Braavos was a city of masks, and Jon Snow wore the thinnest one of all.
He stood at the edge of a crowded market square, his arm still bound in a sling fashioned from a strip of sailcloth, watching the chaos of commerce swirl around him. The smell was overwhelming—salt fish and frying oil, exotic spices, and the ever-present tang of the canals. Merchants shouted in a dozen languages. Bravos in bright silks stalked past with their thin swords swinging at their hips. Courtesans glided through the crowds like swans among pigeons.
And Jon Snow, six years old, penniless save for a handful of coppers and a bone-handled knife, tried to figure out how to survive.
"One step at a time," he reminded himself. One breath at a time.
The wages Captain Torren had given him were almost gone. Braavos was expensive—a loaf of bread cost three times what it would in White Harbor, and even the cheapest room at an inn had turned him away when they saw his age. He'd spent his first night in a doorway near the harbor, shivering despite the milder climate, his cracked collarbone throbbing with every movement.
The second night, he found a spot beneath a bridge where other homeless children huddled. They'd looked at him with flat, suspicious eyes—a stranger, a foreigner, competition for whatever scraps the city provided.
"Westerosi?" one had asked, a girl with matted hair and a scar across her nose.
"Northern," Jon had replied.
"Same thing." She'd turned away, dismissing him as irrelevant.
Now it was the third day, and Jon was hungry enough to consider stealing.
"Don't," some part of him cautioned. The part that remembered Winterfell, and honor, and the way Father's eyes would look if he knew. There are other ways.
But in what ways? He was a child with a broken collarbone, no connections, and no skills anyone would pay for. Marcus's memories offered fragments of knowledge—languages, history, tactics—but nothing that would buy bread.
The knowledge is useless if you can't apply it, Jon thought bitterly. A map to a mountain you can't climb.
A baker's stall caught his eye. Fresh loaves sat cooling on a wooden rack, steam still rising from their crusts. The smell was maddening—yeast and wheat and warmth.
Jon's stomach cramped with hunger. His hand drifted toward Yoren's knife.
Just one loaf. Just to survive.
But before he could move, a girl brushed past him—a slight thing, perhaps eight or nine, with quick hands and quicker feet. She stumbled against the baker's counter, knocked over a display of pastries, and in the confusion that followed, two loaves vanished into her ragged cloak.
The baker didn't notice. He was too busy cursing the mess.
The girl caught Jon's eye as she slipped away. She winked.
Jon didn't follow her. He stood frozen, watching, and by the time he'd gathered himself, the opportunity was gone.
"Coward," he thought. Or wise?
He didn't know anymore.
The alley came three hours later.
Jon had wandered into Ragman's Harbor, a poorer district where the buildings leaned precariously and the canals ran dark with waste. He'd been looking for work—any work—asking merchants if they needed a boy to carry messages or sweep floors.
No one did. No one wanted a child with his arm in a sling, a child who spoke Common Tongue with a Northern accent, a child whose eyes were too wary and too old.
He was sitting on a stone step, eating the last of his bread—a heel of stale rye he'd bought that morning—when the shadows around him moved.
"Lost, little boy?"
Jon looked up. Three children blocked the alley's exit. The largest was a boy of perhaps twelve, lean and wiry, with skin the color of teak and eyes that glittered like wet stones. He held a wooden club—a table leg with a nail driven through it. Beside him was the girl from the baker's stall, the one who'd winked. A third child, smaller and younger, hung back with a length of rope in his hands.
"I'm not lost," Jon said quietly. His heart was hammering, but he kept his voice steady. "Just resting."
"Resting in our territory." The leader stepped closer. "That costs money."
"I don't have any money."
"Then we take something else." The boy's eyes dropped to Jon's knife—Yoren's knife, the bone handle visible at his belt. "Nice blade. That'll do for starters."
Jon's good hand moved to cover the knife. "It was a gift. I can't give it away."
"Wasn't asking."
They moved closer. Jon's back was against the wall—literally. He assessed his options and found none. He was smaller than all of them, injured, and outnumbered. Marcus's memories whispered tactics: Strike the leader first. Go for the throat. Disable the largest threat, and the others will scatter—
But his body couldn't execute any of it. His right arm was useless, bound in a sling. His left hand was his weak hand. And even if he'd had both arms, he was six years old facing children twice his size.
I'm going to lose, he realized. There's nothing I can do.
The leader raised his club. "Last chance, bastard. The knife and whatever else you're carrying, or we take it and your teeth along with it."
Jon drew the knife with his left hand. The grip was awkward and unpracticed. He held it out in front of him, more threat than skill.
"I'll fight," he said. The words came out steadier than he felt. "I'll probably lose, but I'll cut at least one of you first. Maybe badly."
The leader paused.
"Look at him," the girl said softly. "He's serious. He's scared, but he's serious."
"He's stupid," the leader—Tagan, Jon would learn later—replied. "Three against one, and him with a broken arm. What's he going to do, bleed on us?"
"Maybe." Jon didn't lower the knife. "Or maybe I get lucky. You want to find out? Over a knife and a few coppers?"
Silence stretched between them. The smaller child with the rope shuffled nervously.
"He talks like a highborn," the girl observed. "Listen to his accent. That's castle-bred, not dockside."
"So?"
"So maybe he's worth more alive than dead." She stepped forward, studying Jon with those quick, clever eyes. "Where are you from? Really?"
Jon hesitated. Then, because lies required energy he didn't have, he said, "The North. Winterfell."
"Winterfell." Tagan laughed. "That's what, a thousand leagues? How'd you get here?"
"I ran away."
"Why?"
"Because staying would have been worse."
Something shifted in Tagan's expression. The cruelty faded, replaced by something that might have been recognition.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know how that goes."
The club lowered. Not all the way, but enough.
"What's your name?"
"Jon."
"Just Jon?"
Just Jon. The bastard's name. The name of a boy with no mother and no claim. "Just Jon."
Tagan looked at the girl. Something passed between them—a silent conversation Jon couldn't read. Then Tagan sighed and tucked his club into his belt.
"Come with us," he said. "We'll feed you. For now."
Jon didn't move. "Why?"
"Because you stood your ground." Tagan shrugged. "Stupid, but brave. The Rats can use brave."
"The Rats?"
"Canal Rats. That's us." Tagan grinned, showing teeth that had seen better days. "Welcome to the bottom of the world. At least it's warm down here."
The Canal Rats' lair was an abandoned warehouse near the edge of Ragman's Harbor, half-collapsed and smelling of mold and old fish. But it was dry, and it was safe—as safe as anything in Braavos could be for children with nothing.
There were perhaps twenty of them, ranging in age from five to fourteen. Orphans, runaways, and the children of slaves who had died or been sold. They slept on piles of rags in the warehouse's corners and survived by their wits and their fingers.
"The city tolerates us," Dalla explained. She was the girl from the alley and from the baker's stall—Jon learned she'd been following him since he'd stepped off the ship, watching to see if he was worth approaching. "We're useful. We steal small, we move information, and we don't cause trouble for the people who matter."
"And when do you cause trouble?"
"Then the Iron Bank's guards come, and the troublemaker disappears." Dalla's voice was matter-of-fact. "Braavos is a free city, Jon. That means you're free to starve and free to die."
"That's not freedom."
"That's exactly freedom." She smiled without humor. "Freedom means nobody has to take care of you. It means you take care of yourself, or you don't last long."
Jon thought about that. He thought about Winterfell, where even the lowest servant had a place and a purpose. Where the cold was brutal, but at least you knew who would feed you and who would shelter you.
Freedom is cold, he realized. Freedom is hungry.
But it was also his. No one here knew he was a bastard. No one here cared about his blood or his birth. He was just another child trying to survive—no better and no worse than anyone else.
In a strange way, it was almost liberating.
The Rats accepted him, tentatively, on the strength of his stubbornness.
"He's useless for thieving," Tagan declared after watching Jon fumble through a practice session. "Can't run with that arm. Can't climb. Can't even pick a pocket properly."
"Then what good is he?" asked Fenno, the small boy with the rope.
"He can talk." Dalla tilted her head, studying Jon. "His Common Tongue is proper—castle speech, like I said. And I've heard him muttering in other languages when he sleeps. Braavosi, I think. Maybe something else."
Jon froze. He hadn't realized anyone was listening.
"Is that true?" Tagan asked. "You speak Braavosi?"
"Some," Jon admitted carefully. The language was another of Marcus's fragments—incomplete, but functional. "Not well."
"Better than most Westerosi." Tagan's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "There are merchants who pay for translators and foreigners who need guides. If you can talk..."
"I can talk."
"Then maybe you're useful after all."
It wasn't acceptance. It wasn't friendship. But it was a place—a role, however small, in a community of outcasts. Jon found himself grateful for it in ways he couldn't quite explain.
He spent his days running errands. Small tasks: carrying messages between merchants who didn't trust the city's official courier service, translating for sailors who spoke no Common Tongue, listening at doorways, and reporting what he heard. His collarbone healed slowly—Dalla found a woman who knew something of bone-setting, and the sling came off after three weeks—but he was still small, still weak, still limited.
Still climbing the first steps of the mountain, he thought. Still a long way from the peak.
But he was surviving. And in Braavos, that counted for something.
Part Two
The fish merchant changed everything.
His name was Brusco, and his stall sat at the edge of the Purple Harbor, where the fishing boats unloaded their catches each morning. He was a massive man, broad as a bull, with hands scarred from scaling knives and a face that looked like it had been carved from driftwood.
The Canal Rats had been watching him for weeks.
"Easy mark," Tagan whispered as they crouched in an alley across the square. "He's slow and old. He can't chase us if we run."
"He's also smart," Dalla countered. "Look at where he sets his best fish. Always within arm's reach. He knows what we are."
"Then we need a distraction." Tagan looked at Jon. "Jon, you're up."
Jon's stomach clenched. "What do you want me to do?"
"Talk to him. Ask about prices, ask about his day, ask about the weather—I don't care. Just keep his eyes on you while Fenno grabs the cod."
It was a simple plan. Jon had seen the Rats execute similar schemes a dozen times. Distract, grab, scatter. The victim never even knew what had happened until the children were three streets away.
But something about Brusco gave Jon pause. The way the old man watched the street. The way his eyes tracked every child who passed too close.
He's not an easy mark, Jon thought. He's a trap.
"I don't think—" Jon began.
"Wasn't asking what you think." Tagan's voice hardened. "You've been eating our food for three weeks. Time to earn it."
Jon looked at Dalla. She shrugged—your choice—but her eyes held a warning. Refuse, and he'd lose whatever fragile place he'd carved out. The Rats didn't tolerate weakness. The Rats didn't tolerate cowardice.
"Fine," Jon said. "I'll do it."
He walked across the square, heart pounding. The morning sun was warm on his face, and the smell of fish was overwhelming—blood and salt and the peculiar sweetness of things that had died in the sea.
Brusco saw him coming. The old man didn't tense, didn't react, but his eyes sharpened in a way that made Jon's skin prickle.
"Fresh clams," Jon said, trying to sound casual. "How much for a dozen?"
"Two coppers." Brusco's voice was a low rumble, like stones grinding together. "Are you buying, or just looking?"
"Looking. Maybe buying, if the price is right."
"Price is two coppers, same as it was before you asked."
Jon forced a smile. He was acutely aware of Fenno creeping up behind the stall, small fingers reaching for the basket of cod.
"That seems high," Jon said. "In White Harbor, you could get twice as many for—"
"This isn't White Harbor." Brusco's eyes didn't leave Jon's face. "And you're not a buyer."
"I—"
"You're a distraction." The old man's hand shot out—not toward Jon, but toward the back of the stall. Fenno yelped as thick fingers closed around his wrist. "Thought so."
Jon's blood went cold. Across the square, he saw Tagan and Dalla frozen, uncertain whether to run or fight.
"Let him go," Jon said. His voice came out steadier than he expected. "Please. He's just hungry."
"Hungry." Brusco hauled Fenno up by his arm, dangling the small boy like a caught fish. "Everyone's hungry. Doesn't give you the right to steal."
"No. It doesn't." Jon met the old man's eyes. "But it explains it."
Something flickered in Brusco's expression. He studied Jon for a long moment—the too-old eyes in the child's face, the careful stance, the way Jon had positioned himself between Brusco and the escape route.
"You're the talker," Brusco said. "The one Tagan picked up. The Westerosi."
"Yes."
"You're supposed to be keeping me busy while your friends rob me blind."
"Yes."
"And instead you're standing here, telling me the truth." Brusco's grip on Fenno loosened slightly. "Why?"
Jon considered the question. He thought about lying—some clever excuse, some explanation that would get them out of this. But his mind was blank, and the old man's eyes seemed to see right through him.
"Because you already knew," Jon said finally. "Lying wouldn't help. And..." He hesitated. "And stealing from you felt wrong. I don't know why. You looked like someone who works hard for what he has."
"I do." Brusco's voice was quiet. "Forty years I've been selling fish. Built this stall with my own hands, back when I was young and stupid. Lost a wife to the sweating sickness. Lost two sons to the sea." He released Fenno, who scrambled backward and fled toward the alley. "Never lost my stall. Never lost my pride."
"I'm sorry." Jon meant it.
"Sorry doesn't fill the belly." Brusco wiped his hands on his apron. "But it's more than most would offer." He studied Jon again, with that unsettling gaze that seemed to weigh and measure. "How old are you, boy?"
"Six." Almost seven, but not quite.
"Six. And running with the Rats." Brusco shook his head slowly. "Too young for thieving. Too proud for begging. What are you good for, then?"
"I can read," Jon said. "And write. And I speak languages—Braavosi, some High Valyrian, and a little Yi Tish."
"Yi Tish?" Brusco's eyebrows rose. "Where'd a Northern boy learn Yi Tish?"
"From the memories of a dead man who lived another life," Jon didn't say. "My father had books. I learned young."
"Hmm." Brusco was silent for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed—a sound like a seal barking. "Languages. Reading. Writing. Useless skills for a street rat, but useful for a merchant's boy." He leaned forward. "How would you like a job, child?"
Jon stared at him. "What?"
"A job. Honest work, honest coin. I need someone to handle deliveries, keep records, and deal with the foreign sailors who can't speak civilized tongues. My back isn't what it used to be, and my eyes are going." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Five coppers a day, and all the fish you can eat."
"Why?" Jon couldn't help asking. "I just tried to rob you."
"No. Your friends tried to rob me. You tried to distract me—badly—and then you told me the truth when you could have lied." Brusco's expression softened, just slightly. "I've lived long enough to know the difference between a thief and a hungry child who fell in with the wrong crowd."
Jon looked back toward the alley. Tagan and Dalla had vanished—fled when they saw the plan had failed. They would be angry. They might cast him out entirely.
But looking at Brusco's weathered face, Jon saw something he hadn't seen since leaving Winterfell. Not kindness, exactly—Brusco was too hard for kindness. But fairness. The willingness to judge a person by their actions rather than their circumstances.
"I'll do it," Jon said.
"Good." Brusco handed him a crate of clams. "Start now. Delivery to the Sealord's kitchens. Don't drop it, don't steal any, and for the love of the Titan, don't get lost."
Jon took the crate. It was heavy—too heavy for his still-healing body—but he set his jaw and lifted anyway.
"I won't let you down," he said.
Brusco grunted. "We'll see."
Working for Brusco was harder than thieving, but it felt cleaner.
Jon woke before dawn and walked the three miles from the Rats' warehouse to the Purple Harbor. He helped unload the fishing boats, sorting the catch into baskets while his arms ached and his back screamed protest. He ran deliveries across the city—to merchants and nobles and the servants of the Iron Bank—learning Braavos's labyrinthine streets one twisted alley at a time.
And he kept records. Brusco couldn't read, it turned out; he'd run his stall for forty years on memory and instinct alone. But Jon could read and write, and within a week he'd created a simple ledger that tracked sales and expenses and the money Brusco was owed.
"You're useful," Brusco admitted after examining the ledger. "More useful than I expected."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Work harder."
Jon worked harder.
The Canal Rats were less forgiving. Tagan refused to speak to him for a week after the failed theft. Dalla was cooler and more distant, though she still shared her bread when Jon returned to the warehouse at night.
"You've gone soft," Tagan spat one evening. "Working for a mark. Trading your labor for scraps when you could have been taking what you're owed."
"Owed?" Jon asked quietly. "Who owes us anything?"
"Everyone who has more than us. Everyone who eats while we starve. Everyone who—"
"Brusco lost his wife and his sons." Jon met Tagan's eyes. "He built his stall with his own hands. He works sixteen hours a day, and he sleeps on the floor of his shop because he can't afford a room. He's not our enemy, Tagan. He's just another man trying to survive."
"That's not—"
"It is." Jon's voice was calm, but something in it made Tagan step back. "I'll still share what I earn with the Rats. I'm not abandoning you. But I won't steal from a man who's shown me kindness. Not for you, and not for anyone."
Tagan stared at him for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
"Gods, Jon. You really are from the North, aren't you? All that honor and duty." He shook his head. "Fine. Keep your fish seller. But don't expect us to save you when he throws you out on the street."
"I won't," Jon said.
But he didn't think Brusco would throw him out. And he was right.
The encounter happened on a Tuesday, two months after Jon started working at the stall.
He was running a delivery to a tavern near the Moon Pool when a man stepped into his path. Thin as a reed, bald as an egg, with dark skin and eyes that glittered with amusement.
"You are late with your clams," the man observed. His accent was strange—Braavosi, but with something else underneath. Something musical.
"I'm sorry, sir. The crowds—"
"A man does not apologize for the crowds. A man apologizes for his own slowness." The stranger tilted his head, studying Jon with unnerving intensity. "But you are not slow because you are lazy. You are slow because you are watching, observing, and learning the shape of the city."
Jon's skin prickled. "How do you know that?"
"Because I was the same, once. A boy from a foreign land, alone in a city of masks." The man smiled. "I am Syrio Forel, and you are the kid who works for old Brusco."
"Jon. Just Jon."
"Just Jon," Syrio repeated the name like he was tasting it. "There is no just about you, I think. You move like someone who knows how to move but has not learned how to use it. You watch like a swordsman, but you carry no sword."
Jon's breath caught. No one in Braavos knew about Marcus's memories. No one knew about the fragments of skill locked in his mind.
"I don't know what you mean."
"No?" Syrio stepped closer. His movements were strange—fluid, almost dancerly, each step precise and deliberate. "Then show me. Attack me."
"What?"
"Attack me. With your hands, your feet, or whatever you like. Show me what you are."
"I'm a fish seller's delivery boy."
"You are a lie wearing a boy's face." Syrio's smile widened. "But that is all right. Braavos is a city of lies. The question is what truth hides beneath them."
Jon hesitated. Then, because curiosity was stronger than caution, he set down his crate of clams and raised his fists.
He threw a punch—a clumsy thing, telegraphed from a mile away. Syrio sidestepped it without seeming to move.
Jon tried again. A kick this time, aimed at Syrio's knee. The older man simply wasn't there when Jon's foot arrived.
A third attempt. A fourth. Each time, Syrio evaded effortlessly, his smile never wavering.
"Slow," Syrio observed. "Heavy. Predictable." He caught Jon's wrist, twisted gently, and Jon found himself on his knees before he understood what had happened. "But there is something beneath the slowness. You see the openings. You know where to strike. Your body simply cannot execute what your mind commands."
Jon stared up at him, heart pounding. "How did you—"
"I was First Sword to the Sealord of Braavos for nine years." Syrio released him and stepped back. "I have seen a thousand students. I know the difference between ignorance and imprisonment. You are not ignorant, Just Jon. You are imprisoned—trapped in a body that has not yet learned to obey you."
"Can you help me?"
The question came out before Jon could stop it. Desperate, hungry, a child's plea dressed in a child's voice.
Syrio studied him for a long moment.
"Perhaps," he said finally. "But not today. Today, you have clams to deliver." He gestured toward the tavern. "Go. Finish your work. And when you are ready to begin truly learning—not just watching, but becoming—come find me. I teach in the mornings at the courtyard near the Moon Pool."
"I can't pay—"
"I did not ask for payment." Syrio smiled one last time. "I asked for a student. Whether you become one... that is up to you."
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd as if he'd never existed.
Jon stood alone in the street, the crate of clams forgotten at his feet, his heart racing with a hope he didn't dare name.
A teacher, he thought. A real teacher.
Maybe the mountain wasn't as far away as he'd feared.
Jon didn't go to Syrio's courtyard.
It wasn't cowardice—or at least, he told himself it wasn't. It was practicality. He had obligations: to Brusco, who depended on him for deliveries and record-keeping; to the Canal Rats, who still shared their food and shelter despite his defection to honest work; and to himself, because learning to fight wouldn't fill his belly or pay for passage east.
East. The word pulled at him constantly, a hook buried somewhere beneath his ribs. Marcus's memories whispered of Yi Ti—the Golden Empire, where masters trained in arts that made Westerosi sword work look like children's play. The breathing techniques that Jon couldn't access properly, the skills locked behind a body too young and weak to use them... The answers were in the East.
But the East was thousands of leagues away, across oceans Jon couldn't afford to cross. And in the meantime, he was here, in Braavos, a fish-seller's boy with nothing but fragments.
"You're restless," Brusco observed one evening, watching Jon pace the stall while they waited for the last customers. "Have been for weeks. Something eating at you?"
"Just thinking."
"Thinking about what?"
Jon hesitated. Then, because Brusco had earned his honesty: "Leaving. Going further east."
"East." Brusco's expression didn't change. "To where?"
"Yi Ti, eventually."
"Yi Ti." The old man let out a low whistle. "That's a long way, boy. Past Volantis, past Qarth, past the Jade Gates. A year's voyage, if you're lucky. Three years if you're not."
"I know."
"Do you?" Brusco leaned against his counter, studying Jon with those weathered eyes. "I've seen your type before, you know. Children with too much behind their eyes. Children running from something, or toward something, or both. Most of them end up dead before they cross the Narrow Sea. The ones that survive... they learn that the destination matters less than the journey."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're six years old, and Yi Ti will still be there when you're sixteen." Brusco's voice softened. "Build your strength. Learn your skills. Make your money. And when you're ready—truly ready—then go."
"How will I know when I'm ready?"
Brusco smiled. "You won't. But you'll go anyway, and the world will either kill you or teach you." He reached under the counter and pulled out a small pouch. "Here. Your wages for the month—and a bit extra. Call it a travel fund."
Jon took the pouch. It was heavier than he expected.
"I can't—"
"You can, and you will." Brusco's tone brooked no argument. "Consider it an investment. Someday, when you're a great lord in Yi Ti with gold falling from your pockets, you'll remember old Brusco, who gave you your first honest job. And you'll smile."
Jon's throat tightened. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me." Brusco turned away, gruff as always. "Work harder."
Epilogue
The ship bound for Pentos left on a grey morning, three months after Jon arrived in Braavos.
He stood at the rail as the city receded—the Titan growing smaller, the canals becoming threads of silver, and the great houses shrinking to dollhouse miniatures. Dalla had come to see him off; she stood on the dock below, a small figure with a raised hand.
"Don't die, Jon!" she shouted across the water.
"I'll try!" Jon called back.
He watched until she disappeared into the crowd. Then he turned to face the open sea.
In his pocket, he carried the wages he'd saved, the knife Yoren had given him, and the lucky coin from Marro. In his mind, he carried Marcus's fragments—still incomplete, still frustrating, but clearer now than they'd been in Winterfell. Three months of honest work had taught him patience. Three months of hunger and cold had taught him resilience. Three months of Braavos had taught him that survival wasn't about power—it was about persistence.
The map is not the journey, he reminded himself. But I've taken the first steps. And every step brings me closer to the peak.
Somewhere beyond the horizon lay Pentos. Beyond that, Volantis. Beyond that, Qarth and the Jade Sea and Yi Ti—the Golden Empire where the answers waited.
Jon Snow gripped the rail and faced the wind.
The journey was far from over. But he was no longer standing still.