Looking back, it seemed to Jon that Sansa had staged her own bloodless conquest. It began at Winterfell. While the Northern lords grumbled about Targaryen fiends and fought the dead, she had kept the peace. Befriended Daenerys. After the final battle, Jon awoke long enough to see them doing needlepoint beside his sickbed. Heads together, white as snow and kissed by fire, Sansa's hand across Daenerys' shoulders. "Just like that, your grace."

He faded back into a true sleep then. Only to awake later to find that their lessons continued: they were awkwardly shuffling through a court dance at the foot of his bed. He saw Daenerys' hand on Sansa's shoulder, her head tilted up toward her taller partner, eyes alight and a smile on her lips.

The queen's Small Council smiled upon it: it couldn't hurt for her to learn the ways of Westerosi ladies. Then, when they learned of Jon's parentage, Sansa was ideally positioned to negotiate for greater Northern autonomy.

It was like a magic trick, treaties appearing at Sansa's fingertips as if from thin air. Before he even began to get his head around the news, he was learning about the specifics of trade and military agreements they had signed. All seven kingdoms would still be bound to the Iron Throne, but Sansa would hold the title of Queen in the North, with greater autonomy in her domain than any others enjoyed.

"Right under my nose!" Tyrion fumed, wine sloshing as he gesticulated. "She knitted and schemed." There was bitterness and admiration both in his tone. "It was subtle, underhanded, deceitful. A power move cloaked in charm. She reminds me..." he seemed to search for a dire enough insult, "of me."

For the first time in days, Jon laughed.

XxX

"The title alone means a great deal to their pride," Sansa explained, walking with him on Winterfell's battlements. "The bannermen have their own Northern monarch. Once that was agreed, I had room to negotiate on specifics of taxation, law, defense. Queen Daenerys and I had a strong common goal," she spread her gloved hands, "rebuilding the world you both saved from the darkness."

It was a great compliment, but he felt it belonged to someone else. It seemed to him now that he wasn't sure where he belonged, or what belonged to him. Daenerys was insistent he should take Iron Throne, the one thing he was sure he did not want. Standing there with Sansa as the man born Aegon Targaryen, Jon felt more adrift than he had as a bastard.

"You'll make a good queen," Jon said. That much he could be certain of, at least. The North was in the right hands.

"Thank you. But enough of politics." Her gloved fingers reached for his own. "Tell me how you fare, Jon."

He looked out over the countryside, tilted his head up and breathed in the crisp Northern air. Snowflakes were beginning to fall. Not the pounding hail and winds and darkness that had come during their battles with the Night King, light snow, floating on the breeze. Gentle as a prayer.

"I'll miss Winterfell," he admitted.

Weeks ago now, he and Daenerys had married in the godswood. She looked so perfect there, a vision in silver and white, as untamed and magical as the wood itself. It was a quick ceremony, their time carved out between battles. But it meant so much to him. He grew up believing he could never marry, never really have family of his own. Daenerys drew these deep hurts out of his heart and made them right. If they died, they would die a family, united by vows before his gods.

He had never felt such belonging as he did that night.

Compared to the purity of that union, the discovery of their familial relation seemed almost absurd. The cruel mockery of fate. Daenerys was delighted to know she was no longer the last, though, and he was happy for her. Especially after Sansa had discreetly enumerated the perfectly honorable Stark ancestors who had married uncle to niece, settling his discomfort on that front.

"Then promise me you'll visit often," she said. "You have a dragon! There's no excuse not to come see us."

He turned to look at her and felt a sense of loss as keen a bolt through his chest. Aegon Targaryen had caused the Starks nothing but pain, concealed in the bosom of their family. Surely, in time, Sansa would come to see that. He wouldn't make it hard for her when she did. "You'll be busy," he said, "running your kingdom."

Sansa gave his shoulder a gentle smack. "Don't talk nonsense, Jon."

Jon frowned, shook his head.

She took him by the shoulders, after her habit of making free with his person. It warmed him, to know she still felt that safe with him. "Winterfell is your home," she said, "You fought for it, for your family. It doesn't matter what name you're called, you're a Stark. Stark blood runs in your veins, just like the rest of us." She stared at him a long moment. "I know King's Landing and the future it holds is frightening, but I will always be here to take your part."

Jon spoke then, the words pouring out as if her kindness had punched a hole in an over-full wineskin. "The maesters are saying I'm Lightbringer, a weapon Rhaegar Targaryen forged in my mother's blood." He felt himself shaking with the outrage he had been concealing - for the sake of Daenerys, who loved her lost brothers dearly, no matter how awful they seemed to him, for the sake of everyone who was so glad the battle was won. No matter the cost. "They say he had to kill her to make me," Jon continued, and felt like he had swallowed broken glass. By all accounts, Rhaegar was obsessed with the prophecies. If the maesters believed that was what he'd done, surely he must have suspected the possibility? Had he told Lyanna-no more than fifteen when it began-what she might be agreeing to?

He longed for the days when he dreamed his mother was a tavern wench, alive somewhere. Or a highborn lady who could not claim him. Instead there were just the cold words of a prophecy, naming him a weapon forged in a loving woman's heart. "I spilled her blood, Sansa, I didn't inherit it. I-" he turned away, pressed his hands to the battlements and bowed his head, digging his fingers against the stone through his leather gloves.

There was young Lyanna Stark, dead. And then there were his brother and sister, bastardized for his sake. An innocent woman, Elia Martell, callously dishonored and cast aside. All of them left to die without protection. Everyone spoke so highly of Rhaegar Targaryen. His gambit at fate had paid off, unlike Stannis' blood magic. And everyone likes a winner, no matter the cost.

Jon couldn't help counting the cost. And wondering why he yet lived, when so many others were dead. What good was a weapon when its purpose was done?

Sansa rubbed slow circles against his back, as he choked around a desperate sob, then gathered himself. When his breathing had steadied, she spoke. "Bran said that they loved each other."

"I know," Jon said. "But the prophecy-"

"Forget the prophecy," Sansa said. "And the maesters too. They spend their lives coming up with theories. And most of them are wrong."

He tried to perk up for her, he really did. But the heaviness that was upon him wouldn't lift. Seeing this, she went on. "When you look at Daenerys, do you see the Mad King's daughter? I don't. I see Daenerys. I see her courage and decency, the good things she's done. I see the world she saved. The world you saved too, not because of some prophecy, but because you're a good man. A man any woman would be proud to call her son."

The pain eased enough for embarrassment to creep in and Jon stood, straightening himself. "Thank you," he said.

She stepped forward and pulled him into a hug; he stiffened at the contact, surprised. "I'll keep saying it until you believe it. And I'll keep hugging you too," she said, stepping back and giving him an impish look, "whether you like it or not."

He remembered the way she had bullied him into living at Castle Black, when all he wanted to do was crawl back into the grave. When he most needed it, she was ready to give him a vision of himself she could believe in. That was a start, at least. "Am I to be thus threatened in my own home?" he griped, signaling to her that part of her words had sunk in. Even his morose skull could not keep so many good, kind words out.

"Indeed you will," she said, taking his arm as they continued their walk, "I have these threats and more besides, which you will learn during your many visits."

He patted her gloved hand with his own. "Yes, your grace."