?" she muttered, then squinted. "No... a boy?"
Jon tensed his legs. Thunder Breathing. He could bolt. He could be past her and onto the deck before she blinked. He could jump the rail.
And go where? The logic stopped him. Into the sea? You will die.
"Stay back," Jon croaked. His voice was ruined from disuse and dehydration.
Dalla took a step forward, her expression shifting from aggression to confusion and then to horror.
"Seven Hells," she whispered. "You're just a babe. How long have you been down here?"
"Don't tell the captain," Jon pleaded, backing up until he hit the wall. "Please. I'll work. I'll do anything."
Dalla stopped. She looked at the crate he had knocked over. She looked at his hollow cheeks. She sniffed the air and smelled the unwashed desperation on him.
"You're the thief," she said. "The one stealing the peas."
Jon nodded.
Dalla sighed. It was a long, weary sound. She lowered the ladle completely.
"I should drag you to Magnar by the ear," she said gruffly. "He throws stowaways over, you know. It's the law of the sea."
Jon went rigid. "I can fight. I can earn my keep."
"Fight?" Dalla snorted. "You look like a stiff breeze would snap you in half."
She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a hard biscuit. She tossed it to him.
Jon caught it out of the air. His reflexes were still sharp, even in his weakened state.
"Eat," she commanded. "Then come with me. We're going to see the Captain."
"He'll kill me."
"He might," Dalla admitted brutally. "But if you stay down here, you'll starve, or the rats will eat you. And Torren Magnar might be a hard man, but he's not a monster. Probably."
Jon looked at the biscuit. He looked at Dalla. She wasn't attacking. Her aura—something he could sense faintly with his enhanced perception—was not malicious. It was weary, colored with a dull grey sadness, but not red with anger.
He took a bite of the biscuit. It was dry as dust, and it was the best thing he had ever tasted.
"Okay," Jon whispered. "Take me to him."
Captain Torren Magnar's cabin smelled of pipe tobacco, old leather, and beeswax. Maps of the Narrow Sea and the Shivering Sea covered the table, weighed down by brass instruments.
Torren himself sat behind the desk. He was a bear of a man, with a beard that was more salt than pepper and eyes that looked like chips of flint. He wore a coat of heavy wool and seal fur. He looked like the North.
He stared at Jon for a long, uncomfortable minute. Jon stood straight, hands clasped behind his back, meeting the captain's gaze.
"A stowaway," Torren rumbled. His voice was deep, vibrating through the wood of the desk.
"Aye, Captain," Dalla said from the doorway. "Found him in the hold. He's the one who's been pinching the supplies."
"And you brought him here instead of tossing him to the crabs?"
"He's a child, Torren," Dalla said, her voice hard. "And a Northern one at that. Look at him."
Torren leaned forward. "I see him. I see a thief."
"I am not a thief," Jon said. His voice was quiet, but it held the imperious tone of a boy raised in a lord's castle.
Torren's eyebrows shot up. "You stole my food. You stole passage on my ship. In the Free Cities, they'd take a hand for less."
"I borrowed it," Jon corrected. "I intended to work for it."
"Work?" Torren laughed, a sharp bark. "You're the size of a grandiose turnip. What work can you do? Can you haul lines? Can you reef sails in a gale?"
"I can clean," Jon said. "I can cook. I can read charts. And I can kill."
The silence in the cabin stretched thin.
Torren narrowed his eyes. "Kill? You're five years old, boy. Who have you killed? A fly?"
"Rats," Jon said evenly. "And I disarmed three bandits on the Kingsroad before I came here."
Torren looked at Dalla. She shrugged. "He's quick, Captain. Caught the biscuit I threw him like a cat."
Torren looked back at Jon. He studied the grey eyes, the dark hair, and the set of the jaw.
"You're a bastard," Torren stated. It wasn't an insult; it was an observation. "Snow? Or Pyke?"
"Snow," Jon admitted.
"Running from Winterfell?"
Jon didn't answer.
"Smart lad. Keep your mouth shut." Torren leaned back, the chair creaking. "Here is the deal, Jon Snow. You work. You belong to Dalla now. You peel every potato, you scrub every pot, and you swab the galley floor until I can see my ugly face in it. You sleep in the galley. You eat the scraps."
"Yes, Captain."
"And," Torren raised a thick finger, "if I catch you stealing so much as a grain of salt, you go over the side. I don't care if you're Ned Stark's get or the king's own bastard. On this ship, every man pulls his weight. Are we clear?"
"Crystal," Jon said.
"Get him out of here, Dalla. He smells like a bilge rat."
As Dalla steered him out, Jon felt the captain's eyes boring into his back. He knew he hadn't fooled the man. Torren Magnar knew highborn blood when he saw it. But he also knew the Northman's code: you don't ask questions you don't want answered.
Life on The Mermaid's Grace settled into a brutal, exhausting rhythm.
Jon woke before the sun. He scrubbed the galley floor on his hands and knees. He peeled sacks of turnips until his hands were stained brown and his fingers locked into claws. He hauled buckets of seawater up from the side, the rope biting into his palms.
The crew was a mixed bag of Northmen, Braavosi, and Sistermen. At first, they treated him like a bad omen.
"Stowaway brings storms," muttered Yoren, a one-eyed sailor with a face like a crumpled map. He would "accidentally" kick Jon's bucket over when walking past, forcing Jon to re-mop the deck.
Jon didn't react. Marcus's discipline held him in check. Endure. A river does not fight the rock; it flows around it.
But not everyone was like Yoren.
There was Marro. Marro was a Tyroshi with a beard dyed a shocking blue and a laugh that could be heard from the crow's nest. He was the ship's rigger, a man who danced on the ropes high above the deck like a monkey.
"Hey! Little Wolf!" Marro called out one afternoon while Jon was struggling to tie a knot in a heavy line. "No, no, that is a granny knot. It will slip and kill us all."
Marro hopped down from the rigging, landing silently. He took the rope from Jon's hands.
"Like this. Rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around the tree, and goes back in the hole." Marro's fingers flew. "Bowline. The King of Knots."
Jon watched. Total Concentration. His eyes tracked the movement of the rope, the tension, and the friction.
He took the rope back. He repeated the motion perfectly.
"Like this?" Jon asked.
Marro blinked. He untied it. "Do it again."
Jon did it again. Faster.
"By the Triarchs," Marro whistled. "You have quick hands, Little Wolf. Have you sailed before?"
"No."
"You have the hands of a surgeon. Or a pickpocket." Marro grinned. "Come. I teach you more. If you are to be on my ship, you must not be useless."
Over the next week, Marro became Jon's teacher. He taught him the names of the sails. He taught him Braavosi swear words. He taught him about the Free Cities—about the purple sails of Braavos, the Red Priests of Myr, and the horse lords of the Dothraki Sea.
For the first time since leaving Winterfell, Jon felt a strange sensation in his chest. It wasn't happiness, exactly. But it was belonging. He was useful here. He wasn't the Bastard of Winterfell, a stain on Lady Catelyn's honor. He was Jon, the galley boy. Jon the Knot-Tier.
But the peace could not last. The sea does not allow it.
It hit on the eleventh day.
The sky turned a bruised, sickly green at noon. The wind died completely, leaving the sails flapping uselessly against the masts. The silence was heavy, oppressive.
"Barometer's dropping," Torren growled from the quarterdeck. "Reef the mainsail! Batten down the hatches! Storm rig!"
The crew scrambled. Jon was sent to the galley to secure the pots. Dalla was pale.
"This feels like a bad one," she muttered, lashing a crate of salt pork to the bulkhead. "Stay here, Jon. Don't go on deck."
But when the wind hit, it didn't just blow. It screamed.
The ship heeled over so far that Jon was thrown against the wall. Pots tore free of their lashings, clattering across the floor like shrapnel.
"Man down!" The scream came from above.
Jon didn't think. The instinct that belonged to Marcus—the instinct of a Hashira—took over.
He scrambled up the ladder, fighting the gravity that tried to pin him down. He burst onto the deck.
It was chaos. Rain fell horizontally, stinging like needles. Waves, black and white-capped, towered over the ship.
A line had snapped. The main yardarm was swinging loose, a massive beam of timber turning into a deadly pendulum.
Yoren—the man who hated Jon—was pinned beneath a tangle of rigging near the rail. He was unconscious, blood streaming from a gash on his head. The swinging yardarm was coming back around. If it hit him, it would crush his skull like an egg.
"Yoren!" Marro screamed, trying to reach him, but the slick deck sent him sliding back.
The timber swung.
Jon breathed.
Thunder Breathing.
The air around Jon seemed to vibrate. The sound of the storm faded, replaced by the crackle of lightning in his blood.
He didn't run. He flashed.
To Marro and the Captain, it looked like a trick of the lightning. One moment Jon was by the hatch; the next, he was standing over Yoren.
Jon didn't have the strength to stop the timber. He was a child. But he had the speed.
He grabbed Yoren's collar. He planted his feet. Total Concentration: Constant. He engaged every muscle fiber in his small body, pushing them beyond their limit.
He heaved.
He threw Yoren backward, sliding him across the wet deck just as the yardarm smashed into the rail where the man's head had been a second before. The wood splintered with a sound like a gunshot.
Jon was clipped by the edge of the beam. The impact threw him ten feet. He slammed into the mast, the breath driven from his lungs.
Pain exploded in his ribs. Black spots danced in his vision.
"Jon!"
Marro was there, scooping him up. "Little Wolf! Are you mad?"
Jon gasped, trying to pull air into his bruised lungs. Recovery "Breathing," he told himself. Ease the spasm.
"Is... is he okay?" Jon wheezed.
Marro looked at Yoren, who was being dragged to safety by two other sailors. "You saved him. By the gods, you moved like a demon."
Captain Torren was shouting orders, fighting the wheel. The storm raged on.
Jon didn't faint. He refused to. He forced himself to stand, clutching his ribs. He grabbed a loose line.
"I can... I can still work," he rasped.
Marro looked at him with something bordering on awe. "Sit down, you idiot. You've done enough."
But Jon stood. He held the line until the storm broke at dawn.
Two days later, the fog parted.
Jon stood at the prow, his ribs wrapped tight in linen bandages Dalla had applied with surprisingly gentle hands.
There it was.
The Titan of Braavos.
It was impossible. It was a mountain carved into the shape of a man. It stood astride the lagoon, legs like pillars of the earth. Its eyes burned with massive beacon fires. In one hand, it held a broken sword that scraped the clouds. In the other, a shield of bronze.
Jon craned his neck back until it hurt. He felt like an ant.
"Big, isn't he?" Torren Magnar stood beside him.
"It's... I didn't think anything was bigger than Winterfell," Jon whispered.
"The world is full of things bigger than Winterfell, lad." Torren rested a heavy hand on Jon's shoulder. "Yoren wanted to thank you. But he's a proud fool, so he asked me to give you this."
Torren pressed a small knife into Jon's hand. It wasn't a toy. It was a sailor's knife, sharp and utilitarian, with a handle of whalebone.
"He carved the handle himself."
Jon rubbed his thumb over the bone. "I didn't do it for a reward."
"I know. That's why he gave it to you." Torren looked up at the Titan. "We dock in an hour. You're free to go, Jon. You've earned your passage, and then some."
"Thank you, Captain."
"But," Torren added, looking down at him seriously. "Braavos is a city of masks. Everyone is someone else. Be careful who you trust. And if you ever need a ship back North..."
"I won't," Jon said quickly. "I can't go back."
"Never is a long time, Jon Snow."
The docks of Braavos were a riot of color and noise. The smell was different here—spices, shellfish, and strange perfumes masking the stink of the canals.
Jon stood at the bottom of the gangplank. He had his small sack, his new knife, and the pouch of coins Torren had paid him as wages.
Marro crouched down in front of him.
"So, Little Wolf. You go to seek your fortune."
"I go to find out what I am," Jon said.
"Valar Morghulis," Marro said, his face serious. All men must die.
Jon nodded. He knew the response now. It wasn't a threat; it was a reminder. Death comes for us all, so make the life matter.
"Valar Dohaeris," Jon replied. All men must serve.
Marro grinned, flashed his blue teeth, and ruffled Jon's hair. "Go on, then. Before Dalla comes out and tries to adopt you."
Jon turned. He walked into the crowd.
He was small. He was alone. He was a bastard in a city of strangers.
But as he walked, his breathing shifted.
Inhale. The smells of the market. Exhale. The tension in his ribs.
He wasn't just a child anymore. He was a survivor of the I-95. He was a Demon Slayer who had failed. He was a Stark who had run.
He was Jon Snow.
And as the shadow of the Titan fell over him, Jon felt a spark of something he hadn't felt in two lifetimes.
Hope.
He disappeared into the winding streets of the Secret City, ready to begin.