The dust had only just begun to settle.
Jon's ears still rang from the impact above when pressure flooded the clearing--an invisible weight that bent the wind inward and drew the breath from his lungs. The air tightened around him as if the world itself braced for ruin. Stone trembled beneath his boots.
Then the presence fully took shape.
Margit, as it called itself, loomed in the stormlit dark, ragged fur and jutting bone outlined against the roiling sky--a silhouette that moved with a wrongness Jon felt more than saw. Nothing born of the earth had ever carried itself like this.
The first blow came not from the staff, but from the sheer force of Margit's presence.
Jon stepped forward anyway. Longclaw rose in his hands. The battle art hummed through the guard--quiet as a held breath. Jon matched it, drawing in the cold, calm familiarity from the Wall, from the dead, from men who had tried to kill him, and from the ones who had succeeded.
At his side, Melina moved with him.
Margit dragged his iron staff across the ground, slow as a man sharpening a blade on stone. Sparks spat. A warning. A promise.
"So…" Margit breathed, the word curling like rot through winter air, "another Tarnished comes to test the depths of folly."
Jon set his feet. "I don't know your quarrel with me. But I won't stand aside."
A rasp of cruel amusement slipped from Margit's throat.
"Bold words from brittle bone." His golden eyes narrowed. "Thy ambition stinks of fresh blood."
The creature circled, measuring him. Jon matched the motion, closing the distance by inches. The air tasted metallic--like the breath before lightning strikes. Margit watched his approach with the still attention of a predator deciding how long to savor its meal.
"I protect those with me. That's all."
"A vow of protection?" Margit hissed. "Such vows are graves waiting to be dug."
Jon didn't answer. He surged forward.
But Margit was faster.
The staff descended in a blur, far too fast for something so massive. Jon raised Longclaw just in time--steel catching iron with a scream of pressure that rattled his bones and made his muscles scream. The impact drove him to one knee. The earth cracked beneath him like thin ice.
Margit leaned into the locked blades, breath a cold whisper against Jon's ear: "Feel it, Tarnished. The truth of thy strength."
Golden light flared.
Melina's hand snapped forward, and a thin arc of light--a dagger--struck Margit's staff, not to break it, but to deflect the killing angle by inches. Jon wrenched free as the pressure shifted, rolling aside as Margit's follow-through shattered stone where his spine had been.
Margit's eyes then flicked to Melina with marked interest.
"So. The maiden dares bare her hand."
Jon snarled and advanced. But Margit was already moving.
His free hand snapped forward--wreathed in sudden golden light. Spectral daggers bloomed around him, six gleaming blades orbiting like predatory stars.
"Move!" Rogier shouted.
Jon threw himself sideways an instant before the daggers shot forth. They tore into the stone where he had been, exploding shards into the air. One grazed his shoulder--a burning kiss of light that numbed the whole arm.
Two others were stopped mid-flight.
They struck Melina's outstretched palm and dissolved into drifting sparks, unraveled by quiet authority rather than force. Margit observed this with dangerous amusement.
"Ah… still clutching at faith."
Melina's breath hitched once, but she did not retreat.
"Your judgment is not the only one that binds this world," she said.
Jon forced feeling back into his arm with a shake and charged. Longclaw swept for Margit's flank--fast, decisive, meant to slice. The blow caught cloth, maybe skin beneath; Margit recoiled a step, not in pain, but in annoyance.
Rogier, breath shaking, lifted his staff and loosed a spell--blue light streaking toward Margit like a spear of frozen moonlight.
Margit pivoted. His staff swept sideways with contemptuous ease.
The spell shattered into harmless sparks.
Rogier staggered. "Keep close!" he gasped. "He strikes hardest at range!"
Margit's eyes flicked toward the sorcerer, amused.
"Another feeble scholar meddling with powers he does not understand."
Jon pressed the attack, slipping beneath Margit's return swing. Longclaw sparked across the creature's limb--a hit that should have crippled a man.
Margit barely felt it.
His grin widened, teeth like cracked stone.
"Ambition stirs in thee... Thou wilt break most beautifully."
Jon didn't waste breath on an answer. He adjusted his stance, narrowing it and preparing for the next assault. Margit's gaze sharpened, hunting for cracks in Jon's resolve the way other beasts hunted for the throat.
Jon braced.
Something behind Margit shifted.
It was subtle--just a flicker in the ragged hem of his cloak--but Jon caught it a moment too late. Something coiled in the shadow behind Margit, something long and pale and wrong.
A tail.
Jon's eyes widened. What--?
It lashed out.
The impact hit like a battering ram, slamming across Jon's ribs with a sickening crack. The world spun sideways. Stone rushed up to meet him. His breath vanished in a single crushed gasp.
He lay there, struggling to remember how lungs worked, throat closing up and hands clawing at grit.
Margit's steps approached, measured, leisurely, as though savoring the moment.
"A pity," he murmured, voice thick with mock sympathy. "Thou guardest well… but only that which fears thee more than I."
Jon forced himself up onto one knee. Pain radiated down his side--sharp, bright, real. A broken rib. Maybe two.
Margit circled him like a hunter assessing wounded prey.
"Look at thee. Crawling back to thy feet. Not for thine own sake."
His head tilted, those sunken golden eyes gleaming.
"But for them."
Jon staggered upright, Longclaw dragging a line in the stone before he found his balance.
Margit's smile sharpened.
"A noble flaw. Protectiveness. A useless burden that will see thee slain ten thousand times over."
The words sank deeper than Jon expected.
Margit leaned close enough that Jon felt the cold radiating from his skin.
"Tell me, little Tarnished… whose ghost do thy trembling hands grasp for? Whose judgment dost thou fear more than mine?"
Jon gritted his teeth, lifting Longclaw despite the fire in his ribs.
"I don't fear you."
Margit's snarl curved into satisfaction.
"Lie to thyself if thou must. It shall not change thy fate."
A soft sound broke the moment.
Melina stepped forward again, light bleeding from her raised hand as she drew upon the last of that quiet authority.
Margit's eyes flicked to her at once.
Not annoyed.
Interested.
"Still thou reachest," he murmured. "Still thou errs."
He moved faster than Jon could track.
The staff did not come for Jon.
It came for her.
The iron tip carved through the storm in a brutal, arcing sweep. Melina threw up a hastily formed ward of golden light. It shattered on contact with a sound like breaking glass.
The blow struck her full across the side.
She was flung backward as if struck by a siege engine, her cry ripped from her as she hit the stone hard and skidded across the broken ground.
"Melina!" Jon choked.
She tried to rise but fell again.
She pressed one hand to her ribs, breath shuddering, the golden light that answered her will now thin, unsteady, dimmed by pain and whatever curse rode the staff's strike.
Margit did not pursue her.
He had already decided her fate.
"A light may guide," he said coldly. "But it is flesh that breaks."
Then--
"Jon."
Melina's voice was quiet, calm, and ringing like a bell through the haze. Jon turned his head just enough to see her through the torn wind and drifting ash. Her gaze touched him with something like sorrow, something like warning.
That single word steadied him more than his own breath.
Margit followed Jon's glance and laughed, a low, scraping sound.
"So. The maiden leaves her mark upon thy shattered spirit." He lifted his staff, point dragging sparks. "How sweet. How doomed."
Jon tightened his grip on Longclaw. His ribs screamed. His vision tunneled at the edges.
But he stood.
And that, it seemed, infuriated Margit. "Rise again, then," the omen hissed, cloak rippling with unnatural life. "Rise… and be broken properly."
Margit grew still.
That alone unnerved Jon more than any motion.
The wind slackened.
Then Margit opened his clawed hand.
Raw gold light coiled into existence above his palm. Not warm. Not holy. A hammer formed in the air piece by piece: a shaft of light, a massive head blooming like molten stone, runes writhing across its surface.
Jon's breath caught.
That will kill me.
Margit lifted the hammer with terrible ease.
"Behold," the omen rasped, "the weight of true judgment."
Rogier's voice broke from behind Jon--strangled, frantic.
"Jon! Move--MOVE!"
A volley of spectral blades streaked past Jon's shoulder, Rogier's magic cutting blue arcs through the stormlit air. They struck Margit's side--
--and fizzled like sparks against an anvil.
Margit didn't even turn his head.
"Paltry sorcery," he said again, almost bored.
Jon forced his body to respond--to step forward, to raise Longclaw, to breathe--but every motion dragged fire through his ribs. His vision throbbed. His muscles shook. Fear clawed the edges of thought.
Jon swallowed hard, braced, and raised Longclaw.
Margit smiled.
"So be it."
He brought the hammer down.
The world detonated.
Stone burst apart beneath the impact--shards blasting outward like shrapnel. A shockwave ripped across the plateau, hurling Jon from his feet. He slammed into the ground, skidding across cracked rock, the breath torn from his lungs. Pain flared white-hot down his spine.
He struggled to rise.
The earth buckled under Margit's next steps.
Jon made it to his hands and knees, gasping, vision flickering. The staff stabbed into the ground beside his head, vibrating through the stone like a judge's gavel calling sentence.
Margit leaned close.
His breath was cold and wrong, like winter inside a tomb.
"Any last words, Tarnished?"
Jon's jaw clenched. His voice trembled but did not break.
"All that talk, and you still have to crush the wounded to feel tall."
Margit's grin disappeared, and the hammer rose again. It's golden glow staining the clouds. Melina shouted his name. Rogier cried out something choked with dread. Jon lifted Longclaw in a final, failing guard.
Margit brought the hammer down. Golden light swallowed the world for a heartbeat.
Stone shattered. Pain carved through Jon like a falling star.
Margit's final words echoed through the fading dark:
"Put these foolish ambitions… to rest."
And Jon Snow died.
***
Death did not come as cold.
There was no darkness waiting for Jon--no snowy quiet, no old gods, no faces carved in roots or pale weirwood dreams. There was only light.
Blinding, root-white radiance.
It poured through him, unmaking him from the inside out. Pain went first. Then weight. Then breath. His thoughts unraveled like a thread pulled from a burning cloth, thinning, thinning--
He reached for Melina's voice.
For Rogier's cry.
For Ghost.
They slipped through him like smoke.
Somewhere far below, his heart stopped.
Somewhere impossibly far above, something vast and ancient noticed.
And then--
The world returned all at once.
Jon gasped as though torn from deep water. Air flooded his lungs in a burning rush. Cold stone kissed his back. Night pressed in on all sides. The scent of moss, damp earth, and old iron filled his senses.
He lay beneath a broken arch of a ruined church.
Moonlight spilled through shattered stone like liquid silver.
For a long moment, he did not move. His body felt whole, no broken ribs, no shattered breath, yet the memory of dying still rang through his bones like an echo trapped in marrow.
Margit killed me.
The thought struck harder than the hammer.
Jon pushed himself upright slowly, half expecting pain to tear him back down. None came. Only a hollow ache, as if something essential had been pulled loose and imperfectly tied back in place.
Then he heard it.
Soft footfalls.
A familiar breath.
A white shape emerged from behind a fallen pillar.
"Ghost…"
The direwolf padded toward him, fur pale as snow under moonlight, red eyes burning with living warmth. Jon fell to his knees without thinking and buried trembling hands in thick, solid fur.
"You're real," he whispered hoarsely. "You're real…"
Ghost pressed his head against Jon's chest and rumbled. A sound that said here. A bond that death had failed to sever. Jon closed his eyes and clung to him until his heartbeat slowed.
A quiet step echoed behind them.
Melina stood beneath the tallest broken arch, the golden glow of Grace flickering beside her like a restrained star. Her hood shadowed most of her face, but her eye shone with something fragile and fierce.
"You returned," she said softly.
Jon rose unsteadily. "Margit--he hurt you and--" His voice faltered. "He killed me."
"Aye," Melina answered. "And grace brought you back."
The word sat wrong in his chest. Heavy. Unchosen.
"In the Lands Between," she continued gently, "those touched by grace do not pass into true death. Your spirit is called back to the last place the world acknowledged you."
She gestured around.
"The Church of Elleh."
Jon looked down at his own hands. Unbroken. Alive. "I felt myself die."
"You will again," she said. "Many times. Such is the fate of the Tarnished."
Jon's jaw clenched. "I didn't ask for this."
"No," Melina murmured. "This land rarely cares what is asked."
The air shifted.
Cold crept through the church like a tide. Moonlight thickened between the stones, curling into silver mist. Ghost's hackles rose as he stepped protectively in front of Jon.
Melina's posture sharpened.
From the swirling pale, a figure emerged, wrapped in robes of layered white like frozen twilight. A wide, shadowed hat bowed over a pale blue face lit by eyes like winter stars. Her presence felt distant and intimate at once--half here, half elsewhere. A puppet.
"A pleasure to see thee returned, Tarnished."
Her voice chimed like frost cracking on glass.
Jon's hand drifted reflexively toward Longclaw, but instinct told him steel would mean nothing here. "Who are you?"
She inclined her head.
"Renna, some call me. A wanderer beneath the moon."