The ship's deck rolled gently beneath Jon's feet as Volantis disappeared into the morning haze behind them. For the first time since fleeing Winterfell, he felt something dangerously close to peace. Beside him, Kerys—Alya, she'd whispered last night, my real name was Alya—stood watching dolphins race alongside their vessel, and she was actually smiling.
"We did it," she said, wonder in her voice. "We're free."
"You are. You're going to Braavos."
She turned to him, and Jon was struck by how different she looked when not terrified. She appeared younger, yet her experiences had still aged her. "Not yet. I'll travel with you to Qarth. Make sure you're safe."
"You don't have to—"
"You saved my life. Let me help you survive yours." She bumped his shoulder gently. "Besides, someone needs to teach you how to fight properly. You've got instincts, but instincts aren't enough."
Jon wanted to protest, but the warmth in her eyes stopped him. When had anyone last looked at him without fear or calculation? Not since Robb, that last night in Winterfell.
"Alright," he said. "To Qarth, then."
They spent the morning training on the forecastle while other passengers gave them space. Alya showed him where to strike to disable rather than kill—the hollow behind the knee, the soft spot beneath the ribs, the nerve cluster at the base of the skull.
"You're quick for your age," she said, circling him with a practice knife. "Quicker than you should be. But quick doesn't mean invincible. Someone who knows what they're doing, someone who's prepared—they could take you easily."
"Like who?"
She moved, and suddenly her wooden blade was at his throat. Jon hadn't even seen her shift.
"Like anyone who's survived as long as I have." Her eyes were serious. "You've got something strange in you, Jon Snow. I've seen flashes of it. But whatever it is, you can't control it. You can't count on it. So learn to fight like a normal person first."
Jon knocked her blade away and grinned. "Show me again."
Seven days out from Volantis, they made port at Yunkai.
Jon had argued for sailing straight through to Qarth, but the captain needed supplies, and the ship's water barrels had developed a leak.
"One night," the captain promised. "We sail with the morning tide."
The city reeked before they even reached the dock—sweat and waste and something else, something that made Jon's stomach clench. Fear, he realized. The entire city stank of fear.
"I hate this place already," Alya muttered, pressing closer to him as they descended the gangplank.
Yellow brick pyramids rose above the city like diseased teeth, and in their shadows sprawled the markets. Not goods or food, but people. Hundreds of them, chained and collared, standing on blocks while buyers prodded their muscles and peered at their teeth.
Jon's rage was a living thing, clawing at his chest. A child no older than five was being torn from her mother's arms, both screaming, sold to different buyers who walked in opposite directions.
"Don't." Alya grabbed his arm before he could move. "You can't save them all."
"But—"
"I know. Believe me, I know." Her voice cracked. "But you're seven years old, Jon. You're one boy. Stay alive first. Then fight."
They'd made it three streets from the harbor when the trap sprung.
The alley had been chosen with care.
Narrow enough that a child couldn't dodge effectively. Far enough from main streets that screams wouldn't draw attention. Close enough to the harbor that they could be dragged to a ship quickly if needed.
Vakkos had spent considerable gold arranging this moment. Informants in Volantis, on the ship, and in Yunkai itself. All of this was done to catch the child who had aided in the murder of his brother.
He didn't care about the woman—she was just property, and property could be replaced. But the boy had helped her escape, had created the chaos that led to Maelor's death. The boy would pay.
"Run, Jon!" The woman—Kerys, though Vakkos knew that wasn't her real name—already had a knife in her hand.
"No running," Vakkos said calmly. "We've watched you for weeks. Planned this."
Ten men blocked the alley's exit. Ten more closed in from behind. Vakkos had learned from his brother's mistakes—overwhelming force, no chances, no room for heroics.
The boy's eyes darted, calculating. Vakkos saw him tense, saw something flicker behind those grey eyes—
And then Vakkos's hired bravo moved.
The water dancer was expensive—three hundred gold honors for a single night's work. But he was worth every coin. He'd spent years studying the fastest fighters in Essos, learning to counter speed with precision.
The boy tried to move—tried to reach for whatever strange quickness Vakkos had heard rumors about. But the bravo was already there, catching the child mid-motion and slamming him into the alley wall. The boy's head cracked against stone.
The woman fought viciously—she killed Gavos with a throat strike before three men subdued her. Impressive, but futile.
"Let her go," the boy gasped from where the bravo held him pinned. Blood ran down his temple. "I'm the one you want."
"Noble. But she's complicit. She fled my brother. Both of you pay."
"I owe him nothing!" The woman spat blood. "I was PROPERTY!"
"Yes," Vakkos agreed. "And property that destroys property is destroyed. Simple economics."
He studied the boy—Jon Snow, he'd learned. A bastard from the North who'd somehow crossed half the world. Just a child, really. But children could be dangerous too.
"Bring them," he ordered. "The Wise Masters have already agreed to a public example."
They erected the crosses in the Square of Punishment just after dawn, when the crowds would be thick with slaves being marched to their day's labor. Examples were most effective with the largest audience.
Jon had screamed himself hoarse during the night, beating his small fists bloody against the cell bars. Now, dragged into the square, he'd gone quiet with a horror too large for sound.
"This woman fled her lawful master," Vakkos announced in Ghiscari, then repeated in the Common Tongue for the boy's benefit. "She was aided by this Westerosi savage who caused my brother's death. Justice demands blood. The Wise Masters agree."
They crucified Alya first.
Jon didn't know the technical details—that they drove the nails through the wrists rather than the palms, because the hands couldn't support the weight. He only knew the sound of the hammer, the wet crunch of iron through flesh, and Alya's single scream before she went silent with shock.
They hauled her up. She hung there, already struggling to breathe as her weight pulled against her pierced wrists.
"STOP!" Jon's voice broke. "Kill me! NOT HER!"
"You'll watch," Vakkos said. "You'll understand the cost of your arrogance."
Jon erupted. He threw himself at the guards, fists and feet and teeth, fighting with everything he had. For one desperate moment he reached for the power inside him, the Thunder that Marcus's memories promised—
Pain exploded through his chest. His heart stuttered, skipped beats. His vision went white at the edges.
He collapsed in the dirt, convulsing, blood trickling from his nose, and a guard's spear butt cracked against his ribs to keep him down.
The cup cannot hold the ocean, Marcus's voice whispered through the agony. Not yet. Not yet.
Jon lay in the dust, tasting blood, and watched Alya die by degrees.
It took three hours.
Crucifixion killed slowly—the body sagged, the lungs couldn't expand, and the victim had to push themselves up on pierced wrists to gasp each breath. Again and again, until exhaustion won and the breathing stopped.
The crowd thinned as the spectacle became mere endurance. But Jon watched every moment. Even when guards tried to turn his head away, he watched. He owed her that much.
Near the end, her eyes found his.
"Not... your fault..." The words were barely a breath, but Jon heard them. "Jon Snow. Be... free."
She died with the noon sun overhead, her body finally unable to fight for another breath.
"ALYA!" Jon screamed her true name to the uncaring sky. "ALYA!"
Vakkos knelt beside him. "Now you understand. Actions have consequences. You wanted to be a hero? Heroes get people killed."
"Kill me," Jon whispered.
"No. You'll live. As a slave. You wanted to free slaves? Become one first. Learn what you were trying to destroy."
Grazdan mo Yunkai was not a cruel master by Ghiscari standards. He didn't beat slaves for pleasure, didn't take the young ones to his bed, and didn't work them to death for sport. He was a businessman, and damaged goods sold poorly.
The Westerosi boy, though—a gift from that Myrish merchant—was intriguing.
"Pretty features," he mused, examining the child. "Could be trained for bed service. The Qartheen like exotic."
The boy's eyes flickered with something—rage, maybe, or desperation—but his body didn't move. He was learning already.
"Brand him with the household mark," Grazdan ordered. "Put him with Dhara. She's good with the difficult ones."
The iron was a work of art, really. Grazdan's personal sigil—a harpy clutching coins. It would mark the boy as property for the rest of his life.
They held the child down, one guard on each limb. The iron hissed against the flesh of his left shoulder blade. The boy screamed—a sound that echoed off the compound walls—and the smell of burning meat filled the air.
Then, mercifully, he fainted.
"Take him to the training cells," Grazdan ordered. "We'll see what he's made of."
The boy woke slowly, whimpering before his eyes opened. Dhara had seen enough new slaves to recognize the stages—confusion, denial, rage, despair, and finally, if they were lucky, acceptance.
"You're awake. Good. Thought you'd die from shock."
His grey eyes focused on her. "Where...?"
"Master Grazdan's compound. Training facility." She kept her voice neutral. "You're a slave now."
She watched him process the knowledge, saw the moment his mind simply refused to accept it. He curled into a ball and said nothing more for two days.
Dhara kept him alive anyway. She'd been where he was—that first terrible realization that you were property, that your body wasn't yours, that your life had become a thing owned by another. She spooned water between his cracked lips and forced small bits of bread into his mouth.
On the third day, he spoke: "Why did you come back?"
"What?"
"The guard said you were freed once. You came back. Why?"
Dhara studied this strange boy who'd been tortured and branded but still had enough mind to question. "Because freedom meant starvation. The streets of Qarth had no work, no food, no shelter. Here, I'm owned but alive."
"Better to die than—"
"Is it?" She cut him off. "I was dying slowly, begging for scraps, selling my body for bread that might be moldy. Here I have food, shelter, purpose."
"You're not alive. You're just surviving."
"And what were you doing, little warrior? Before this? Running from place to place, always one step from capture or death—how is that freedom?"
The boy flinched.
"She died because you thought yourself a hero," Dhara pressed. She had to break him of this—the delusion that one person could change anything. "How many others have died for your righteousness?"
"I tried to help."
"You tried to feel righteous. There's a difference." She softened her voice. "You want to free slaves? Get power first. Real power. An army, gold, influence. Killing one slaver, freeing one woman—that's nothing. The system continues."
"So I should do nothing?"
"No. Do something that matters. Not grand gestures that get people killed."
He looked at her with eyes too old for his face. "Like you? Just accept chains?"
"I accept reality. When you're powerful enough to change reality, then act. Until then, survive."
Time ceased to have meaning in Grazdan's compound.
Jon woke when water was thrown on him, ate whatever gruel was provided, endured whatever training or punishment the day brought, and collapsed into exhausted sleep that brought only nightmares.
Day twelve: he refused an order to kneel. They whipped him—ten lashes that left his back a ruin of split skin.
Day eighteen: he tried to escape, running for the wall in the dark. They caught him within twenty steps—the compound was designed to prevent exactly such attempts. They broke two fingers on his right hand as punishment. They healed crookedly.
Day twenty-three: he collapsed during training. They denied him food for two days.
Day thirty: they made him watch as another slave was beaten to death for stealing bread. The boy had been perhaps nine years old.
Day thirty-eight: Jon stopped speaking entirely.
The worst part was how Marcus's memories kept invading his own. He'd dream of being tortured in another world, of watching comrades die while he stood helpless. He'd wake unsure if he was Jon Snow enslaved in Yunkai or Marcus Chen dying again and again.
Am I Jon, who has Marcus's memories? He wondered in the dark of the cell. Or Marcus, who thinks he's Jon? Or just meat in chains, dreaming it was ever anything else?
Sometimes, in the depths of night, he would try to reach for the techniques. The Thunder. The Water. The Beast. But every time he touched them, pain exploded through his chest and the power slipped away like water through fingers. His body was too young. Too damaged. Too broken.
The cup cannot hold the ocean, Marcus's voice whispered. Not yet.
But "not yet" felt like "never" when you were seven years old and chained in the dark.
Dhara kept him functional, sharing her food when he couldn't eat and cleaning his wounds when they festered.
"You think you're special," she told him one night. "You're not. You're just another body. We all are."
She was right, Jon knew. He wasn't special. He was nothing. He was just a broken thing that once had a name.
On the fiftieth day of Jon's captivity, Moqorro came to bless the compound.
Jon barely looked up when the slaves were gathered in the courtyard. Red priests sometimes came to sanctify the training houses, blessing the slaves to be obedient and the masters to be prosperous. It was obscene, but Jon had lost the capacity for outrage weeks ago.
Then the priest stopped directly in front of him.
"You burn wrongly," Moqorro whispered.
Jon looked up, confused. The priest was tall and dark-skinned with flames tattooed across his face. His eyes held depths that made Jon think of the braziers in Winterfell's great hall.
"Two flames in one vessel," Moqorro continued. "The dead man's fire and the boy's ice. Impossible."
"Who are you?" Jon's voice was rusty from disuse.
"Moqorro, priest of R'hllor. I see truth in flames. And you... you are an abomination. An impossibility."
The word should have hurt, but Jon was beyond hurt. "What do you want?"
"Nothing. But the Lord of Light shows me things. I saw you months ago, across the sea. The flames showed two paths." Moqorro's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "First: you become the storm. Lightning clothed in flesh. Cities burn. Empires fall. You break the world."
Jon waited.
"Second: the world breaks you. You die screaming, forgotten, chains rusted into your bones."
"Which happens?"
"You choose. Every moment, you choose."
Grazdan approached, nervous around the holy man. "Priest, this slave gives us trouble. He's stubborn."
Moqorro didn't look away from Jon. "This slave is cursed. I see demons in him."
Grazdan paled. "Cursed?"
"Haunted by the dead. You should sell him before the curse spreads."
As quickly as that, Jon's fate changed. Grazdan, deeply superstitious like most who dealt in human misery, would have him sold within the week.
"Help me escape," Jon whispered as Moqorro turned to go.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because this suffering is your forge. You will either become steel, or you will shatter. Either way, R'hllor's will be done."
The priest walked away, leaving Jon with nothing but prophecies and the promise of more pain.
The Qartheen merchant who bought him seemed disappointed by his purchase. Jon stood on the auction block, not responding to prodding or questions, and sold for barely the cost of feeding him.
They loaded him with twelve other slaves bound for Qarth—household servants, bed slaves, and a few fighters for the entertainment pits. Jon was chained in the hold and promptly forgotten.
For days, he drifted in the space between sleep and waking, between Jon and Marcus, between living and just breathing.
Then the storm hit.
It came from nowhere—a wall of wind and water that sent the ship heeling hard to port. The crew scrambled to save the vessel, forgetting entirely about their cargo below.
Water poured through the grating. The other slaves screamed, pulling at chains as the hold flooded. Jon watched the water rise with detachment. Drowning might be peaceful. Certainly better than—
"Be free."
Alya's last words hit him like lightning.
"Survive. Learn. Grow."
Dhara's advice, given despite everything.
"You choose. Every moment, you choose."
Moqorro's prophecy, waiting for an answer.
Jon looked at the water rising around his chest. Looked at the chains binding his wrists to the bulkhead. Looked at the other slaves, screaming, dying, giving up.
He could give up too. It would be so easy.
But Alya had died telling him to be free.
Jon didn't reach for the techniques—he knew better now, knew his body couldn't hold them. Instead, he reached for something simpler: the memory of a lesson from the Mermaid's Grace, a lifetime ago. How sailors picked locks with bent wire when they lost their keys.
His broken fingers screamed as he worked at the chains. The lock mechanism was crude—Ghiscari work, built for strength rather than sophistication. Jon had no wire, but he had the thin bone fragment he'd been hiding in his mouth for weeks, saved from a meal, sharpened against the cell floor.
The water reached his chin.
Click.
The chains fell away.
Jon swam for the grating as the hold flooded completely. Other slaves grabbed at him, desperate, drowning. He couldn't save them—they were chained, and there was no time, no way—
You can't save everyone.
He surfaced on a deck in chaos. The mast had cracked. Sailors clung to whatever they could find. No one noticed one small slave pulling himself over the rail.
Jon saw the coastline in flashes of lightning. Not close, but possible. He'd grown up swimming in the cold rivers around Winterfell. He knew how to float, how to conserve energy, how to let the current carry him rather than fight it.
He jumped.
The sea tried to kill him immediately. Waves drove him under, spun him, stole his breath. But Jon didn't fight the water—he let it carry him, swimming only in the troughs between waves, floating when exhaustion threatened to drag him down.
Hours passed. Or minutes. He couldn't tell.
When he finally crawled onto the beach below Qarth's walls, he lay in the sand and laughed. Or cried. He couldn't tell the difference anymore.
The guard at the Eagle Gate looked at him with disgust. Jon knew what he saw—a scarred child with a slave brand, whip marks, and crooked fingers. Refuse.
"Who are you?"
"No one," Jon croaked.
"Runaway slave?"
"Escaped."
The guard shrugged. "Qarth accepts no slaves within its walls. If you enter, you're free by law. But we don't feed strays."
Jon passed through the gates into a city of marble gardens, fountains, and palaces. He saw none of it. His world had shrunk to the next meal, the next safe place to sleep, the next breath.
Street children found him collapsed in an alley three nights later. They were nothing like the Canal Rats of Braavos—harder, warier, damaged in ways that had nothing to do with simple poverty.
"You're new," one said. "Westerosi?"
Jon nodded weakly.
"Come. We'll feed you. For now."
They led him to an abandoned building that might once have been a temple. Other children huddled in corners—escaped slaves, orphans, the unwanted. Jon found a space against a wall and sat, staring at nothing.
When night fell, he examined himself by moonlight.
The brand on his shoulder blade—a scar in the shape of ownership that would never fade.
His fingers on his right hand—bent wrong where they'd been broken, aching when the weather changed.
Whip scars across his back—a map of pain that would follow him forever.
In his other hand, he clutched the one thing he'd managed to keep through everything: Alya's jade coin, her mother's luck charm, pressed into his palm the night before Yunkai. He'd hidden it in his mouth during the branding, swallowed it during the worst beatings, retrieved it again and again. It was worthless. It was everything.
I left Winterfell to be free, he thought. I've been chained, branded, and broken.
I wanted to matter. I've caused only death.
Marcus's knowledge didn't save me. It made me arrogant.
I'm seven years old. And I've seen more horror than most see in lifetimes.
Somewhere to the east, Yi Ti waited beyond the Jade Sea. Masters who could teach him. Power that could be earned through discipline and dedication.
But why go? What was the point? He'd failed everyone who'd trusted him. Alya was dead because of him. Dhara remained a slave. Even Moqorro's god had offered no salvation.
But Alya had said, "Be free."
Dhara had said, "Get power."
Moqorro had said, "Choose."
Jon didn't know what path he was choosing anymore. He didn't know whether he was choosing at all or just being dragged forward by momentum and the inability to stop.
But when dawn broke over Qarth's walls, he stood.
His body protested every movement—hunger, wounds, exhaustion. But he stood. He walked toward the docks where ships sailed the Jade Sea.
Because the only thing worse than moving forward in pain was stopping and drowning in it.
He didn't reach for the techniques. He knew they were beyond him—locked behind walls of physical limitation that wouldn't break for years, if ever. He had only his body, his mind, and his stubbornness.
It would have to be enough.
Seven years old, Jon Snow had crossed the Summer Sea in chains. He had watched the woman who believed in him die on a cross. Been branded like cattle. Beaten like a dog. Broken like cheap pottery.
He carried scars now—not just Marcus Chen's memories, but his own wounds. Flesh marked by ownership. Fingers that would never straighten. A back that would always remember the whip.
And he carried names: Alya, who died believing in freedom. Dhara, who chose survival and showed him his arrogance. Vakkos, who taught him that actions had consequences. Moqorro, who saw his future and offered nothing but choices.
Somewhere east, the Golden Empire waited. Perhaps there, a broken boy could find purpose. Or perhaps he'd just find more ways to fail.
Jon didn't know.
But he walked toward the ships anyway, because stopping meant admitting that everyone who'd died—Alya, pieces of himself—had died for nothing.
The sun rose over the Jade Sea, painting the water gold and blood.
Jon Snow—bastard, runaway, survivor, slave, free man, broken thing—walked toward it.
"I'm still breathing," he thought.
"Barely," Marcus's memory answered.
"But still breathing."