GOT: The Great — Chapter 277 - Aegon Blackfyre
Drogo dropped from the dragon's back, boots punching into the snow, and walked toward Jon.
He went straight up to him, spread his arms, pulled him in by the shoulders, drew him fully against his chest, then stepped back half a pace and looked him over.
"Aegon Blackfyre."
"Aegon Blackfyre?" Jon repeated, frowning. "What are you talking about?"
Catelyn Stark, Tormund, Dolorous Edd, and Bronze Yohn Royce of the Eyrie all stood in the snow behind him, their expressions cycling from blank to bewildered.
"Oh, you didn't know yet." Drogo said. "Jon is not Ned's bastard. He's the bastard born after Rhaegar Targaryen raped Lyanna Stark."
He looked at Lady Stoneheart. "Eddard Stark only claimed the child as his own to protect Lyanna's son."
Lady Stoneheart's pale grey eyes stayed fixed on Drogo the entire time he spoke.
"How do you know these things?"
"The Lord of Light showed me in the flames."
Lady Stoneheart's lips moved slightly.
Both she and Jon had been pulled back from death by the Lord of Light. Lady Stoneheart especially had become a devoted believer, she trusted that fire could show a person things.
Her gaze drifted to the side of Jon's face and stayed there. She had never looked at Jon directly before. Now she did, and guilt rose in those pale, sunken eyes.
Drogo didn't give anyone time to sit with that. He'd already gotten what he came for, this version of Jon's origins was in the air now.
"Didn't expect knights of the Vale to show up," he said. "What about Ramsay Bolton? Alive or dead?"
Lady Stoneheart spoke first. "As a precaution, I sent letters to the Vale asking for aid as well."
"We didn't find Ramsay," Jon said. "He must have fled back to Winterfell, or the Dreadfort."
Drogo's gaze settled on Jon's face with an almost physical weight. "Then why are you all still standing here? Go after him."
Jon lifted his chin slightly. The exhaustion in his voice was bone-deep.
"The Free Folk are spent. Before you arrived, we'd been fighting for days. We don't have enough food. We don't have enough warm clothes. Most of them don't even have a decent piece of armor."
Bronze Yohn stepped forward and tucked his half-buried helm under his arm.
"When we rode out from the Vale, each man had three horses. By the time we reached the Wall, most of the knights were on foot."
Drogo looked at Yohn. Then he looked at Tormund's face, raw and red from the wind and snow, and let it go.
"What were you doing flying beyond the Wall?" Jon asked.
"Toying with the wights," Drogo said. The tone was easy, like he was describing a short walk he'd taken an hour ago.
"There are vast numbers of them. Over a hundred thousand, by my estimate. My bombing runs killed maybe a thousand."
He paused. "Oh — and judging by their direction of march, they're all heading for the Wall."
Silence settled over the group.
The wind kept blowing. Fine grains of snow skittered against the stone walls with a faint, dry hiss.
They all knew what a hundred thousand meant. They all knew what heading for the Wall meant.
Jon's expression went heavy, but he didn't ask anything more.
He just turned his head and looked at the three dragons outside the gates of Castle Black. Steam rose off their bodies in the cold. Their breath condensed into great rolling clouds, and the snow that landed on their scales melted instantly, the water threading down between the ridges and dripping into the snowpack below, where it froze into a thin crust of ice.
"Castle Black can't hold three dragons that size," Jon said. "But we had no choice but to shut the gates."
Drogo followed his gaze and glanced back at them.
"That size?" He almost sounded amused. "They weigh less than one two-hundredth of Balerion."
"Still — nothing can hurt them. Not even the Night King." He tilted his chin toward Drogon. "The armor on their bodies is forged from Valyrian steel."
Then he turned and walked.
He passed Tormund, passed Lady Stoneheart, passed the two rows of Night's Watch brothers standing on either side watching him go, boots pressing down into the snow, one step after another, steady, and walked into the great hall of Castle Black as if he owned it.
Lady Stoneheart followed. Then Tormund, Edd, and Bronze Yohn.
Jon came last. He turned and looked at the three dragons folding their wings. Then he looked at Drogo's retreating back. Then he went inside.
The gates of Castle Black ground shut behind them, iron hinges shrieking, and the bar dropped into place with a heavy, muffled thud.
---
Drogo's boots paused on the stone floor.
He stood at the entrance of the great hall for a moment, eyes on the hearth at the center of the room. The fire was still going, but the wood had collapsed inward, and the coals glowed a dull, dark red.
He had just told a lie.
About Jon Snow's origins — the full truth wasn't quite what he'd said.
He knew that after Bran returned to Winterfell, he would tell Sansa everything: Jon wasn't a bastard at all. He was the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, first in line to the Iron Throne. Samwell Tarly would dig it out of the old records at the Citadel, a buried account of Rhaegar and Lyanna's secret marriage.
That information would spread sooner or later. It always did.
Jon's claim came before Daenerys Targaryen's. Once that truth was out in the open, someone in the kingdom would pick it up and use it, try to wield Jon's bloodline as a lever to pry Daenerys from her position.
As for whether Jon would actually step forward to contest it, Drogo didn't care. He wasn't afraid of rebellion. He had four dragons. What he didn't want was to be left cleaning up the wreckage after the fire had already spread.
So he had done it now. In his own way. Laid the matter openly on the table before anyone else could.
A truth wrapped in a lie was still a truth, as long as the outcome was right. Jon now knew who he was. Catelyn now knew who she had wronged. And anyone who later heard a different version from somewhere else would find it much harder to make anything of it.
He had played the card early, and strangled the threat before it had taken shape.
➤ Next: Skinchangers