The first thing he felt was pain, sharp and cruel, splitting behind his eyes as if a wedge had been driven through his skull.
Edric groaned, making a thin and reedy sound that surprised him. Before he could even comprehend that he now possessed lungs to breathe, he became aware of his body, it felt too young and warm. Beneath him, the sheets were soft as silk.
He tried to sit up but a shape loomed over him before he managed more than a twitch.
"Are you awake, Prince Jon?" came a voice that rasped like dry parchment. An old man leaned close, his breath heavy with wine and his body smelling faintly of rose perfume. His cheeks sagged, his white-colored beard falling to his chest, and a chain of many metals gold, silver, iron, bronze hung heavy around his neck.
Edric blinked at him clearing the haze. The face, the chains, the oily softness to his voice...
"...Maester Pycelle?" he croaked.
The old man's eyebrows twitched up in frail surprise before he covered it with a soft, slow nod. His spotted hand pressed gently to his forehead and wrist.
"Yes, my prince. Your fever has broken at last. Rest a few hours more, and you shall be as well as ever."
Edric swallowed hard. His mouth tasted of copper and something bitter. He knew that name, Pycelle from stories, from screens, from another world entirely. But it was real, the bedding beneath him was real. The ache beneath his skull was real, and the body he inhabited was not his own.
The maester had just reached the door when Edric rasped, "What... happened to me?"
Pycelle halted, displeasure flickering in his old eyes. He turned back with visible reluctance, fingers curling in the sleeves of his robe.
"Your sister, Princess Visenya, informed me that you were injured whilst sparring with Prince Aegon, my prince." His tone was careful, cautious. "You were carried to your chambers then. You have been... unresponsive for almost a moon now. But I believe the danger has passed."
He did not wait for further question. Pycelle bowed, stiff as old leather, and took his leave.
Edric opened his mouth to call him back, but another surge of agony split through his mind. His vision went bright and black all at once, and memories that were not his own flooded in like a broken dam. A courtyard, the clang of blunted steel and Aegon with silver hair and Valyrian deep purple eyes grinning before his blows turned wild. Followed by shouts, blood, and him falling on the ground curling to limit before some hand dragged him off the floor.
Prince Jon, Jon Targaryen, that's who I am now. The name hurt almost as much as the headache.
In the quiet of the Red Keep, the maester walked silently over stone as he entered the royal solar. King Rhaegar Targaryen sat by the tall, narrow windows, his silver hair unbound and his fingers resting upon the ironwood table. The room held other members of House Targaryen, but their faces were dour, their tempers worn thin by waiting.
Pycelle bowed, his joints creaking. "Prince Jon has awakened, Your Grace."
Rhaegar gave a single silent nod and like him none of the others stirred with joy. The king turned to his Hand. "What say you, Lord Connington?"
Jon Connington hesitated only a moment, though the unease in his voice betrayed him.
"We all know what passed that day, Your Grace. Whatever tale we craft for the realm, whispers grow wings." His lips pressed thin. "Prince Aegon lost control whilst sparring with Prince Jon. He beat him until he was—"
"—We know what happened, Lord Connington," Queen Dowager Rhaella said sharply, silencing him. None had heard such steel in her voice during King Aerys's reign. "Speak of remedies and not the wounds."
Connington inclined his head, although chastened but not cowed. "The realm must not see blood between princes. Some might call for exile or fostering of the perpetrator, however sending either of the princes to any other House will be asking for traitors within the family. The Night's Watch would be a clean solution but it would be taken as Aegon's punishment laid upon Jon."
He reached into his tunic and withdrew a folded parchment.
Queen Elia Martell watched him with dark, unreadable eyes. "What is that?"
"A raven's letter from Lord Brandon Stark, Your Grace. It arrived a moon past." Connington set the parchment upon the king's table. "He writes that Skagos has gone silent. No ship have arrived with goods from there nor any tithe sent. No word in half a year. He believes the isle to be... emptied, whether by sickness or strife."
Rhaegar's violet eyes flickered with understanding. "You mean to send Jon there."
"Yes, Your Grace." the Hand replied. "Give him lordship over a place far from court and courtly eyes. Let there be no whispers of rivalry, no stage for another Dance of Dragons. Let the realm forget he is ever a threat."
An unladylike snort escaped Queen Lyanna where she stood beside the window, hearing his words. Her Stark-grey eyes looked more scheming than the usual bluntness northern eyes carried.
"And my brother?" she asked. "Will Brandon agree to lose his lands that way, Lord Connington?"
Connington nodded once. "He will, Your Grace, if he is given the Gift and the New Gift in exchange. Barren, empty and uninhabitable Skagos for the North's most fertile land, which can strengthen the Wall in time of need. A trade like this would be a blessing for them and can strengthen their ties more closely to the Crown."
The chamber fell silent but for the wind rattling the shutters and somewhere above them, a boy who was not truly a boy breathed in a new life in a stranger's skin. And the game that would shape the fate of the entire Planetos had only just begun.
The pain receded to a dull, throbbing as he lay there, still and silent, counting the dust motes dancing in the slender rays of sunlight that moved across the chamber. Jon Targaryen, the name felt much like being given a status of unofficial bastard when his own twin sister was given a classic Targaryen name. He was Edric, a man who paid rent and filed taxes, who worried about his job and his noisy neighbor. Now he had to worry about not becoming the casualty of a royal sibling rivalry, or the pawn in a great game played out in Westeros. The memory of this body's last fight and the wild fury in Aegon's eyes, carried by the crack of bone. It was vivid in his mind and body, and tasted of fear, though not his own.
The door scraped open, pulling him violently back from the chasm of shared memories.
A woman entered, moving with a silent grace that attracted attention. She was tall and slender, draped in golden silks, her hair a cascade of black braids woven with golden threads. Her skin was of dark complexion like the Dornish wine, and her eyes, large and dark, held an expression he couldn't decipher.
Queen Elia Martell.
She did not rush to the bedside but simply stood, watching him, her expression utterly unreadable. "Maester Pycelle said you had woken, son," she stated, her voice low, holding the faint, dry lilt of Dorne.
Jon tried to speak the truth, I am not your son, but his body betrayed him. What emerged was a thin, shaky voice he couldn't control, "Mother."
The word felt like blasphemy to his own mind, but he saw a flicker, maybe of surprise or maybe of relief, in her dark eyes.
She stepped closer, placing a hand on his cheek, trailing it across his face. Her touch was cool and dry. "You scared me, Jon." There was no warmth in her admission, just weary fact. "Your brother... Aegon... he was careless with his strength."
His body shook with the memory, an instinctive reaction reliving his older brother losing control, driven by some jealous rage or dark ambition. "He meant to kill me," Jon whispered, the words coming from the feeling of terror that his predecessor had felt.
Elia's hand fell to her lap, smoothing the folds of silk as her gaze turned sharp and thoughtful. "Perhaps he did. And perhaps we must accept that princes must be wary of all things, whether they be knives, words, or the blunted training swords of their kin."
She paused, looking him in the eye. "You are changed, Jon. The sickness has killed the boy from your eyes."
Edric, who knew nothing of swords and games of nobles, screamed inside. He stared back at the Queen of Westeros, trapped, knowing that survival here meant playing the part of a boy he wasn't, under the cold and precise watch of a woman who certainly wanted something from him, though he didn't know what it was.
"I... I understand now," he said, drawing out his need to survive over the feeling this boy had after the attack. "I will be more careful, Mother."
Elia watched him for a long moment, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "Yes, I believe you will. And perhaps," she added, her eyes gleaming like a viper in the solar's light, "next time, you will also be clever."
Jon watched the place where his mother had stood, her scent of spices and some Essosi perfume lingering. Clever, her word tasted like some game she was playing, though he was clever only at spreadsheets and not at dodging an older brother who wielded a sword.
The silence that followed was brief and was broken by a knock so firm that it sought no permission. Lord Jon Connington, the King's Hand, his mind supplied, entered his room. He had red hair and blue eyes with sharp facial features, carrying the tension of a lifetime on his shoulders. He wore a pin of the golden hand of the Crown's service on his tunic.
He didn't bow deeply, just nodded curtly to him. "Prince Jon, it's good you're awake."
"My Lord Hand," Jon managed, pushing himself higher against the pillows, wincing at the dull ache in his body.
Connington pulled a wooden chair close with a scrape of wood on stone. "I have not come here for pleasantries but to tell you of the King's will, which is final."
He laid a heavy, wax-sealed scroll upon the coverlet. "You have been given a new purpose, Prince. The realm must believe the recent unpleasantness was a small scuffle and not a division amongst the blood. Your future is not here, poisoning the Red Keep with rivalry."
Jon felt a cold clench in his stomach, his modern mind instantly recognizing the bureaucratic language of dismissal and disrespect he seemed to be openly showing. "And where is my future, my Lord?"
"The King appoints you Lord of Skagos." Connington delivered the title like a sentence delivered upon a blade. "You will depart in a week, a ship awaits you at the docks."
Skagos full of cannibals and tribals. His useless and terrifying world knowledge of ASOIAF flared up. "Skagos is... remote and cut-off from the Kingdoms of Westeros."
"Precisely," Connington said, without shame, his voice devoid of sympathy. "Lord Brandon Stark reports the island is deserted now with no levies, no trade, and no word in six moons. The King is granting you the task of reclaiming, resettling, and governing the island. You are the Lord Protector of the Crown's Northern Anchor." He paused, a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "The realm will see a prince taking up a hard and necessary duty, after all the King needs a strong hand to anchor the North."
Jon swallowed, his throat dry. This was exile, a banishment to a forgotten piece of land designed to make him disappear. "And if I refuse, my Lord Hand?"
Connington's sharp eyes held his. "You will not refuse, my prince. The choice is between accepting a hardship that benefits the realm and earning honor in the eyes of the Lords of Westeros, or being seen as an unstable factor the King was forced to neutralize. There is a place in the North that would be glad to have new recruits for itself, but that would be a great sorrow for your mothers."
He stood, pushing the chair back with finality. "Start thinking like a Lord, Prince Jon. Skagos is yours to build and be buried by."