Very badly, Jon thought, but he did not dare to say so out loud. Instead, he said: "It certainly isn't what I expected it to be, but after some time I've grown used to it."
                          
"Did you become a ranger like your uncle? Isn't that what you wanted to be?"
                          
"Aye, that's what I wanted to be," he answered her and sighed. "But they made me a steward instead."
                          
Jon had expected her to laugh, for she always laughed when she was not supposed to, yet she only gave him an even more concerned look. "So you've never been beyond the Wall, then?"
                          
"No, I have. Most of the men were, few came back." Myriah's eyes grew wider, letting him know that she was eager to hear the rest of his story. "I got separated from them. We were at the Fist of the First Men when I choose to go with Qhorin Halfhand. He wanted me to gain the wildlings trust, to find out what they were planning. I was supposed to be an inside man. So I joined Mance Rayder, the King beyond the Wall. He sent me south and made me climb the Wall-"
                          
Myriah's gasp interrupted him. She had a tight grip on her plaid, which she still wore around her shoulders. "You climbed the Wall?" She whispered in shock. "Were you eager to die?"
                          
"I wasn't. At that moment, I wasn't at all..." His thoughts shortly drifted off to Ygritte and their kiss atop of the Wall. And his chest ached. "But I had to get back to Castle Black and tell my brothers what the wildlings were planning."
                          
"What were they planning?" Despite all guilt Jon felt for what he had done, he had to smirk when Myriah asked that question. She was all too excited to find out about the end. She had always been craving for a good story. Shorty after Myriah had learned how to read, Jon had started to see her with small books from his father's library. Sometimes he would even help her with more complex words, though he mostly didn't know their meaning. And when Myriah grew tired of reading, she started to tell her own stories. Most of them were patched up memories from Dorne and all the people she had met at her father's court. The children liked to listen to her, especially Sansa. Most said she had a talent for it, only Lord and Lady Stark saw the downside of this because Myriah had turned into the best liar Winterfell had ever seen before the age of ten.
                          
Unfortunately, Jon could not narrate as well as she could. "They wanted to get south of the Wall by attacking Castle Black. And so I fled... and came back here." He made a short break and looked around. "Several moons later they did attack the castle."
                          
"I've seen the damage they did to the walls."
                          
"We could withstand them, thanks to Stannis." He heard her scoff and raised his brows.
                          
"All hail good King Stannis," She walked over to the hearth, turning her back on Jon once again. "who believed he could take the Seven Kingdoms with the smallest army the world had ever seen. And I was told he is a great strategist. We all know how that Bastard King put him to flight at Blackwater Bay."
                          
"If he is a great strategist, then he has no need for a great army." Jon rose now too. "And I'd be dead if it wasn't for him."
                          
He knew that Myriah couldn't ignore such fact. And he knew that she wouldn't. Yet, she would not agree with him either. "If it wasn't for him then his brother might still be alive and so would Robb."
                          
"What do you mean?"
                          
She spun around, her cheeks suddenly red and hot. "Renly himself said that he and Robb would fight the Lannisters together, shortly before he was murdered by a shadow. Only witches can jinx a shadow to do such thing and Stannis... Stannis has a witch following him wherever he goes." Myriah hissed. "If they had fought side by side then Robb would have never needed Old Frey's army. Then he'd still be alive."
                          
And Jon could not argue with that either. He had not the slightest idea of how Robb fared the years before his death. But Myriah did. She had been by his side when all the others left, she rode south with him and she had even shared her wedding bed with Robb. Marriage connects man and woman in a way that Love or Duty alone never could, Jon remembered his father telling Robb. Eddard Stark had married out of duty and learned to love his wife. Robb and Myriah had married out of duty too. "Did you love him?" He asked with a quavering voice, unsure if he wanted to know the answer.
                          
She exhaled slowly while looking anywhere except at Jon. Again, she was in tears., licking her lips before she answered him. "I did."
                          
Jon blinked and took a step back. Though he had wished them to be happy, her answer disappointed him. Myriah had never gotten into rhapsodies over Robb showing off his combat skills in the yard. It was always Jon she had been cheering for. It was his chambers which she visited when she was upset, not Robb's. It was him who she asked to run away with when she was seven and who she had promised to marry back then. So somewhere in his heart, he had always wished that someday Myriah would be his and that he would be hers. As ever, Robb had gotten just what Jon wanted. Maybe he once had Myriah's love, but he was too stupid to realize it and now Robb had taken his place.
                          
Jon felt terrible.
                          
"All the girls fell for him, you know that. It was only a matter of time that I would too. And... and he was my husband." She began to explain herself, which only made Jon feel worse.
                          
"You don't need to justify yourself to me, Myriah," Jon spoke calmly.
                          
The outer corner of Myriah's mouth twitched as if she was about to smile. "It's true I loved him and he loved me, but only because we were the only ones left. We had no one else."
                          
He nodded, then left, slamming the door behind him. Jon had not expected their talk to turn out good, but he certainly did not expect it to make him that furious. For a second he considered returning to her and apologize, to sit back down and listen to her part of the story, but he feared the more time he spent with Myriah the higher was the chance for him to fall for her again. And he could not have that. He was a sworn brother of the Night's Watch.
                          
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