"To hear him tell it, he would do it again," Jon said, laughing more out of relief than anything else. It felt good to be able to admit the secret, to have the heaviness of it off his chest so that he could speak freely with Lyanna and feel that he wasn't deceiving her for ill purpose.

"But I would rather there not be any deception between family any longer. I don't know that I can call you mother, we're of an age more or less, but I would like to think of you as my mother if you'd allow that."