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GOT Chapter 57: From Tower to Tomb—Almost
🕑 Added 2025-08-06 03:06:34 +0000 UTC“You’re sure this is the way?!”
Kal asked casually as he followed behind Jon Snow, who was hacking away at the overgrown trail with his longsword—the path choked by thorns and weeds from long neglect.
But Kal’s gaze wasn’t on his squire. It remained fixed in the direction of the ruined tower.
Jon’s eyesight wasn’t as sharp, but through the mist rising from Winterfell, he could just barely make out a shifting black speck atop the broken tower.
Hearing Kal’s question, Jon instinctively looked up, exhaling a long cloud of white breath.
“This is the right direction. It’s just… no one comes out here often,” Jon replied, his tone firm but tinged with unease.
Kal shrugged, then reached down and ran his fingers along the dragonbone hilt of the dagger at his waist.
“Then let’s move faster. Wouldn’t want to miss the height of the feast.”
Jon gave him a puzzled look, not quite grasping what he meant.
But without asking further, he merely wiped the sweat from his brow and resumed hacking at the brambles blocking their way—wielding the longsword said to be stained with the blood of two Kingsguard.
After all, Kal had explicitly told him not to hold back. No matter how valuable a weapon might be, it was still just a consumable.
Before long, the two of them had carved out a narrow path and arrived beneath the ruined tower.
Before Jon could ask anything, Kal looked up, then pointed to his right.
“This way—Bran’s swung across again!”
At the base of the ruined tower, weeds and vines were everywhere, and thornbushes were no less abundant.
They stretched out the bindings of their lives, climbing forcefully upward along the cracks in the stone masonry.
Fortunately, there were no trees around this area, so the view remained fairly open.
Jon followed Kal’s gaze and looked up.
Though the sky was still blanketed with heavy clouds, the light was oddly dazzling, forcing one to avert their eyes.
Jon quickly looked down again.
“When Lord Eddard returns, I’ll have him spank Bran until his backside swells!”
Thinking of that fleeting black speck he had just seen on top of the ruined tower, Jon—rarely one to get angry—found himself fuming. Even his tone was thick with frustration.
“Then tell me honestly—have any of you brothers ever suspected that Brandon Stark isn’t really Lord Stark’s own son?”
“That might help me judge whether Lord Stark would actually be able to go through with it.”
Hearing Jon sound like a tattletale, Kal—still gazing upward at the top of the ruined tower—cracked a joke.
At that, Jon pressed his lips together. He looked like he was about to laugh but held it back.
Then, in a muffled voice that was hard to make out clearly, he muttered, “Of course my brothers would never question Bran…”
“But after that last confession incident, Lord Eddard was so furious that he shouted at him, ‘You can’t be my son. You’re nothing but a squirrel!’”
Jon had barely made it halfway through recounting the story when another funny memory struck him. He mimicked Eddard Stark’s tone—helpless and exasperated at Bran’s mischief.
But as the words left his mouth, silence answered him.
A strange feeling crept over Jon, and his heartbeat seemed to skip a beat.
A chill stirred in his chest. He turned around instinctively—only to find that Kal had vanished.
Spinning the rest of the way around to scan his surroundings, he suddenly spotted his knight—now somehow ahead of him, without Jon even noticing the movement.
Kal stood with a grave expression, staring straight up at the top of the ruined tower. His knees were slightly bent, posture lowered, ready for anything.
And in the very next second, a piercing, childish, and heart-wrenching scream tore through the air above Jon’s head.
The sound twisted something inside him. The smile on his face froze instantly.
At the same moment he instinctively looked upward, a firm voice echoed beside his ear.
“I swear—Eddard Stark’s going to owe me a whole damn cow.”
As soon as Kal finished speaking, his body suddenly lunged forward—an explosive sprint straight toward the ruined tower.
With long strides, he covered the distance between himself and the tower in just a few steps, as if taking flight.
Then, while still two or three meters away from the tower’s stone wall, he suddenly kicked off the ground and leapt into the air.
Hearing the commotion, Jon—who had been staring upward in horror as Bran fell from the top of the tower—reflexively turned his head.
And in that instant, he saw Kal flash to the base of the tower with an utterly unreasonable speed.
Kal, mid-air, then forcefully pushed off the stone wall with the tip of his foot, launching himself even higher.
His whole form looked like a mountain goat leaping across cliffs—or a forest cat stalking and pouncing from the underbrush.
As he soared toward the limit of his jump, Kal’s other foot snapped up, and with a quick jab against the tower’s surface, he kicked again.
Then, impossibly, this massive man twisted mid-air with the agile grace of a falcon flipping through the wind.
And just like that, at precisely the right moment—
The instant Kal flipped over and brought his face skyward, the falling Bran Stark landed squarely into his arms.
In the same instant, a white blur swept past.
[Whoosh!]
Jon’s ears had just caught the sound of clothes slicing through the air—like a banner cracking in the wind.
Then his vision blurred. Before he even realized what had happened, the falling boy and the man who’d leapt had already crashed into a bushy thicket below, tumbling in a tangled heap.
“Bran!”
Jon didn’t even have time to think. His first instinct was to rush toward the two of them.
Kal, having rolled to the ground with Bran, now stood up, riding the momentum.
But as soon as he lifted his head, he saw Jon sprinting toward him, his face pale and panicked.
In response, Kal simply curled the corners of his mouth into a faint smile and casually lifted the heavy bearskin cloak that draped over his shoulders.
And there—emerging from beneath it—was a small head with chestnut hair and blue eyes.
But those eyes were filled with fear, and his face was ghostly white.
“Bran! Are you alright, Bran?!” Jon asked instinctively, his heart pounding like a war drum.
He rushed up and immediately reached out to snatch Bran from Kal’s arms.
Though he could feel the stiffness in Bran’s body, the slight trembling throughout, Jon quickly checked him over and saw that, wrapped snugly in Kal’s cloak, Bran didn’t appear to be injured.
Only then did he finally feel that stone in his chest loosen and fall back into place.
But at the same time, a wave of dread washed over him, sending a cold sweat down his back.
So, once he confirmed Bran was truly unharmed, Jon pulled him tightly into his arms.
He pressed Bran’s face to his chest, head lowered, cradling him gently. As he patted the boy’s back, he whispered soothing words, trying to calm him down.
“It’s alright now… It’s alright…”
“Bran, don’t be afraid~”
Perhaps it was the warmth and concern, or maybe it was Jon’s voice that finally pulled him back from the Stranger’s Hall—either way, Bran, who had just taken a brush with death, finally showed his first response while held in his brother’s arms.
He shuddered violently, then let out a heart-wrenching, soul-piercing scream.
And that only made Jon feel all the more distressed.
Just then, Jon instinctively looked up toward the spot where Bran had fallen—but unexpectedly, he caught a fleeting flash of gold near an empty window.
“What was that?!”
His eyes widened, filled with disbelief—no, more like refusal to believe.
And before he could even make sense of what he had just seen, Kal—who had been silently watching the top of the tower all along—brushed the broken twigs and grass from his bearskin cloak. His voice turned cold.
“It was the Kingslayer. Jaime Lannister.”
“I saw it with my own eyes—he pushed Bran off the tower.”
“He… he…” Hearing Kal’s words, Jon Snow felt his mind roar with white noise. For a moment, he was struck speechless.
But immediately afterward, a surge of rage boiled up within him—his little brother had nearly been murdered by the very man he once believed was a true knight, a paragon of kingly virtue.
“That bastard… I’ll kill him!”
“I want to look into his eyes—I want to know why—and then I’ll take his damned head!!!”
Jon’s gaze locked onto the top of the tower. His face was like iron, his teeth clenched, and the killing intent in his chest burned hotter than fire.
“You?”
“Leave it to me, Ser Jon Snow… my ‘squire,’” Kal snorted, utterly unimpressed by Jon’s fury.
