A Wolf Remembers

Jon Snow dies of old age in a hut beyond the Wall old, cold, and haunted. He spent decades in self-imposed exile after killing Daenerys Targaryen in the throne room of King's Landing. The world survived. Bran became king. The reconstruction began. But Jon never made peace with what he had done, and he died without it-the specific, unresolvable grief of a man who chose the lesser evil and could never stop wondering whether it was truly necessary.

The gods do not explain themselves. He simply opens his eyes.

He is young again. He is on horseback beside his father on a frozen road north of Winterfell. A man in black kneels in the snow ahead of them-a Night's Watch deserter, wild-eyed and raving about dead things walking. Jon watches Ice rise and fall. He watches Bran's face, and Robb's, and his own younger self on the horse beside him, and feels the full weight of everything he knows settle onto his shoulders like armour he has no choice but to wear.

He does not panic. He has already lived through the worst version of this story. He begins, immediately, to plan.