Northern Sun | Robb Stark

Chapter 16

Robb was losing his mind.

She didn't blame him for wanting to rush to the Wall, she didn't blame him for being so upset, he would burn everything in his path to get to Jon's body. But it wasn't a good choice to make.

"You can't go!" said Eidalya sharply as he ordered a group of men to prepare horses. "Robb, listen to me, you can't go!"

"And why the bloody hell not?" he asked, hands shaking so badly he couldn't even grab his sword. "My brother is dead."

Eidalya held him back. "How d'you think the Night's Watch will react to the King in the North barging up and demanding answers? I will go and collect Jon's body, I will find out who is responsible, and I will handle it. You will be safer here and you will keep your family safe from here."

"What about you? What if you go to the Wall and you don't come back?"

"I imagine they'll be more hesitant to harm me. And I, unlike you, can speak to people calmly long enough to strike an agreement or at least figure out some motives. You cannot simply ask that heads be put on a spike. We knew they would react poorly. Now we will deal with it. I will handle installing a new and better Lord Commander. I will do it. Not you."

He sighed, turning away in frustration. "I never... I never defended him, you know? When my mother would say things... I was never brave enough to speak up. Sometimes I turned a blind eye. I knew why she resented him, I thought it was wrong, and I didn't open my stupid mouth to say anything. Now he's dead and I was the worst brother to him. He made a name for himself up there, he commanded respect. And when he needed me most, I didn't help him. I should've gone up there from the moment I learned he went to Hardhome. I shouldn't have sent a team– I should've waited for him there. The men I sent might not have arrived in time or they could've died alongside him while I was here more concerned about my selfish desires."

Eidalya held his shoulders from behind. "I don't pretend to know the dynamic between you and Jon. But even in the brief moments I saw you together, I know he appreciated having you as a brother. We will avenge him, Robb. We will fix this."

She was accompanied by the same men who'd journeyed with her to Dorne, a large group of Northerners surrounding her and riding as fast as possible to Castle Black. It was odd to be riding on the horse instead of in a carriage, but Eidalya couldn't complain. A carriage would move far slower and they needed to reach the Wall as soon as possible, before Jon's body could be completely desecrated by the men who had killed him.

But when they arrived, when she saw the iron gates and entered the courtyard filled with men in black cloaks, she didn't see angry men, she didn't see any bodies hung up.

The man who stepped out to greet her was Jon.

She had seem him so long ago, his face much younger, eyes filled with more light and hair long and curled. It had been cut now, his eyes lost their shine, his stance was no longer of a shunned bastard but of a man seasoned and broken in by war and pain.

It was still Jon, a Jon who was alive and able to react, rather than the Jon she expected to collect.

"Forgive me," she said, dismounting and fluffing up her skirt, furrowing her eyebrows as he walked closer. "I... came here under the impression you'd been killed."

He smiled weakly, offering his hand. When she gave him hers, he kissed the back of it, over her glove. "Princess Eidalya. We've much to discuss. Come in, let us find somewhere more private to talk."

Her men surrounded the courtyard as Jon led her into the hall, through a stone corridor and into an office where a white direwolf sat beneath the window and two men waited by the desk.