The Last Stag • Game of Thrones

23.

Chapter Twenty-Three.
Cold

Renfri had given up on waiting for Jon to come to bed. Her face smooshed against the pillow, Goji's body vibrating with breath next to her where Jon normally would have been. 

The door burst open. She sat up, gasping in surprise as she scrambled to cover her chest with the sheets.

"My Lady." Davos paid no mind to the state she was in. "Dress and come with me."

"What is it?" She asked, climbing out of bed. Davos averted his eyes to the floor. "Are we under attack? Where's Jon?"

"It's an emergency, my lady." Davos breathed. "Please hurry."

Ren threw on the nearest clothing, her own long sleeve white shirt and a pair of padded pants that belonged to Jon. She shoved her feet into her boots without bothering to tie the laces, flinging Jons cloak over her shoulders. Grabbing her Lannister dagger, she hurried out of the room on Davos' heels, Goji behind her.

He led her down the hall, across the courtyard and back into Jon's office. She followed, her gut a jumble of nerves.

She crossed the threshold into the room. She wished she hadn't.

All Ren could do was stare.

Davos was speaking, but his words did not reach her. She was in the ocean, now, her head submerged under the waves. They crashed over her head, the breath leaving her body.

She stepped further towards his body. Nothing felt real. She was walking on the clouds, and her body weighed a thousand pounds. 

Her body sank into the chair by his head. 

They had laid his body across his desk, the messages that he had been reading only hours earlier littering the floor. His dark eyes stared hollowly, numbly, at the ceiling above, his wet curls flopping lifelessly around his head. 

Tenderly, she reached forward, gasping as her hands met his skin. Jon had been heat. He had always been heat, her own personal furnace. Yet he was cold to the touch, his skin clammy and frozen.

"How?" She finally choked out. "Who?"

"Thorne." Edd spat out, his hands trembling. 

Thorne. Alliser Thorne.

Renfri had told Jon to give him command. To install trust in him, and he would receive trust in return. 

She wanted to tear his throat out. She had done such a thing before. She could do it again.

She curled her fingers into his hair, tears prickling at her eyes. 

Not Jon.

This wasn't Jon. It couldn't be. Four hours ago she had seen him smiling in his office. 

No. This was a dream. A horrible, fucked up dream. Renfri was in bed, curled against the covers, missing his touch. 

Maybe none of this had happened at all. Maybe she had taken a fall down the steps on her walk back from the tavern with her uncle Jaime all those years ago, and had been in a vivid coma ever since. Her father was in his room sipping wine, dressing for another joust. Her mother was braiding her hair, complementing her curls. Joffrey was still making creepy comments as he tried much too hard to look cool. Tommen and Myrcella were waiting for her to wake up so they could stroll the gardens together. Tyrion would join them, Jaime would watch from afar. None of it was real, none of it had to be.

But if it wasn't real, then neither was Renfri. She was still seventeen, unscarred, unscratched. She snuck out to taverns with Loras in the night, laughing far too loudly and imbibing far too deeply in the overpriced ale. She had never met Willem and Martyn, or Stannis and Shireen, or Tormund, or Karsi. She had never raised Goji.