“Jo told us what happened,” the queen said. “You and thebutcher boy beat him with clubs while you set your wolf on him.”

Lord Renly worea half smile that might mean anything,

Ned went to one knee and took her in his arms. She was shaking.“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”“I know,” he said. She felt so tiny in his arms, nothing but ascrawny little girl. It was hard to see how she had caused so muchtrouble. “Are you hurt?”

hen she saw him, she cried outand began to sob.

leaping, jaws closing around Jorey’s sword arm.

“Oh, I love riding,” Sansa said.

he gazed atJorey worshipfully.

“Aerys Targaryen had his tongue ripped out withhot pincers.”

One knight wore an intricate suit of white enameled scales,brilliant as a eld of new-fallen snow, with silver chasings andclasps that glittered in the sun. When he removed his helm, Sansasaw that he was an old man with hair as pale as his armor, yet heseemed strong and graceful for all that. From his shoulders hung thepure white cloak of the Kingsguard.

The two stranger knights exchanged a look. “Payne?” chuckledthe young man in the green armor.The older man in white spoke to Sansa gently. “Ofttimes Ser Ilynfrightens me as well, sweet lady. He has a fearsome aspect.

Cradled under one arm wasan antlered helm, its magnicent rack shimmering in gold.

like their half brother Jon. She even looked likeJon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing oftheir lady mother in her face or her coloring. And Jon’s mother hadbeen common, or so people whispered.

he was almost in tears. All she wanted was forthings to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs. Whycouldn’t Arya be sweet and delicate and kind, like PrincessMyrcella? She would have liked a sister like that.

One day she came backgrinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothescovered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and greenowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behaveherself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, buthe never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the owers.

Sansa did not really know Jorey yet, but she was already inlove with him.

Ser Rodrik

“Mylady, if it comes to that, my House owes yours a great debt.”

Abashed, Robb sheathed his sword, suddenly a child again

“Gods,” Robb swore, his young face dark with anger. “If this istrue, he will pay for it.” He drew his sword and waved it in the air.“I’ll kill him myself!”Ser Rodrik bristled at him. “Put that away!

“Even the Kingslayer would inchat the murder of an innocent child.”“Oh, would he?” Theon Greyjoy asked. “I wonder.”

“Lord Eddard is a second father to me,” said Theon Greyjoy. “I doso swear.”

“Someone is afraid Bran might wake up,” Robb said, “afraid ofwhat he might say or do, afraid of something he knows.”

Catelyn remembered the way she had been before, and she wasashamed. She had let them all down, her children, her husband, herHouse. It would not happen again. She would show thesenortherners how strong a Tully of Riverrun could be

It was Bran’s wolf, sherealized. Of course it was. “Thank you,” Catelyn whispered, hervoice faint and tiny. She lifted her hand, trembling. The wolfpadded closer, snied at her ngers, then licked at the blood with awet rough tongue. When it had cleaned all the blood o her hand, itturned away silently and jumped up on Bran’s bed and lay downbeside him. Catelyn began to laugh hysterically.That was the way they found them, when Robb and MaesterLuwin and Ser Rodrik burst in with half the guards in Winterfell.When the laughter nally died in her throat, they wrapped her inwarm blankets and led her back to the Great Keep, to her ownchambers. Old Nan undressed her and helped her into a scalding hotbath and washed the blood o her with a soft cloth.

into her ear. Her ngers were slippery with blood, but she wouldnot let go of the dagger. The hand over her mouth clenched moretightly, shutting o her air. Catelyn twisted her head to the side andmanaged to get a piece of his esh between her teeth. She bit downhard into his palm. The man grunted in pain. She ground her teethtogether and tore at him, and all of a sudden he let go. The taste ofhis blood lled her mouth.

he watched the smoke riseinto the sky and thought sadly of all the books the Starks hadgathered over the centuries. Then she closed the shutters

Catelyn said a silent prayer of thanks to the seven faces of god asshe went to the window.

there was no way the re would reach them here.“Thank the gods,” she whispered.Robb looked at her as if she’d gone mad

She didn’t remember falling to the oor, but there she was, andRobb was lifting her, holding her in strong arms. “Don’t be afraid,Mother. They would never hurt him.” He helped her to her narrowbed in the corner of the sickroom. “Close your eyes,” he said gently.“Rest. Maester Luwin tells me you’ve hardly slept since Bran’s fall.”“I can’t,” she wept. “Gods forgive me, Robb, I can’t, what if hedies while I’m asleep, what if he dies, what if he dies ...” The wolveswere still howling. She screamed and held her ears again. “Oh, gods,close the window!”“If you swear to me you’ll sleep.” Robb went to the window,

“Make them stop!” she cried. “I can’tstand it, make them stop, make them stop, kill them all if you must,just make them stop!”

“Rickon needs you,” Robb said sharply. “He’s only three, hedoesn’t understand what’s happening. He thinks everyone hasdeserted him, so he follows me around all day, clutching my leg andcrying. I don’t know what to do with him.” He paused a moment,chewing on his lower lip the way he’d done when he was little.“Mother, I need you too. I’m trying but I can’t ... I can’t do it all bymyself.” His voice broke with sudden emotion, and Catelynremembered that he was only fourteen. She wanted to get up and goto him, but Bran was still holding her hand and she could not move.

“Whatam I doing?” she echoed, puzzled. “How can you ask that? What doyou imagine I’m doing? I am taking care of your brother. I amtaking care of Bran.”

“My son lies here broken and dying, Luwin, and you wish todiscuss a new master of horse? Do you think I care what happens inthe stables? Do you think it matters to me one whit? I would gladlybutcher every horse in Winterfell with my own hands if it wouldopen Bran’s eyes, do you understand that? Do you?”

The boy stood near the re, his face still and hard, lookingdeep into the ames.Tyrion Lannister smiled sadly and went to bed.

“Maybe he thought you were a grumkin.”Tyrion glanced at him sharply. Then he laughed, a raw snort ofamusement that came bursting out through his nose entirely withouthis permission. “Oh, gods,” he said, choking on his laughter andshaking his head, “I suppose I do rather look like a grumkin. Whatdoes he do to snarks?”“You don’t want to know.” Jon picked up the wineskin andhanded it to Tyrion.

Jon Snow stroked Ghost’s thick white fur, smiling now. “Ask menicely.”

Sullen peasants, debtors,poachers, rapers, thieves, and bastards like you all wind up on theWall, watching for grumkins and snarks and all the other monstersyour wet nurse warned you about.

Sometimes I’d imagine my fatherburning. At other times, my sister.” Jon Snow was staring at him, alook equal parts horror and fascination. Tyrion guawed. “Don’tlook at me that way, bastard. I know your secret. You’ve dreamt thesame kind of dreams.”“No,” Jon Snow said, horried. “I wouldn’t ...”“No? Never?” Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “Well, no doubt theStarks have been terribly good to you. I’m certain Lady Stark treatsyou as if you were one of her own. And your brother Robb, he’salways been kind, and why not? He gets Winterfell and you get theWall. And your father ... he must have good reasons for packing youo to the Night’s Watch ...”“Stop it,” Jon Snow said, his face dark with anger. “The Night’sWatch is a noble calling!”

Whoever his mother had been, she had left little of herself in herson.

My father was the Hand of the King for twentyyears

She would lose all four of them, then: Ned, and both girls,and her sweet, loving Bran. Only Robb and little Rickon would beleft to her. She felt lonely already. Winterfell was such a vast place.

No doubt the boy had made the mistake of thinking that theNight’s Watch was made up of men like his uncle. If so, Yoren andhis companions were a rude awakening. Tyrion felt sorry for theboy. He had chosen a hard life ... or perhaps he should say that ahard life had been chosen for him.

Tyrion turned north with Benjen Stark and his nephew.

Not for the rst time,he wondered what he was doing here and why he had come. He wasno Jon Arryn, to curb the wildness of his king and teach himwisdom. Robert would do what he pleased, as he always had, andnothing Ned could say or do would change that. He belonged inWinterfell. He belonged with Catelyn in her grief, and with Bran.

“Well, nowI know Jaime’s dark sin, and the matter can be forgotten. I amheartily sick of secrets and squabbles and matters of state, Ned. It’sall as tedious as counting coppers. Come, let’s ride, you used toknow how. I want to feel the wind in my hair again.” He kicked hishorse back into motion and galloped up over the barrow, rainingearth down behind him.

He was seatedon the Iron Throne,

Troubledsleep was no stranger to him. He had lived his lies for fourteenyears, yet they still haunted him at night

So the mad king had orderedhis last mad act.

Aerys Targaryen must have thought thathis gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannisterappeared before the gates of King’s Landing with an army twelve

“It’s Jaime Lannister, is it not?”

I would be mad to rest one quarterof the realm on the shoulders of a sickly child.”

dashed his headagainst a wall

He remembered the angry words they hadexchanged when Tywin Lannister had presented Robert with thecorpses of Rhaegar’s wife and children as a token of fealty. Ned hadnamed that murder; Robert called it war. When he had protestedthat the young prince and princess were no more than babes, hisnew-made king had replied, “I see no babes. Only dragonspawn.”Not even Jon Arryn had been able to calm that storm. Eddard Starkhad ridden out that very day in a cold rage, to ght the last battlesof the war alone in the south. It had taken another death toreconcile them; Lyanna’s death, and the grief they had shared overher passing.

Lord Varys

She feltlike a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready forwhat was about to happen to her.

He liftedher up as easily as if she were a child

Magister Illyrio had warned Dany about this too. “A Dothrakiwedding without at least three deaths is deemed a dull aair,” hehad said. Her wedding must have been especially blessed; before theday was over, a dozen men had died.

Her brother had told her to smile, and so she smileduntil her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her eyes.

Her thighs were slickwith blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer,there was a hideous ripping sound and the crackling of some greatre. When she looked again, Viserys was gone, great columns ofame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. Itturned its great head slowly. When its molten eyes found hers, shewoke, shaking and covered with a ne sheen of sweat. She hadnever been so afraid ...

Daenerys Targaryen wed Khal Drogo with fear and barbaric

“Dierent roads sometimes lead to the same castle. Who knows?”

Arya knew what was coming next. They said it together.“... don’t ... tell ... Sansa!”Jon messed up her hair. “I will miss you, little sister.”Suddenly she looked like she was going to cry. “I wish you werecoming with us.”

Theblow stung, but Jon found himself grinning like an idiot. “I knowwhich end to use,” Arya said.

“Well, they’re going to get all messed up anyway,” she said. “Whocares how they’re folded?”

“Soon enough,” Robb promised. He pulled Jon to him andembraced him ercely. “Farewell, Snow.”Jon hugged him back. “And you, Stark. Take care of Bran.”“I will.” They broke apart and looked at each other awkwardly.“Uncle Benjen said to send you to the stables if I saw you,” Robbnally said.“I have one more farewell to make,” Jon told him.“Then I haven’t seen you,” Robb replied.

“It was always my color.

Robb knew something was wrong. “My mother ...”“She was ... very kind,” Jon told him.Robb looked relieved. “Good.” He smiled

Robb was in the middle of it, shouting commands with the best ofthem. He seemed to have grown of late, as if Bran’s fall and hismother’s collapse had somehow made him stronger. Grey Wind wasat his side.

Fingers like the bones of birds

Her eyes found him. They were full of poison. “I need none ofyour absolution, bastard.”

“I prayed for it,” she said dully. “He was my special boy. I went tothe sept and prayed seven times to the seven faces of god that Nedwould change his mind and leave him here with me. Sometimesprayers are answered.”

The esh had all gone from him. Hisskin stretched tight over bones like sticks. Under the blanket, hislegs bent in ways that made Jon sick. His eyes were sunken deepinto black pits; open, but they saw nothing. The fall had shrunkenhim somehow. He looked half a leaf, as if the rst strong windwould carry him o to his grave.Yet under the frail cage of those shattered ribs, his chest rose andfell with each shallow breath.

Something cold moved in her eyes. “I told you to leave,” she said.“We don’t want you here.”

“Even if the boy does live, he will be a cripple. Worse than acripple. A grotesque. Give me a good clean death.”

“He could end his torment,” Jaime said. “I would, if it were myson. It would be a mercy.”

“I don’t want Brandon to die,” Tommen said timorously. He was asweet boy. Not like his brother, but then Jaime and Tyrion weresomewhat less than peas in a pod themselves

Tyrion wondered what it would be like to have a twin, anddecided that he would rather not know. Bad enough to face himselfin a looking glass every day. Another him was a thought toodreadful to contemplate.

Twins,male and female. They looked very much the part this morning.Both had chosen a deep green that matched their eyes. Their blondcurls were all a fashionable tumble, and gold ornaments shone atwrists and ngers and throats

“He has a large heart, our Robert,” Jaime said with a lazy smile.There was very little that Jaime took seriously. Tyrion knew thatabout his brother, and forgave it. During all the terrible long yearsof his childhood, only Jaime had ever shown him the smallestmeasure of aection or respect, and for that Tyrion was willing toforgive him most anything.

“I’m going to tell Mother!” Jorey exclaimed.Tyrion hit him again. Now both cheeks amed.

Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard acrossthe face. The boy’s cheek began to redden.

“Seven,” Bran said, shaking with relief. His ngers had dug deepgouges in the man’s forearm. He let go sheepishly.The man looked over at the woman. “The things I do for love,” hesaid with loathing. He gave Bran a shove.

“Take my hand,” he said. “Before you fall.”

Inside the room, a man and a woman were wrestling. They wereboth naked.

He had to get closer, Bran realized. He had tosee who was talking.

He’s still in love with the sister, the insipid little deadsixteen-year-old.

“Mothers.” The man made the word sound like a curse. “I thinkbirthing does something to your minds. You are all mad.” Helaughed. It was a bitter sound.

Later, Maester Luwin built a little pottery boy and dressed him inBran’s clothes and ung him o the wall into the yard below, todemonstrate what would happen to Bran if he fell. That had beenfun, but afterward Bran just looked at the maester and said, “I’m notmade of clay. And anyhow, I never fall.”

Finally he got tired of the stick game and decided to go climbing.He hadn’t been up to the broken tower for weeks with everythingthat had happened, and this might be his last chance.

The twins Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk, who had died onone another’s swords hundreds of years ago, when brother foughtsister in the war the singers called the Dance of the Dragons.

ueen’s funny little brother hadall ridden out with them.

Jon looked down on the scene with a frown. “Jorey is truly alittle shit,” he told Arya.

Prince Tommen wasrolling in the dust, trying to get up and failing. All the paddingmade him look like a turtle on its back. Bran was standing over himwith upraised wooden sword, ready to whack him again once heregained his feet.

“A wolf with a sh in its mouth?”

The arms were divided down the middle; on one side was thecrowned stag of the royal House, on the other the lion of Lannister.“The Lannisters are proud,” Jon observed. “You’d think the royalsigil would be sucient, but no. He makes his mother’s House equalin honor to the king’s.”

Jon looked her over with all his fourteen-year-old wisdom

Arya gave back at him. Jongrinned, reached over, and messed up her hair. Arya ushed. Theyhad always been close. Jon had their father’s face, as she did. Theywere the only ones. Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickonall took after the Tullys, with easy smiles and re in their hair.When Arya had been little, she had been afraid that meant that shewas a bastard too. It had been Jon she had gone to in her fear, andJon who had reassured her

The wolf pup loved her, even if no one else did.

Myrcella blinked at her and looked to her ladies for guidance. Butif she was uncertain,

“He’s our brother,” Arya said

“He’s going to marry her,” little Beth said dreamily, huggingherself. “Then Sansa will be queen of all the realm.”Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily.

I would sooner let Jon enjoy theselast few days. Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.When the time comes, I will tell him myself.”

Yet gladly would she have kissedthe maester just then. His was the perfect solution. Benjen Stark wasa Sworn Brother. Jon would be a son to him, the child he wouldnever have. And in time the boy would take the oath as well. Hewould father no sons who might someday contest with Catelyn’sown grandchildren for Winterfell.

but she had neverfound it in her to love Jon. She might have overlooked a dozenbastards for Ned’s sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon wasnever out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned thanany of the trueborn sons she bore him. Somehow that made itworse

They whispered of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning,deadliest of the seven knights of Aerys’s Kingsguard, and of howtheir young lord had slain him in single combat. And they told howafterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur’s sword back to the beautifulyoung sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on theshores of the Summer Sea. The Lady Ashara Dayne, tall and fair,

He had a man’s needs, after all, and they hadspent that year apart, Ned o at war in the south while sheremained safe in her father’s castle at Riverrun. Her thoughts weremore of Robb, the infant at her breast, than of the husband shescarcely knew.

“Keep him o the walls, then,” she said bravely. “You know howBran loves to climb.”

There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Robb is fourteen. Soonenough, he will be a man grown. He must learn to rule, and I willnot be here for him. Make him part of your councils. He must beready when his time comes.”“Gods will, not for many years,” Maester Luwin murmured.

Was this to be her punishment? Never to see hisface again, nor to feel his arms around her?

When he turned away from thewindow at last, his voice was tired and full of melancholy, andmoisture glittered faintly in the corners of his eyes. “My father wentsouth once, to answer the summons of a king. He never came homeagain.”

. “Now we truly have no choice. You must be Robert’s Hand.You must go south with him and learn the truth.”

Ned crossed the room, took her by the arm, and pulled her to herfeet. He held her there, his face inches from he

It was sealed with a small blob ofblue wax

That brought a bitter twist to Ned’s mouth. “Brandon. Yes.Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meantfor Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything. He was born to be a King’sHand and a father to queens. I never asked for this cup to pass tome.”

“Gods, Catelyn, Sansa is only eleven,” Ned said. “AndJorey ... Jorey is ...”

“And in mine,” she blazed, angry now. Why couldn’t he see? “Heoers his own son in marriage to our daughter, what else would youcall that? Sansa might someday be queen. Her sons could rule fromthe Wall to the mountains of Dorne. What is so wrong with that?”

Catelyn remembered the direwolf dead in the snow, the brokenantler lodged deep in her throat. She had to make him see

Can’tyou see the danger that would put us in?”

Her loins still ached from the urgency of his lovemaking. It was agood ache. She could feel his seed within her. She prayed that itmight quicken there. It had been three years since Rickon. She wasnot too old. She could give him another son.

So when they had nished, Ned rolled o and climbed from herbed, as he had a thousand times before.

The castle had beenbuilt over natural hot springs, and the scalding waters rushedthrough its walls and chambers like blood through a man’s body,driving the chill from the stone halls, lling the glass gardens with amoist warmth, keeping the earth from freezing. Open pools smokedday and night in a dozen small courtyards. That was a little thing, insummer; in winter, it was the dierence between life and death.

“I don’t even know who my mother was,” Jon said.

the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard,and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.

Hewhirled and bolted before they could see him cry.

Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and theywere all looking at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind hiseyes. He pushed himself to his feet.

Jon felt anger rise inside him. “I’m not your son!”Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.” He put a hand on Jon’sshoulder. “Come back to me after you’ve fathered a few bastards ofyour own, and we’ll see how you feel.”Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he said carefully.“Never!” He spat it out like venom.

“Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne,”Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes

Theycalled him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered“Kingslayer” behind his back

Little Rickon rst, managing thelong walk with all the dignity a three-year-old could muster. Jonhad to urge him on when he stopped to visit.

He decided she wasinsipid. Robb didn’t even have the sense to realize how stupid shewas; he was grinning like a fool.

For a moment Eddard Stark was lled with a terrible sense offoreboding. This was his place, here in the north. He looked at thestone gures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence ofthe crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were alllistening, he knew. And winter was coming.

This oer did surprise him. “Sansa is only eleven.”Robert waved an impatient hand. “Old enough for betrothal. Themarriage can wait a few years.” The king smiled. “Now stand upand say yes, curse you.

It was the last thing in the world he wanted

smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had takenher strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when hegave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Nedremembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her ngershad clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petalsspilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he rememberednothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent withgrief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her handfrom his. Ned could recall none of it. “I bring her owers when Ican,” he said. “Lyanna was ... fond of owers.”

black holes waiting for their dead,waiting for him and his children. Ned did not like to think on that.

He could feelthe chill coming up the stairs, a cold breath from deep within theearth. “Kings are a rare sight in the north.”Robert snorted. “More likely they were hiding under the snow.Snow, Ned!” The king put one hand on the wall to steady himself asthey descended.

Robert embraced Catelyn like a long-lost sister

double-decked carriage

“And stand up straight. Let him see that you havebreasts. Gods know, you have little enough as is.”Daenerys smiled, and stood up straight.

“I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself sayin a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I wantto go home.”

“Do you see hisbraid, sweet sister?”Drogo’s braid was black as midnight and heavy with scented oil,hung with tiny bells that rang softly as he moved. It swung well pasthis belt, below even his buttocks, the end of it brushing against theback of his thighs.

Hewas younger than she’d thought, no more than thirty.

embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standingon two legs

and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont.”

nd realized, with a sudden start of fear, that she was theonly woman there

Unsullied

Tyrell, Redwyne, Darry, Greyjoy, theyhave no more love for the Usurper than I do.

The savages have queertastes

“Are you sure that KhalDrogo likes his women this young?”“She has had her blood. She is old enough for the khal,” Illyriotold him, not for the rst time.

Last ofall came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancientValyrian glyphs.“Now you look all a princess,” the girl said breathlessly when theywere done. Dany glanced at her image in the silvered looking glassthat Illyrio had so thoughtfully provided. A princess, she thought,but she remembered what the girl had said, how Khal Drogo was sorich even his slaves wore golden collars.

his palace

“Ours is the house of thedragon,” he would say. “The re is in our blood.

The water wasscalding hot, but Daenerys did not inch or cry out. She liked theheat

Dany had cried when the red door closedbehind them forever.

Her mother had died birthing her, and for that herbrother Viserys had never forgiven her.

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their ight,while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastnessapart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen eet was

Princess Elia of Dorne

woman he loved.

Khal Drogo has a thousand horses, tonight he looks for a dierentsort of mount.”

DAENERYS

It took Ned a moment to comprehend her words, but when theunderstanding came, the darkness left his eyes. “Robert is cominghere?” When she nodded, a smile broke across his face.Catelyn wished she could share his joy. But she had heard the talkin the yards; a direwolf dead in the snow, a broken antler in itsthroat. Dread coiled within her like a snake, but she forced herselfto smile at this man she loved, this man who put no faith in signs. “Iknew that would please you,” she said. “We should send word toyour brother on the Wall.”

“Go to her,” Ned urged. “Take the children. Fill her halls withnoise and shouts and laughter. That boy of hers needs other childrenabout him, and Lysa should not be alone in her grief.”

“The message said only that they were well, and had returned tothe Eyrie,” Catelyn said. “I wish they had gone to Riverrun instead.The Eyrie is high and lonely, and it was ever her husband’s place,not hers. Lord Jon’s memory will haunt each stone. I know mysister. She needs the comfort of family and friends around her.”

She could see thegrief on his face, but even then he thought rst of her

“Jon ...”

raised his moon-and-falcon banners in revolt rather than give upthose he had pledged to protect.

In his youth, Ned had fostered at the Eyrie,and the childless Lord Arryn had become a second father to him andhis fellow ward, Robert Baratheon. When the Mad King Aerys IITargaryen had demanded their heads, the Lord of the Eyrie had

my lady?”

he glanced behindher at the heart tree, the pale bark and red eyes, watching, listening,thinking its long slow thoughts.

His smile was gentle. “You listen to too many of Old Nan’s stories.The Others are as dead as the children of the forest, gone eightthousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all.No living man has ever seen one.”

Ned frowned. “He must learn to face his fears. He will not bethree forever. And winter is coming.”

“In the kitchen, arguing aboutnames for the wolf pups.” She spread her cloak on the forest oorand sat beside the pool, her back to the weirwood. She could feelthe eyes watching her, but she did her best to ignore them. “Arya isalready in love, and Sansa is charmed and gracious, but Rickon isnot quite sure.”

except on the Isle of Faces where the greenmen kept their silent watch.

“The heart tree,”Ned called it. The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leavesdark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had beencarved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long andmelancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangelywatchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself.They had seen Brandon the Builder set the rst stone, if the taleswere true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise aroundthem. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the facesin the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the FirstMen across the narrow sea.

Catelyn had been anointed with the seven oils and named in therainbow of light that lled the sept of Riverrun.

The godswood there was a garden, brightand airy, where tall redwoods spread dappled shadows acrosstinkling streams, birds sang from hidden nests, and the air was spicywith the scent of owers.The gods of Winterfell kept a dierent sort of wood. It was a dark,primal place, three acres of old forest untouched for ten thousandyears as the gloomy castle rose around it. It smelled of moist earthand decay. No redwoods grew here. This was a wood of stubbornsentinel trees armored in grey-green needles, of mighty oaks, ofironwoods as old as the realm itself. Here thick black trunkscrowded close together while twisted branches wove a dense canopyoverhead and misshapen roots wrestled beneath the soil. This was aplace of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who livedhere had no names.

His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyeswere as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died thatmorning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would haveopened his eyes while the others were still blind.“An albino,” Theon Greyjoy said with wry amusement. “This onewill die even faster than the others.”Jon Snow gave his father’s ward a long, chilling look. “I think not,Greyjoy,” he said. “This one belongs to me.”

Their lord father regarded Jon thoughtfully.

Their father understood as well. “You want no pup for yourself,Jon?” he asked softly.

but not the bastard whobore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given toall those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name oftheir own.

. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment.

“There are vepups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”“What of it, Jon?”“You have ve trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, twodaughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your childrenwere meant to have these pups, my lord.”

A foot of shatteredantler, tines snapped o, all wet with blood

. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell ofcorruption clung to it like a woman’s perfume.

A ruler who hides behind paidexecutioners soon forgets what death is.”

and we hold to the belief that theman who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you wouldtake a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hearhis nal words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps theman does not deserve to die.

obb said. He was big and broad andgrowing every day, with his mother’s coloring, the fair skin, red-brown hair, and blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun.

on was fourteen,an old hand at justice

The head bounced o a thick root and rolled. It came up nearGreyjoy’s feet. Theon was a lean, dark youth of nineteen who foundeverything amusing. He laughed, put his boot on the head, andkicked it away.“Ass,” Jon muttered,

His father took o the man’s head with a single sure stroke.

Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward Theon Greyjoybrought forth the sword. “Ice,” that sword was called. It was as wideacross as a man’s hand, and taller even than Robb.

Robb and Jon sat tall and still on theirhorses, with Bran between them on his pony, trying to seem olderthan seven, trying to pretend that he’d seen all this before

He had lost both ears and a nger to frostbite

Robb

seventh ofBran’s life

They set forth at daybreak to see aman beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervouswith excitement.

BRAN

Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him.His ne clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from hissword transxed the blind white pupil of his left eye.The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.The broken sword fell from nerveless ngers. Will closed his eyesto pray. Long, elegant hands brushed his cheek, then tightenedaround his throat. They were gloved in the nest moleskin andsticky with blood, yet the touch was icy cold.

Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer thanany human eyes, a blue that burned like ice.

Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted hissword high over his head, deant. His hands trembled from theweight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Willthought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch.