A War of Fate and Prophecy

Chapter Twenty-One

Jon's POV

The intense sensation of warmth and belonging abruptly vanishes and Jon's eyes open. He looks around the tent again even though he can't feel her presence anymore. Several times over the last few weeks he had thought he could feel her, but just now it had been visceral, he could almost feel the touch of her hand against her face.

With out it the awful sense of exhaustion and coldness settled back in to him. He was so very tired of fighting, but he had Sansa to protect, Rickon to rescue and Winterfell to retake for them.

He squared his shoulders and left the tent to go talk to a witch.

..................

As he enters her tent Melisandre is sitting at a table with a mirror and candles on it, staring into a fire pit. He enters slowly and approaches her.

"My lady. You weren't at the war council." He addresses her.

"I'm not a soldier." She replies quietly.

"Any advice?"

"Don't lose." She tells him with a smile,

Jon nods, "If I do, if I fall, don't try to bring me back." He is relatively sure it was not her magic but the silver haired girls that had brought him back. But regardless it needed saying since he had hadn't corrected The red woman or Davos.

"I'll have to try." Melisandre objects.

"I'm ordering you not to bring me back."

She shakes her head. "I am not your servant, Jon Snow."

"You're in my camp. I'm the commander." He argues.

"I serve the Lord of Light. I do what he commands." She reminds him and he just barely manages not to roll his eyes as the tone in her voice.

"How do you know what he commands?" He challenged.

She shrugs. "I interpret his signs as well as I can. If the Lord didn't want me to bring you back, how did I bring you back? I have no power. Only what he gives me and he gave me you."

Jon briefly considered telling her what he had seen in the place in between worlds. But truthfully he doubted it him self some days.

"Why?" He asks instead.

"I don't know." She admits. "Maybe you're only needed for this small part of his plan and nothing else. Maybe he brought you here to die again."

Jon scoffs. "What kind of god would do something like that?"

"The one we've got."

He stares into the fire pit  for a moment and then exits.

....................................

Outside of Winterfell Jon can see the familiar walls of his childhood home. So many good memories flood him, his childhood had not been easy but it had not been all bad either.

True, Lady Stark has made sure he was never treated as a member of the Lords family but his father had loved him and made sure he was raised well. His siblings had been a gift, Arya and Bran in particular had been pure joy since the day they were born. Even Sansa had been a sweet child until Caitlyn Stark had poisoned her against him and poor Rickon was little more than a baby when they had all been separated.

Staring across the battlefield the grotesque x shaped pyres with flayed bodies and banners with the Bolton sigil are like a hit to the gut. Ramsey Bolton is trying to bait him. Sansa was right.

Davos sits on horseback among the ranks of the Stark army. Tormand and Wun Win are at the front of the line.

Suddenly Ramsey Bolton rides through the ranks of the his army on horseback with a rope in his hand. As he reaches the front of the line and he climbs down and Jon can see the rope is tied around Rickon's hands as he is led out. Jon dismounts and walks a few paces out into the field as Ramsay's stares across the field at him. He slowly pulls a dagger and raises it in the air before he cuts Rickon's bindings.