Jon
The garden was drowning in blossoms.
Jon sat on the bench—their bench, he'd begun to think of it—and watched the cherry trees shed their petals like pink snow. The wind had picked up since morning, and now the air was thick with them, drifting and swirling and settling on every surface. The cherry blossom petals caught in Mei Ling's hair as she arranged their picnic on the worn wood between her and Jon. They landed on the surface of the pond, where the golden fish rose to investigate before losing interest. They gathered in the corners of the garden like drifts of color, impossibly delicate, incredibly beautiful.
"Stop staring and eat something," Mei Ling said, pushing a plate toward him. Sweet cakes drizzled with honey, fruits he still couldn't name after months of trying, and small dumplings that Cook Lian had made specially for the occasion. "I spent all morning stealing these items from the kitchen."
"Stealing?"
"Borrowing. Aggressively borrowing." She grinned. "Father won't notice. He never eats the sweet things anyway."
Jon picked up a cake and turned it over in his hands. His fingers worked properly now—not perfectly, never flawlessly, but well enough. He could hold a brush. Could grip a practice sword. Could feel the texture of things without pain shooting up his arm.
Small miracles, he thought. I'm learning to appreciate small miracles.
He bit into the cake. Honey and something floral burst across his tongue, sweeter than anything he remembered from Winterfell. Mei Ling watched his face, waiting for a verdict.
"Good?"
"Excellent."
She beamed and helped herself to a dumpling. They ate in comfortable silence while the blossoms fell around them, and Jon found himself thinking about beauty.
He'd seen beautiful things before. Winterfell in the first snow of winter, when the world turned white and quiet and even Lady Catelyn's coldness seemed muted by the hush. The Narrow Sea at dawn, all silver and gold where the sun touched the waves. The Jade Sea itself, that impossible green-blue that had nearly killed him and then delivered him here.
But those beauties had always come with something else. Danger underneath. The knowledge that he was running, or hiding, or about to be discovered. Even in the moments of peace, his body had never quite believed it was safe.
The feeling was different.
This was beauty without fear. Peace without the constant readiness for violence. His shoulders weren't tight with tension. His breathing was steady and slow. The part of him that always watched for threats had, if not gone quiet, at least settled into a low murmur rather than a constant scream.
This, Jon thought. This is what safe feels like.
A petal drifted down and landed in his palm. He studied it—the delicate pink fading to white at the edges, the paper-thin texture, the way it was already beginning to curl as it dried.
"In my homeland," he said, "we have flowers similar to this petal." Weirwood trees. Red leaves, white bark. Sacred places."
Mei Ling looked up from her food, curious. Jon rarely spoke about where he came from. She'd learned not to ask, learned to wait for the moments when he offered pieces of himself.
"Do you miss them?"
Jon thought about it. He really thought about it, allowing the question to settle into him as Master Zhi had taught him to handle difficult things.
"I miss pieces," he said finally. "My brother. His name was Robb. We used to practice sword fighting in the training yard, before everything changed." The memory surfaced gently, without the sharp edges it used to carry. "There was an old woman in the kitchens—Old Nan, everyone called her. She told stories. She told stories about the Wall, the things beyond it, and the Long Night when winter lasted a generation.
"That sounds frightening."
"I loved them. The stories, I mean. They made the world feel bigger than it was." He turned the petal over in his fingers. "I miss the smell of the kitchens. Bread baking. Meat roasting. It was the warmest place in the castle."
"But not all of it?" Mei Ling asked. "You don't miss all of it?"
"No." The word came out steady, certain. "Not all of it."
He didn't explain about Lady Catelyn. He felt a constant weight from being unwanted, being wrong, and being a stain on his father's honor that could never be scrubbed clean. Some things were still too heavy to speak aloud, even here, even with her.
But Mei Ling didn't press. She just nodded and reached for another dumpling, and the silence that followed was comfortable rather than expectant.
A gust of wind shook the nearest tree, and suddenly the air was full of petals—hundreds of them, thousands, swirling around them like a storm made of flowers. Mei Ling laughed and leaped to her feet, spinning with her arms outstretched, trying to catch them as they fell.
"Look!" she called, her voice bright with joy. "It's like pink snow! Like your word—snow!"
Jon watched her spin. Her dark hair flew out behind her, catching petals like decorations. Her laughter echoed off the garden walls, pure and unselfconscious in a way that made something loosen in his chest.
This, he thought. This is what happy feels like.
He'd forgotten. Or maybe he'd never really known—maybe the happiness he'd felt in Winterfell, in the moments with Robb, had always been touched by the knowledge that it couldn't last. That he didn't deserve it. That Lady Catelyn was watching from a window somewhere, counting the minutes until she could take it away.
But this happiness had no shadow. This happiness was just happiness, simple and whole.
Jon didn't spin. That wasn't him—he'd been too cautious for too long to ever move without purpose. But he smiled. He really smiled, not with the thin expression he usually managed, but with a wider smile that crinkled his eyes, showed his teeth, and felt strange on a face that had almost forgotten how to express joy.
Mei Ling stopped spinning, petals still floating around her, and stared at him.
"There!" She pointed triumphantly. "I knew you could smile properly!"
"I smile."
"You do that sad little twitch thing. That's not a smile. This is a smile!"
She made an exaggerated grin, pulling her lips back to show all her teeth like a horse being examined at market. Jon laughed—actually laughed, a sound that surprised them both, rusty from disuse but genuine.
"You look ridiculous," he said.
"I look wonderful. And I made you laugh. That's an accomplishment."
She sat back down beside him, slightly out of breath from spinning, her petals still caught in her hair. Jon reached over without thinking and brushed one away. His hand paused, suddenly aware of what he'd done.
Mei Ling didn't flinch or pull away. She just smiled—her real smile, soft and warm—and reached for another sweet cake.
"Eat more," she said. "You're still too thin."
Jon ate. The cakes were sweet, the tea was warm, and the petals kept falling around them like something from a dream.
Later, after Mei Ling had been called away for lessons, Jon stayed in the garden alone.
He sat in the meditation pose Master Zhi had taught him—legs crossed, hands resting on his knees, spine straight but not rigid. The petals had stopped falling now, the wind settling into stillness, and the only sound was the gentle splash of the fish in the pond and the distant murmur of the fortress going about its business.
"Breathe," Zhi had told him. Not to access power. Just to breathe. Just to be.
Jon closed his eyes and tried.
For weeks now, they'd been working on this—untangling his breathing techniques from his trauma, separating the gift Marcus had left him from the pain that had become wrapped around it. It was slow work. Every time Jon reached for the calm that Water Breathing promised, the memories came with it. Chains. Fire. The branding iron is heating in the coals. Alya's face contorted in pain as she died on the cross.
But Zhi had taught him something important. Don't fight the memories. Observe them. Let them pass. They are clouds across the sun—they will move on if you don't hold onto them.
Jon breathed.
The memories came. They always came. The compound in Yunkai, the guards' laughter, and the sound his fingers had made when they broke. The storm in the Jade Sea, waves like mountains, men disappearing into the water one by one.
That was then, he thought. This is now.
I'm in a garden. There are cherry blossoms. Mei Ling is somewhere nearby. The sun is warm on my face.
I'm safe.
The memories didn't vanish—they never vanished entirely—but they receded. Grew smaller. Became things he was looking at rather than things he was drowning in.
And underneath them, like bedrock beneath shifting sand, he found it.
Calm.
Ten seconds of it. Maybe fifteen. The old feeling he'd known in Winterfell before Marcus, before everything—the simple peace of being present in his body, breathing air in and out, existing without fear.
Water Breathing settled into his muscles without flashbacks. For those ten seconds, fifteen seconds, he felt his body temperature stabilize, felt his heartbeat slow, and felt the technique working the way it was supposed to work. Not as a desperate survival tool, not as a weapon clawed from trauma, but as a gift. A skill. Something that was his.
Then it was gone. The memories crashed back, and Jon gasped, and the technique scattered like the petals in the wind.
But it had been there.
He opened his eyes. His cheeks were wet—when had he started crying?—and his hands were shaking slightly. But underneath the exhaustion—under the emotional weight of what he'd just done, there was something else.
Hope.
I'm not broken forever. I can heal. It's possible.
He wiped his face with his sleeve and sat in the garden until his breathing steadied, watching the fish swim their lazy circles and thinking about all the things that might yet be possible.
Jon
Master Zhi's study had become a second home.
Jon sat across from the old scholar, the remains of their tea cooling between them, maps and scrolls spread across the table. They'd moved beyond basic lessons now—beyond history recitations and calligraphy exercises—into something deeper. Strategy. Analysis. This is the type of thinking that Zhi perfected over sixty years.
"A hypothetical," Zhi said, his brush tracing a line on the map. "You command the northern force. Your enemy holds the southern ridge here, with twice your numbers but uncertain supply lines. The river is rising—spring melt from the mountains. What do you do?"
Jon studied the terrain. Mountains to the east, blocking any flanking maneuver. Forest to the west, too dense for cavalry. The river runs north-south, cutting the battlefield in two.
"Attack now," he said. "Before the river rises further."
"Explain."
"Their supply lines run along the southern bank. If the river floods, they'll be cut off—but so will we. The next two days are the window. We cross at the ford here"—he pointed—"at night, while they're expecting us to wait. Their numbers advantage means nothing if we can catch them at dawn, before they've formed ranks."
Zhi was silent for a long moment. His brush had stopped moving.
"And the political complications? The southern commander is a cousin to the Azure Emperor's third wife. Defeating him too decisively could turn a skirmish into a war."
Jon hadn't considered that. But Marcus's knowledge stirred, offering parallels—Roman generals who'd won battles and lost empires, Chinese strategists who'd balanced military victory against political necessity.
"Leave him a line of retreat," Jon said slowly, thinking it through. "Win the battle, but let him save face. He withdraws 'in good order' rather than being routed. His cousin keeps her influence, but he's weakened. We gain the territory without the political cost."
Zhi set down his brush. His expression was unreadable.
"Where did you learn to think like this?"
Jon's mouth went dry. He'd slipped—let too much of Marcus's knowledge show through, forgetting to pretend he was just a clever child with unusual instincts.
"I... I'm not sure. It just comes."
"That's not an answer."
Silence stretched between them. Jon could feel his heart beating faster, the old fear rising—they'll know what I am, they'll be afraid; anxiety makes people cruel—but he forced himself to breathe. This was Zhi. Zhi, who had mended his fingers. Zhi, who had never pushed, never demanded, and never made him feel like a curiosity to be studied.
"I have memories," Jon said quietly. "Of... before. Another life. Maybe more than one. I don't understand it. But I have knowledge I shouldn't have."
He waited for the dismissal. The accusation of madness. The fear.
But Zhi just nodded, slowly, like a man fitting the final piece into a puzzle.
"I've lived sixty years," he said. "I've seen things that shouldn't exist. A child with knowledge beyond his years is strange, but not impossible." He poured fresh tea, the gesture precise and calming. "The world is older than we imagine, and stranger. I've read accounts of sages who claimed to remember past lives. I've met travelers who spoke of things they shouldn't have seen."
"You believe me?"
"I believe you believe it. And I believe you know things no child should know. The explanation matters less than what you do with the knowledge."
Something unclenched in Jon's chest. The weight of the secret—carried alone for years—shifted slightly. Not gone, but shared.
"Does Mei Ling know?" Zhi asked.
"No. I didn't mean to scare her."
"You might be surprised. That girl is harder to scare than you think." Zhi's eyes crinkled with something that might have been amusement. "But that's your decision to make, not mine."
Jon nodded. Something unspoken passed between them—trust, deepened. Secrets shared.
"Master Zhi?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For... everything."
The old scholar waved a dismissive hand, but his eyes were warm. "Save your thanks. I expect you to be one of the finest strategists this province has ever produced. I'm simply investing in my legacy."
It was a joke, or half a joke, but Jon heard the truth underneath. Zhi believed in him. Saw potential in him. Not despite his strangeness, but because of it.
Maybe that's what family means, Jon thought. People who see your strangeness and decide to keep you anyway.
Mei Ling
She'd been working on the gift for weeks.
Carving was harder than it looked. She'd started with three separate pieces of jade before getting one that didn't crack or chip or come out looking like a deformed frog. Master Chen, the fortress's stoneworker, had shown her the basics—how to hold the tools, how to work with the grain of the stone—but the skill was all practice, and practice meant failure, and failure meant starting over.
But she'd finished it. Finally. A small wolf, no bigger than her thumb, carved from pale green jade and threaded on a silk cord. The proportions weren't quite right—the head was slightly too large, the legs slightly too short—but you could tell it was a wolf. That 's what mattered.
She found Jon in the garden, reading one of Master Zhi's scrolls in the afternoon light. He looked up when she approached, and she saw the way his expression softened when he recognized her. That still made her happy, that softening. He didn't do it for anyone else.
"I have something for you," she said, and before she could lose her nerve, she thrust the pendant toward him.
He took it carefully, turning it over in his hands. She watched his face, suddenly nervous. What if he didn't like it? What if he thought it was stupid, a child's crude craft project?
"It's a wolf," she said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence. "It's not excellent. I'm still learning. But wolves are from the North, right? Your home?"
Jon didn't answer. He just stared at the pendant, his fingers tracing the shape of it, and Mei Ling realized with a start that his hands were trembling.
"How did you know?" His voice came out rough. "About wolves?"
"You talk in your sleep sometimes. You say a word—wolf, I think—in your language. I asked Master Zhi what it meant."
Jon was still staring at the pendant. Something was happening in his face, something she'd never seen before—like walls crumbling, like doors opening.
"No one has given me a gift since..." He stopped. Swallowed. "My brother. The night I left. He gave me a sweet roll. 'For the road,' he said."
Mei Ling didn't know what to say. She hadn't meant to make him sad. She'd just wanted to give him something, wanted him to have a piece of home to carry with him.
"If you don't like it—" she started.
"I love it."
The words came out fierce, almost angry, though she could tell the anger wasn't at her. He lifted the pendant over his head, settling the cord around his neck. The jade wolf disappeared beneath his shirt, resting against his heart.
"I'll keep it always," he said. "Always. I promise."
For Mei Ling, the act was simple—friends gave friends gifts. It was what you did. But looking at Jon's face, she understood that for him, it was everything.
She didn't say anything else. Just sat down beside him on the bench and leaned her head against his shoulder, and they stayed that way until the sun began to sink toward the mountains.
Sun Cao
He watched the foreign boy training in the yard.
Simple exercises—nothing advanced. Building strength, learning basic forms. The kind of work Sun Cao had done years ago, before he'd moved on to real techniques. The boy's movements were clumsy and unpracticed, but there was something in them that hadn't been there before.
Focus, Sun Cao thought. He's actually focusing now. Not just going through the motions.
Three months since their duel. Three months since the white-haired foreigner had gotten up six times and earned something Sun Cao hadn't expected to give. Not respect, exactly—that would be too much. But something.
Recognition, maybe. Acknowledgment that he's not nothing.
Sun Cao still didn't like him. He still felt the twist of something when he saw Mei Ling laugh at the foreigner's jokes and still noticed when she touched his arm or sat too close. But the feeling had changed. Less hot anger, more cool assessment.
He's not going away, Sun Cao had realized. The general's going to keep him. Might as well figure out what he's worth.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Sun Cao walked over to where Jon was practicing.
The boy tensed immediately—of course he did, after everything Sun Cao had said and done. But he didn't back away. Just waited, practice sword held carefully at his side.
"Your stance is wrong," Sun Cao said.
Jon blinked. "What?"
"Your feet. They're too close together. You'll lose your balance if anyone pushes you." Sun Cao stepped into the practice space and demonstrated the correct form—feet shoulder-width apart, weight distributed evenly. "Like this. See?"
Jon copied the stance cautiously, like he expected a trick.
"Better." Sun Cao nodded. "Keep practicing."
He walked away without waiting for a response. Behind him, he heard Mei Ling's voice—she'd been watching from somewhere; of course she had.
"Did Sun Cao just... help you?"
"I think so?"
"The world has gone mad."
Sun Cao kept walking. But something in his chest felt lighter than it had in a long time.
Maybe crazy is good sometimes, he thought. He didn't examine the thought too closely.
Jon
Evening painted the fortress in shades of gold and rose.
Jon stood on the wall, looking out at the Jade Sea. The same sea that had nearly killed him, that had taken Captain Mhagor and Tsura and all the others, that had delivered him—broken and barely breathing—onto a beach where a girl had found him and decided he was worth saving.
It was just water now. Just beautiful, endless water, catching the sunset like scattered jewels.
Footsteps behind him. He didn't turn—he'd learned the sound of Mei Ling's approach and could distinguish it from the heavier tread of soldiers or the shuffling of servants.
"There you are." She came to stand beside him, her shoulder almost touching his. "Dinner's almost ready."
"I know."
They watched the sunset together in silence. Gold melted into pink, pink into purple, and purple into the deep blue of approaching night. The first stars appeared, pale and distant.
"Jon?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you happy here?"
The question caught him off guard. No one had ever asked him that—not in Winterfell, not in Braavos, not anywhere in all his years of running and surviving. Happiness had never seemed like something he was allowed to have.
"I think..." He searched for the right words. "I think I'm learning to be."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the best one I have." He turned to look at her, her face soft in the fading light. "I didn't know what happy meant for a long time. Or maybe I knew, and then I forgot. But here... with you, and Zhi, and the garden... I'm starting to remember."
Mei Ling was quiet for a moment. Then, quietly: "Is it enough? Being here? Or do you want to go... somewhere else? Home?"
Jon understood the underlying concern in the question. Are you going to leave me?
He thought about it. Really thought about the way he'd learned to think about difficult things—letting them settle, examining them from all angles.
"I don't have a home," he said finally. "Not anymore. The place I came from... I can never go back. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd want to."
He looked at her—this girl who'd found him on a beach, who'd held his hand through fever and surgery, who'd taught him to laugh again.
"But this place. These people. You, Zhi, your grumpy father, and Sun Cao—when he's not being terrible—are all part of this place. A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "It feels ... like maybe it could be. Home. Someday."
"Someday?"
"I don't know how to belong yet. I'm still learning. But I want to try. If you'll let me."
Mei Ling didn't say anything grand. She just took his hand—her fingers warm and certain against his—and squeezed.
"Then stay. And learn. And I'll help."
Later. The garden, silver in the moonlight.
They sat on their bench, the two of them, speaking in their private language of half-Yiddish, half-common, and half-gestures. The jade wolf pendant rested against Jon's heart. The last of the cherry blossoms had fallen, carpeting the ground in pale pink, but new leaves were already emerging—green and fresh and full of promise.
"Mei Ling," Jon said. "I want to teach you a word."
"Another one?" She made a face. "My Common is terrible."
"Just one word."
She waited, expectant.
Jon spoke the word carefully, shaping each sound: "Home."
She tilted her head, the way she did when she was thinking. "What does it mean?"
"It's... a place where you belong. Where people want you. Where you don't have to run." He touched the pendant through his shirt, feeling its solid weight. "A place where someone finds you on a beach and decides you're worth saving."
Mei Ling considered this. "Is this that? Home?"
A few months ago, Jon would have said no. Home was Winterfell. Home was Robb. Home was a place he'd lost and could never return to.
Now...
"I think it could be," he said. "If you'll let me stay."
"Let you?" Mei Ling's voice held mock outrage. "Jon, I'm never letting you leave. You're stuck with me forever."
She said it lightly. But she meant it—he could hear the truth underneath the joke.
Something bloomed in Jon's chest. Not just happiness—safety. The knowledge that he was wanted. That someone would fight to keep him.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"I'll stay."
Her smile was soft and real, bright even in the moonlight. "Good. Now teach me that word."
"Home."
"Hohm."
"Close enough."
General Kai
The study was quiet at this hour.
Kai stood at his window, looking down at the garden. Two small figures sat on the bench below—his daughter and the foreign boy. They were talking, their voices too soft to hear from this distance, but he could see Mei Ling's hands moving as she spoke, the way she always gestured when she was excited.
She was laughing.
That pure, unselfconscious laugh he remembered from before her mother died. The laugh that had disappeared for three years, that he'd begun to fear he'd never hear again.
She's laughing, he thought. My daughter is laughing.
Zhi had sent his reports. The boy was unusual—knowledge he shouldn't have, skills that didn't match his age, and a past that raised more questions than answers. There were implications to consider. The boy could be valuable to the province, to the faction Kai had carefully built, and to the war that everyone knew was coming even if no one spoke its name.
But that was a consideration for tomorrow.
Today, Kai watched his daughter be beaming.
He'd taken the boy in out of duty—the duty a father owed his child, the recognition that Mei Ling needed something he couldn't give her. He'd expected complications. Had prepared for the whispers, the soldiers' superstitions, and the political calculations of keeping a foreign child in his household.
What he hadn't expected was this. His daughter was laughing in the moonlight with a boy who had crossed the world and somehow ended up exactly where he needed to be.
"Send for Master Zhi," Kai said to the servant waiting by the door.
When Zhi arrived, Kai didn't turn from the window.
"The boy. Expand his education. Teach him whatever he can learn, including history, strategy, and calligraphy. He has potential. I want to see how much."
"The soldiers will talk," Zhi observed.
"Let them. My household, my decision."
A pause. Then: "And the boy's status?"
Kai turned from the window. His face was the same mask it always was—the mask of a general, of a man who'd survived three civil wars by keeping his thoughts private. But something in his eyes had shifted.
"Inform my daughter that the foreigner may remain. Indefinitely. As a member of this household."
Zhi bowed. "She'll be pleased."
"That's the point."
Zhi left. Kai returned to his desk, with the maps and correspondence and endless calculations of power. There were wars to plan, alliances to forge, and enemies to outmaneuver.
But something was warmer in his chest than it had been this morning.
His daughter was laughing.
That was worth something. That was worth quite a lot.
Jon
The sun set behind the mountains, painting the world in gold.
Jon sat in the garden—his garden now, as much as it was anyone's—and watched the light change. Mei Ling had gone inside for dinner, but he'd asked for a moment alone. She'd understood. She always understood.
He thought of everyone he'd lost.
Robb, still in Winterfell, is probably a grown man now. Did he remember Jon? Did he still think of the brother who'd vanished one night and never returned?
Alya, who'd died telling him to be free. Her face was blurring in his memory, the details fading, but her words remained: Be free, Jon Snow.
The sailors who'd died in the storm—Mhagor and Tsura and Peng and all the others whose names he'd never learned. They'd been carrying him toward this place without knowing it, and the sea had taken them before they could see where their cargo ended up.
He thought of everyone who'd hurt him.
Lady Catelyn, whose hatred had driven him from Winterfell. Grazdan mo Yunkai, whose brand still marked his shoulder. The guards had broken his fingers and laughed while he screamed.
He didn't forgive them. Forgiveness was too big, too complicated. But he thought of them, and the memories didn't tear him apart anymore. They were scars now—healed over, permanent, but no longer bleeding.
He thought of Marcus Chen.
The man who'd died twice and given Jon everything: knowledge, survival, and a chance at life. Marcus, who'd been a historian and a demon slayer and finally a ghost in a dream, pressed his hand to Jon's forehead and changed him forever.
Three lifetimes of knowledge has to mean something, Marcus had said. I won't let it die with me again.
It won't, Jon thought. I'll make it mean something. I promise.
And he thought of Mei Ling.
The girl who'd found him on a beach and decided he was worth saving. Who'd held his hand through fever and surgery. She had taught him words in two languages, given him a jade wolf, and made him laugh when he had forgotten how.
"Home," she'd tried to say. Hohm.
Close enough.
Jon closed his eyes. Breathed.
Not Water Breathing. Not any technique at all. Just breathing—air filling his lungs, spreading through his body, keeping him alive. The most fundamental act of survival is also the simplest form of living.
For the first time since Winterfell, it didn't hurt.
The sun sank below the mountains. The garden filled with shadows, soft and peaceful. Somewhere in the fortress, people were eating dinner and laughing and living their ordinary lives. And here, on a bench beneath trees that were learning to bloom again, a boy who'd crossed the world finally stopped running.
Home, Jon thought.
The word didn't feel foreign anymore.
The sun set over Yi Ti, painting the world in gold. And in a garden that smelled of cherry blossoms and peace, a boy who had crossed the world finally stopped running.