The nightmare always ended the same way.
Alya hung from the cross, but when Jon looked up at her face, it was his own staring back—grey eyes wide with betrayal, blood dripping from pierced wrists. "You did this," his own voice accused from her lips. "You killed me."
Jon woke screaming.
The sound died in his throat as consciousness returned, bringing with it the familiar inventory of pain. The brand on his left shoulder blade pulsed with each heartbeat, the scarred skin tight and hot. His right hand cramped as he tried to flex it—the two broken fingers had healed wrong, crooked and stiff. When he shifted, one of the whip scars across his back split, sending a line of fire down his spine and leaving a small bloodstain on the stolen blanket.
Day three? he wondered. Four? The abandoned warehouse in Qarth's Port of Plenty district had become his shelter, but time had lost meaning. There was only wake, find water, find food, avoid danger, sleep, nightmare, repeat.
Around him, other squatters stirred in the pre-dawn darkness. An old man coughed wetly in the corner—he'd been coughing for days, getting worse. Two women whispered near the door, negotiating prices for the morning's work. A child younger than Jon whimpered in sleep, alone.
No one spoke to anyone else. This wasn't community. It was just parallel survival.
Jon gathered his possessions—a waterskin, a crust of bread he'd saved from yesterday, nothing else—and stepped into Qarth's morning heat. The sun had barely risen, but already the air shimmered. The port district assaulted his senses: rotting fish, human waste, and the cloying sweetness of spices trying to mask decay.
His Beast Breathing activated unconsciously, hypersensitive from months of trauma, and suddenly he could hear everything—rats fighting three streets over, a child crying in a building above, and his own rabbit-quick heartbeat. It was too much. He forced the technique to stop, and the world dulled to normal sensation again.
Yi Ti, he reminded himself. Still need to reach Yi Ti.
But first, water.
The public fountain was two streets from the warehouse, and already a line of beggars and refugees waited their turn. Jon took his place behind an elderly woman whose branded face marked her as a freed slave. Thirty minutes passed before he reached the spout. The water tasted of metal and rot, but he drank deeply and filled his waterskin.
Food came next. Or rather, the attempt at food.
Jon tried begging first, sitting near the spice market with his hand extended. Most people stepped around him like he was refuse. One merchant kicked him when he sat too close to the stall.
"Get away; you'll scare customers."
Jon moved. There was no point in arguing. He'd learned that much.
By midday, hunger had become desperation. He watched a bread vendor argue with a customer, distracted. The loaves sat there, so close. Jon reached for the breathing technique that would give him speed—Thunder. Breathing, Marcus had called it in that other life—
The moment he tried to activate it, the flashback hit. Maelor's surprised face. Blood bubbling from his throat. The weight of the dagger in Jon's hand. The merchant in Myr, whipping that child slave. Chains. Always chains.
Jon froze mid-reach, gasping.
"THIEF!" the vendor screamed.
Jon ran—not with supernatural speed, just the clumsy scramble of a malnourished child. He made it three streets before collapsing in an alley, shaking.
Can't even steal properly, he thought bitterly. The breathing techniques—Marcus's gift—they're broken. I'm broken.
Eventually, when the shaking stopped, he searched the trash piles behind a tavern. Half-rotten fruit, probably thrown out that morning. His stomach rebelled at the first bite, but he forced it down. Calories were calories.
That night, he returned to the warehouse to find it occupied.
Four children, ranging from maybe seven to twelve, sat in his usual corner. Their leader, a girl with the sharp features and darker skin of a native Qartheen, looked up as he entered.
"This is our place now," she said simply.
"I was here first," Jon said, too exhausted for real protest.
The girl laughed. "Don't care. Leave."
One of her gang, a boy about twelve, pointed at Jon's blanket. "Nice blanket. I want it."
The boy reached for it. Jon pulled back instinctively, and the boy shoved him. Jon fell—his legs were too weak, his balance compromised by constant hunger. He tried to stand, to fight back, and reached for Beast Breathing to sense their movements—
The technique started to work, showing him their positions, their intentions, and then the memories crashed in. Grazdan's guards surrounded him. The beating that followed. The brand searing into his flesh.
Jon collapsed, hyperventilating.
"What's wrong with him?" one of the gang asked.
"He's sick," the leader said, eyeing him with disgust and wariness. "Probably plague. Let's go."
They left but took his blanket.
Jon spent that night curled in the corner, cold despite Qarth's heat, wondering if this was how he'd die—not in battle, not for a cause, just slowly wasting away in a foreign city where no one knew his name.
I couldn't fight children, he thought. CHILDREN. What am I?
The Work
By the second week, desperation drove him to the spice merchants.
"I can work," Jon told the Qartheen man unloading crates from a cart. "I'm strong."
The merchant, Xhawo, glanced at him with the kind of look one might give a speaking dog—mild surprise that it could form words, no real interest in what it said.
"You're a skeleton. Get lost."
"Please. I'll work for food."
"I pay copper, not food. Do you want a job or not?"
"Yes."
Xhawo pointed to a crate. "Lift that."
Jon wrapped his arms around the crate—forty pounds of packed spices, maybe more. His crooked fingers couldn't get a proper grip. He managed to lift it a few inches before his right hand spasmed and the crate crashed down, a corner splitting, spices spilling across the ground.
"You'll pay for that," Xhawo said flatly.
"I don't have—"
"Then work it off. Two weeks, no pay. After that, one copper per day."
Jon had no choice. "Fine."
For six hours, he hauled smaller crates from cart to stall, learning to use his left hand more to compensate for his weakness. By the third trip, one of the whip scars on his back split fully, blood seeping through his shirt. His broken fingers throbbed with each load.
"Careful!" Xhawo barked when Jon stumbled. "Break another, and you're done."
When the sun finally set, Jon could barely stand.
"Back tomorrow," Xhawo said. "Dawn."
"Yes."
"Do you have water?" "Jon?" he asked, voice cracking from thirst.
"Fountain's two streets over. Go."
"I meant—"
"I know what you meant. I'm not your mother. Go."
Jon went.
The Grind
Weeks blurred together in a haze of repetition and exhaustion.
Wake from nightmares. Work from dawn to dusk. Scavenge food. Sleep. Nightmares. Repeat.
After two weeks of unpaid labor, Xhawo finally handed him a single copper coin. Jon stared at it like he'd never seen money before, then spent it immediately on a full loaf of bread—his first real meal in weeks. It tasted like ash. Depression had stolen even the simple pleasure of eating, but his stomach was full for the first time since Yunkai.
By the fifth week, Jon had found a rhythm. He knew which crates he could lift and which were beyond him. He learned to wrap his hands to protect the weak fingers and to move in ways that didn't split his scars. Xhawo stopped yelling as much—not approval, just an absence of complaint.
Then Palla found him.
She approached while he was taking his brief midday break, the gang leader who'd taken his blanket weeks ago.
"Need a lookout tonight," she said without preamble. "You in?"
"Why me?"
She gestured vaguely at him. "You're nobody. Guards don't notice you. And you're... weird. Jumpy. Good ears."
"What's the cut?"
"Two coppers."
Two days' wages for one night's work. "Fine."
The warehouse they robbed belonged to a merchant who traded in Myrish lace. Jon's role was simple—stand in the alley and whistle if guards approached. He used Beast Breathing reluctantly, pushing through the discomfort as the technique made him hyperaware of every sound and every heartbeat in the area. When he sensed guards two streets away, he whistled the warning. Palla's gang escaped with their loot.
"You're useful," Palla said, handing him two coppers.
Jon took them and left without a word.
A week later, she appeared at the warehouse where he slept, blood seeping through a crude bandage on her side.
"Rival gang," she explained, though Jon hadn't asked. "Need to hide."
"I can't help with that." Jon had no medical knowledge—Marcus's memories included combat, language, and history, but not field medicine.
"Just need space."
Jon let her stay. She bandaged herself with torn cloth and was gone by dawn.
"We're even," she said, and that was that.
By the eighth week, Jon had saved eight copper coins. He asked Xhawo how much passage to Yi Ti would cost.
Xhawo laughed. "Fifty honors. Maybe more."
Jon did the calculation. One honor equaled one hundred coppers. Five thousand coppers total. At one copper per day...
Years. I'd need years.
The despair was crushing. He'd die in Qarth, rotting here like trash in the streets.
The Breaking Point
Nine weeks into his time in Qarth, Jon couldn't sleep. The nightmares had been getting worse—Kerys died over and over, each time blaming him, each time taking longer to die.
He decided to try water breathing, the technique that had once helped him find calm.
Sitting in the warehouse's darkness, Jon breathed deeply, imagining water flowing through his body, cooling, soothing—
The flashback hit like a physical blow. Grazdan's compound. The whip is coming down. His back splitting open. The guards are laughing. The brand, always the brand, searing into his shoulder.
Jon screamed and thrashed. Other squatters woke, yelling at him to shut up. When the flashback finally released him, he was drenched in sweat, gasping.
I can't use them, he realized. Every time I try, the memories come. The techniques are poisoned.
Marcus's voice rose in his mind—not comforting, but accusatory: You're weak. I survived worse.
"You're DEAD," Jon thought back viciously. Twice. Don't lecture me.
He stared at his crooked fingers in the moonlight. Am I Jon Snow? Or am I a broken shell wearing his name? Marcus gave me power, but it's killing me from inside. Who am I without it?
There was no answer.
A week later, Jon sat on the docks with his legs dangling over the dark water, seriously considering whether to jump. It would be easy. Sink. No more nightmares. No more hunger. No more... of this.
Kerys said, 'Be free.' If I die, she died for nothing.
Dhara said, 'Get power.' Can't do that dead.
Robb... would he care? Does he even remember me? Father probably declared me dead already. I'm already gone to them. So why not make it real?
A child laughed nearby—another street kid, younger than Jon, filthy but laughing at something. The kid saw Jon, waved cheerfully, and then ran off.
Jon stepped back from the edge.
Not today. Maybe tomorrow. But not today.
He was too tired to drown. He'd sleep instead.
The Heists
Palla's bigger jobs paid better but came with worse risks. Jon did three more over the following weeks, earning fifteen coppers per heist. It was stealing, pure and simple. Ned Stark would have been appalled.
But Ned Stark wasn't here. And Jon wasn't really his son. Not anymore.
"You used to be something, didn't you?" Palla asked after their fifth job together. "Rich? Noble?"
"No."
"Liar. You talk fancy. Hold yourself different."
"I'm nothing. Just another street rat."
"Yeah," Palla agreed. "Now you are."
By week twelve, Jon had thirty-two coppers saved. He went to the harbor master's office to inquire about passage.
"Passage to Yin? Fifty honors."
Jon left immediately, knowing he couldn't afford even a fraction of that.
"I need three thousand coppers," he told Palla desperately.
She laughed. "Why? Buying a palace?"
"Passage. To Yi Ti."
"That's... years of work. Or dozens of big heists. And you'd need to not eat, not spend anything."
"That's impossible."
"Yeah."
In week thirteen, Jon tried again at the harbor master's office, asking about working for passage.
"You? You're a child. And branded." The clerk had noticed the scar peeking above Jon's collar. "No captain takes escaped slaves."
"I'm free by—"
"Qartheen law. Yes. Prove it."
Jon had no papers. "How?"
"Not my problem."
The Decision
By week fifteen, Jon had seventy-seven coppers saved—a fortune by his standards, nothing by passage costs. He stood at the docks watching ships load and unload, studying their routines with the tactical part of his mind that still functioned.
The Jade Serpent caught his attention. An Yi Tish merchant vessel was loading cargo for Yin. Jon watched for three days, memorizing the patterns. The crew loaded crates from morning to evening. The night watch consisted of one guard who spent more time drinking than watching. The ship would sail at dawn on the fourth day.
"I can't pay," Jon thought. "But I can hide."
Stowing away got me to Braavos. It can get me to Yi Ti.
If they find me, they'll throw me overboard. Or enslave me again.
But staying in Qarth is a slow death. I have to try.
"What if I just... sneak aboard?" Jon asked Palla that evening.
"Stowaway? They catch you, you're dead."
"Maybe. But I'm dead here anyway. Just slower."
"You're crazy."
"Probably."
On the night before the Jade Serpent's departure, Jon spent his last coppers on dried fish and filled his waterskin. He told Palla he was leaving.
"Good luck. You'll need it."
"If I don't make it—"
"I'll forget I knew you. Easier that way."
"Fair."
They didn't embrace and didn't say emotional goodbyes. Just: "See you. Or not."
The Stowaway
Past midnight, the docks were quiet. The guard on the Jade Serpent sat with his back against the mast, his attention on the stars rather than the ship.
Jon activated Beast Breathing despite the discomfort, sensing the guard's drowsy state. A flashback tried to start—chains rattling, guards in Grazdan's compound—but Jon pushed through it, holding the technique by will alone.
The gangplank was too visible. Jon found a mooring rope instead, thick and rough. He began to climb, but his crooked fingers made it almost impossible. Halfway up, his right hand cramped completely, and he nearly fell. Only desperation kept him going, left hand taking most of his weight, right hand just barely holding on.
He dropped onto the deck behind stacked crates, heart hammering so loud he was certain the guard would hear. But the man didn't stir.
Jon crept below deck into the cargo hold. Behind bales of silk destined for Yi Ti's noble houses, he made a small nest. The space was cramped, dark, and airless. It reminded him of the slave ship's hold, and he had to fight not to hyperventilate.
If they find me tomorrow, I'll deal with it tomorrow.
Dawn came with shouted orders and creaking wood. Captain Mhagor's voice carried through the ship: "Cast off! Raise sails!"
The Jade Serpent lurched into motion. Jon felt it in his bones—movement, escape, Qarth falling behind.
Hours passed. Morning became afternoon. No one checked the cargo.
Made it. For now.
He knew discovery was inevitable. The voyage would take months. They'd find him eventually. But for this moment, he'd succeeded in leaving Qarth.
Jon tried water breathing to calm his nerves. The flashback started immediately—brand burning, Kerys dying, and Dhara's judgment. But this time, Jon didn't stop. He pushed through the pain, breathing steadily even as tears ran down his face from the memories.
The technique held. His body warmed despite the trauma.
Still works. Still hurts. But I can do this.
For the first time in months, curled in the darkness of a ship's hold, Jon felt something almost like safety. It wouldn't last. It never did. But for now, he was hidden, he was moving, and he was leaving Qarth behind.
Eight years old, Jon Snow stowed away on a ship bound for Yi Ti, and it felt like the hundredth time he'd hidden in a hold, fleeing toward some uncertain future.
He had no money. No plan. There's no guarantee the crew wouldn't find him tomorrow and kill him.
He carried scars that would never heal: a brand burned into his shoulder, fingers that would never straighten, and whip marks across his back. And deeper scars—Kerys dying on a cross, his own time in chains, the slow erosion of who he'd been.
Four months in Qarth had taught him the world didn't care about him. Not his suffering, not his survival, not his story. He was just another broken child in a city of thousands.
But he'd learned something else, too: he could endure. Not gracefully. Not heroically. Just... endure.
The breathing techniques still worked if he was willing to hurt. Marcus Chen's gift—or curse—remained, even if using it meant walking through fire every time.
Ahead lay the Jade Sea. Storms, pirates, months of hiding. Leng's jungles. And finally—if he survived—Yin, the Golden City, capital of the empire that had once fought dragons and demons.
Jon didn't know what awaited him there. Didn't know if he'd even reach it.
But he was moving.
And in the darkness of the hold, surrounded by silk that smelled of distant lands and impossible wealth, Jon Snow—bastard, slave, stowaway, survivor—closed his eyes and breathed.
Just breathed.
Because that was all he could do.
And for now, it was enough.