Chapter 73 — Anomaly
Once a man joined the Night's Watch, it meant severing ties with the past.
Jon Snow had accepted that. He could no longer avenge his father, Eddard Stark.
Yet Janos Slynt—of all people—had a close relationship with Ser Alliser Thorne, and now held authority as one of the Watch's leading decision-makers.
The thought of those two passing judgment on him for infiltrating the wildlings made Jon's head throb worse than his wounds.
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Grinding his teeth against the pain, Jon forced himself into his clothes and made his way to the hall.
Maester Aemon, Ser Alliser, and Janos were already seated at the long table, waiting.
The moment Jon stepped inside, Ser Alliser lifted his chin, the familiar mockery already written into his voice.
"Lord Jon Snow," Thorne drawled, using that pointed, sarcastic title he always reserved for Jon. "Do you admit that you killed Qhorin Halfhand… and defected to the wildlings, swearing fealty to Mance Rayder as your king?"
Jon held his gaze.
"I did kill Qhorin," he said evenly. "But it was at his request—when he was already grievously wounded. The only way to make Mance trust me was to prove, without doubt, that I had truly turned."
Janos leaned forward, sneering.
"And who can prove that Qhorin ordered you to kill him?"
Jon hesitated, just for a heartbeat.
"…No one," he admitted. "It was only the two of us."
"All the better," Alliser said, as though he'd just been handed a gift. He flicked his eyes toward Maester Aemon, who listened in silence. "Then tell us this—if you were so devoted to the wildlings, why didn't you stay with Mance? Why did you creep back over the Wall in secret and return to Castle Black?"
Jon's jaw tightened.
"Whether you believe me or not," he said, voice firm, "Mance Rayder has united nearly every wildling clan beyond the Wall. They're preparing to attack this place."
He watched their expressions—Alliser's impatience, Janos's arrogance, Aemon's sharp stillness.
"The wildlings' second-in-command, Tormund, and the Thenns are already south of the Wall. They're likely meeting even now. They plan to strike from both sides—inside and out—coordinated with Mance's main force."
His tone sharpened, urgency bleeding through.
"Mance's host numbers more than a hundred thousand."
Jon leaned forward slightly, as if trying to force the truth into their skulls.
"With the men we have, we cannot withstand a full assault. If the wildlings breach the Wall, they'll sweep across the land like locusts—burning, looting, stripping everything in their path."
"And the armies of the North won't be able to stop them from migrating south."
Jon's report hit the three men behind the long table like a blow.
All of them were visibly shaken.
Even Ser Alliser—who had never hidden his prejudice against Jon—couldn't deny the weight of the bastard of Winterfell's words. Thorne had spent years disdaining Jon, but he also knew one thing better than most:
This boy had been shaped by Eddard Stark.
From the moment Jon joined the Night's Watch, he had carried that stubborn sense of justice like a blade in his chest—so sharp it made him look down on the ragged, corrupt mix that made up the Watch.
But Thorne's long-standing hostility kept him from letting Jon off easily. He pressed again.
"And how can you be certain Mance trusted you completely?" Thorne demanded. "Trusted you—a former brother of the Night's Watch—enough to let you hear something this crucial?"
Jon clenched his jaw so hard it ached.
"Because I killed Qhorin Halfhand," he said through his teeth. "Because I told them the Watch knew Castor's secret… and did nothing about it."
He swallowed, his voice tightening.
"And because I… I slept with a wildling woman."
As he spoke, the image flashed again in his mind—Craster handing a newborn into the cold, inhuman hands beyond the Wall.
At Jon's admission, Maester Aemon—who had been sitting with his head slightly lifted as though listening—suddenly turned his blind face toward Ser Alliser.
Janos Slynt also snapped his gaze to Thorne at once, clearly trying to confirm whether Jon's claim was true.
Thorne's expression instantly turned ugly. His eyes dropped, and he shifted topics stiffly, as if eager to shove the discomfort away.
"So you admit you broke the Watch's oath of celibacy?"
"If that counts as breaking the oath," Maester Aemon said calmly, facing forward again, "then the Night's Watch stopped producing men long ago."
Thorne, guilt flickering in his posture, said nothing.
Janos, on the other hand, cared far less about vows than survival. The fear in his eyes was unmistakable.
"Are the White Walkers truly impossible to kill?" he asked quickly. "How many are there?"
Jon glanced at the man who had once betrayed his father. He hesitated… then answered anyway.
"They can be killed with dragonglass daggers—or Valyrian steel weapons." He took a slow breath. "As for their numbers… a thousand, ten thousand, maybe tens of thousands."
He watched Janos's face pale.
"They raise the dead," Jon continued grimly. "Every corpse becomes their soldier. Their numbers keep growing. No one knows how many they have now."
Ever since arriving at Castle Black, Janos had heard rumors about the White Walkers. At first he'd dismissed it as Night's Watch propaganda—some bedtime terror story used to scare unruly children.
But gradually he'd realized the truth.
The Others were real.
He had come north expecting to throw his weight around—an ex-Commander of the City Watch, after all. Instead, he was greeted by the reality of wildling armies pressing in… and something far worse waiting beyond them.
Escape had already begun creeping into his thoughts.
But Janos also knew the laws: any lord in the Seven Kingdoms had the authority to seize a deserter from the Watch. Running now, before chaos truly erupted, would be suicide.
Thorne's eyes narrowed. Then he turned toward the old maester.
"Maester Aemon," he asked, tight-lipped, "what do you believe should be done with Jon Snow?"
Aemon's voice wavered slightly with age, but carried the weight of unquestionable authority.
"This does not appear to be the time to punish Jon Snow," he said slowly. "It is time to consider how we will hold against the wildlings… and how we will face the White Walkers."
"The defense of the realm," he finished, "is the duty of the Night's Watch."
No one argued with the hundred-year-old Targaryen whose reputation alone could silence blades.
Jon was released and allowed to move freely.
Aemon summoned Samwell Tarly at once, ordering him to feed the ravens and prepare ink and parchment. He intended to send yet another desperate message to the great houses of Westeros—
begging for support.
…
Eight days later, the towering pyramids of Meereen finally rose into view.
The guards and the drivers were ecstatic—yet oddly reluctant, too. Ten days of safe escort, of good food and unbelievable sights, was coming to an end. The journey had become something they would remember for the rest of their lives.
Shireen leaned out of the carriage, her eyes widening until they looked ready to burst.
She hadn't imagined a "mere city" in Slaver's Bay could possess something so grand.
Ahead, on a vast hill, Meereen loomed like a monument to arrogance—its pyramid peaks stabbing at the sky.
Tyrion and Shae also stepped out, quietly taking in the city that was about to become their new home.
But just as they neared the gate, the carriage suddenly stopped.
One of the guards rode back quickly and reported to Tyrion:
"The city gates are closed. We can't enter."
Tyrion's brow creased at once.
Closed gates in broad daylight?
That wasn't normal.
Even Drogon—who had been lazily passing the time beside Shireen as she read—seemed startled. Meereen had never closed its gates during the day before.
Before Tyrion could even climb down, Drogon had already lifted the curtain and flown out.
He circled once and saw it clearly: the gates were sealed tight, and outside them gathered a crowd of Meereenese residents and merchants waiting to enter.
Whatever was happening inside, Drogon had no intention of waiting out here like a beggar.
He flew straight to the wall above the gatehouse and hissed sharply at the Unsullied stationed there.
The soldiers had already noticed the black dragon emerging from one of the outside carriages. When the officer saw Drogon hovering above the gatehouse rather than entering himself, he immediately understood.
He barked an order.
The gates opened.
The waiting crowd did not rush in.
They had seen the dragon—and the two carriages associated with him. More importantly, it had been Drogon who demanded the gate be opened.
No one dared push ahead of him.
Drogon led the two carriages through first.
Only then did the townsfolk and merchants trickle forward carefully into Meereen, and the guards shut the gates again behind them.