In my own way, I have been truer than your Ned ever was. Poorold dead Ned. So who has shit for honor now, I ask you?

but he preferred toscorn the arse he found sitting on Robert’s throne. I think Ned Stark lovedRobert better than he ever loved his brother or his father ... or even you, mylady. He was never unfaithful to Robert, was he?”

Istood at the foot of the Iron Throne in my white armor and white cloak, fillingmy head with thoughts of Cersei. After, Gerold Hightower himself took measide and said to me, ‘You swore a vow to guard the king, not to judge him.’That was the White Bull, loyal to the end and a better man than me, allagree.”

“The pyromancers roasted Lord Rickard slowly, banking and fanning thatfire carefully to get a nice even heat. His cloak caught first, and then hissurcoat, and soon he wore nothing but metal and ashes. Next he would start tocook, Aerys promised ... unless his son could free him. Brandon tried, but themore he struggled, the tighter the cord constricted around his throat. In theend he strangled himself.

“There were trials. Of a sort. Lord Rickard demanded trial by combat, andthe king granted the request. Stark armored himself as for battle, thinking toduel one of the Kingsguard. Me, perhaps. Instead they took him to the throneroom and suspended him from the rafters while two of Aerys’s pyromancerskindled a blaze beneath him. The king told him that fire was the champion ofHouse Targaryen. So all Lord Rickard needed to do to prove himself innocentof treason was ... well, not burn.

“Aerys accused them of treason and summonedtheir fathers to court to answer the charge, with the sons as hostages. Whenthey came, he had them murdered without trial. Fathers and sons both.”

“They strangled Brandon while his father watched, and then killed LordRickard as well.” An ugly tale, and sixteen years old. Why was he askingabout it now?“Killed, yes, but how?”“The cord or the axe, I suppose.”Jaime took a swallow, wiped his mouth. “No doubt Ned wished to spareyou. His sweet young bride, if not quite a maiden. Well, you wanted truth.Ask me. We made a bargain, I can deny you nothing. Ask.”“Dead is dead.” I do not want to know this.“Brandon was different from his brother, wasn’t he? He had blood in hisveins instead of cold water. More like me.”“Brandon was nothing like you.”“If you say so. You and he were to wed.”“He was on his way to Riverrun when ...” Strange, how telling it still madeher throat grow tight, after all these years. “... when he heard about Lyanna,and went to King’s Landing instead. It was a rash thing to do.” Sheremembered how her own father had raged when the news had been broughtto Riverrun. The gallant fool, was what he called Brandon.Jaime poured the last half cup of wine. “He rode into the Red Keep with afew companions, shouting for Prince Rhaegar to come out and die. But

“So many vows ... they makeyou swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Dohis bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protectthe innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s toomuch. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.” Hetook a healthy swallow of wine and closed his eyes for an instant, leaning hishead back against the patch of nitre on the wall. “I was the youngest man everto wear the white cloak.”

Petyr had sworn otherwise, Petyr who had been almost a brother, Petyrwho loved her so much he fought a duel for her hand ... and yet if Jaime and

If I had a knife,I would kill him now, she thought, until she remembered the girls. Her throatconstricted as she said, “You were a knight, sworn to defend the weak andinnocent.”

Catelyn wondered if he would dare answer her next question with anythingbut a lie. “How did my son Bran come to fall?”“I flung him from a window.”

He shrugged. “Joffrey is mine. As are the rest of Cersei’s brood, Isuppose.”

aime Lannister had been allowed no razor since the night he was taken inthe Whispering Wood, and a shaggy beard covered his face, once so like thequeen’s. Glinting gold in the lamplight, the whiskers made him look likesome great yellow beast, magnificent even in chains. His unwashed hair fellto his shoulders in ropes and tangles, the clothes were rotting on his body, hisface was pale and wasted ... and even so, the power and the beauty of theman were still apparent.

“I loved a maid as red as autumn,” Rymund sang, “with sunset inher hair.”

“I keep remembering the Stark words. Winter has come, Father. For me.For me. Robb must fight the Greyjoys now as well as the Lannisters, and forwhat? For a gold hat and an iron chair? Surely the land has bled enough. Iwant my girls back, I want Robb to lay down his sword and pick somehomely daughter of Walder Frey to make him happy and give him sons. Iwant Bran and Rickon back, I want ...” Catelyn hung her head. “I want,” shesaid once more, and then her words were gone.

Robb will avengehis brothers. Ice can kill as dead as fire. Ice was Ned’s greatsword.

“I want them all dead, Brienne. TheonGreyjoy first, then Jaime Lannister and Cersei and the Imp, every one, everyone. But my girls ... my girls will ...”

“And Arya, well ... Ned’s visitors would oft mistake her for a stableboy ifthey rode into the yard unannounced. Arya was a trial, it must be said. Half aboy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart’s desire.She had Ned’s long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a birdhad been nesting in it. I despaired of ever making a lady of her. She collectedscabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into herhead. I think she must be dead too.”

“Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please. Sheloved nothing so well as tales of knightly valor. Men would say she had mylook, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, youcan see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. Shehad auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft ... the red in it wouldcatch the light of the torches and shine like copper

“I suppose Theon killed the wolves too. He must have,elsewise ... I was certain the boys would be safe so long as the direwolveswere with them. Like Robb with his Grey Wind. But my daughters have nowolves now.”

Theon Greyjoy has mounted their heads on the walls of Winterfell.Theon Greyjoy, who ate at my table since he was a boy of ten.”

When Catelyn tried to speak, the words caught in her throat. “I have no sonsbut Robb.”

I am become a sour woman, Catelynthought. I take no joy in mead nor meat, and song and laughter have becomesuspicious strangers to me. I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter

I cannot blame them, Catelyn thought. They do not know. And if they did,why should they care? They never knew my sons. Never watched Bran climbwith their hearts in their throats, pride and terror so mingled they seemed asone, never heard him laugh, never smiled to see Rickon trying so fiercely tobe like his older brothers.

“She has a baby in her belly, that’s all.

“I have neverliked you, Cersei, but you were my own sister, so I never did you harm.You’ve ended that. I will hurt you for this. I don’t know how yet, but give metime. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenlyyour joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you’ll know the debt is paid.”

and Alayaya bent over and kissed him on the brow.

“Whatever happens to her happens to Tommen aswell, and that includes the beatings and rapes.” If she thinks me such amonster, I’ll play the part for her.

Tyrion stared at the dregs on the bottom of his wine cup. What would Jaimedo in my place? Kill the bitch, most likely, and worry about the consequencesafterward. But Tyrion did not have a golden sword, nor the skill to wield one.He loved his brother’s reckless wrath, but it was their lord father he must tryand emulate. Stone, I must be stone, I must be Casterly Rock, hard and

now you plot to have Joff killed. You want him dead soyou can rule through Tommen.”

“Are you unwell, brother?” She leaned forward, giving him a good look atthe top of her breasts. “Suddenly you appear somewhat flustered.”

“Neither do you.” And don’t you just hate that, Cersei?

“He’s thirteen, Tyrion.”

“Or so he’d have you believe. You think you’re the only one he whisperssecrets to? He gives each of us just enough to convince us that we’d behelpless without him. He played the same game with me, when I first wedRobert. For years, I was convinced I had no truer friend at court, but now ...”She studied his face for a moment. “He says you mean to take the Houndfrom Joffrey.”

As the swan w

“Why must I suffer accusations every time some Starkstubs his toe?

Cersei made a sour face. “It was Jaime who threw him from that window,not me. For love, he said, as if that would please me. It was a stupid thing todo, and dangerous besides, but when did our sweet brother ever stop tothink?”“The boy saw you,” Tyrion pointed out.“He was a child. I could have frightened him into silence.”

Gods be good,” he said softly. “Both of them?”“I fear so, my lord. It is so sad. So grievous sad. And them so young andinnocent.”Tyrion remembered how the wolves had howled when the Stark boy hadfallen. Are they howling now, I wonder? “Have you told anyone else?” heasked.

“Skinchanger?” said Ebben grimly, looking at the Halfhand. Does he meanthe eagle? Jon wondered. Or me? Skinchangers and wargs belonged in OldNan’s stories, not in the world he had lived in all his life. Yet here, in thisstrange bleak wilderness of rock and ice, it was not hard to believe.“The cold winds are rising. Mormont feared as much. Benjen Stark felt it aswell. Dead men walk and the trees have eyes again. Why should we balk atwargs and giants?”

And the thing riding it was huge as well, and his shape waswrong, too thick in the leg and hips to be a man.

a shaggy lumbering beastwith a snake for a nose and tusks larger than those of the greatest boar thathad ever lived.

The weirwood had his brother’s face. Hadhis brother always had three eyes?Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.

There were five of them when there should have been six, and they werescattered, each apart from the others. He felt a deep ache of emptiness, a senseof incompleteness. The forest was vast and cold, and they were so small, solost. His brothers were out there somewhere, and his sister, but he had losttheir scent.

Mance would sing it of old, when he came backfrom a ranging. He had a passion for wildling music. Aye, and for theirwomen as well.”“You knew him?”“We all knew him.” His voice was sad.They were friends as well as brothers,

I expect you’ll survive a bit of humiliation. Idid. You may never love the king, but you’ll love his children.”

In the end it took three of them to pull her away. And it was all for nothing.The bedclothes were burnt, but by the time they carried her off her thighswere bloody again. It was as if her own body had betrayed her to Joffrey,unfurling a banner of Lannister crimson for all the world to see.

But as she crouched there, on her hands and knees, understanding came.“No, please,” Sansa whimpered, “please, no.” She didn’t want this happeningto her, not now, not here, not now, not now, not now, not now.

Thenshe saw the bright glimmer of steel. The knife plunged into her belly and toreand tore and tore, until there was nothing left of her down there but shiny wetribbons.When she woke, the pale light of morning was slanting through herwindow, yet she felt as sick and achy as if she had not slept at all. There wassomething sticky on her thighs. When she threw back the blanket and saw theblood, all she could think was that her dream had somehow come true. Sheremembered the knives inside her, twisting and ripping. She squirmed awayin horror, kicking at the sheets and falling to the floor, breathing raggedly,naked, bloodied, and afraid.

There aregods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the stories can’t belies.

Sansa hugged herself, suddenly cold. “Why are you always so hateful? Iwas thanking you ...”

. A stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed andclutched at her belly.

“Gods preserve you, my little Jonquil.” He wasgrowing weepy. The wine did that to him. “Give your Florian a little kiss now.A kiss for luck.” He swayed toward her.Sansa dodged the wet groping lips, kissed him lightly on an unshavencheek, and bid him good night.

He could give her a quick clean death, at least. He was his father’s son.Wasn’t he? Wasn’t he?

“Do it,” she urged him after a moment. “Bastard. Do it. I can’t stay braveforever.” When the blow did not fall she turned her head to look at him.Jon lowered his sword. “Go,” he muttered.Ygritte stared.“Now,” he said, “before my wits return. Go.”She went.

One o’ his lords peeled the skin off him and worehim for a cloak.”

she threw herself from a tower in her grief.

Thirty yearslater, when Bael was King-beyond-the-Wall and led the free folk south, it wasyoung Lord Stark who met him at the Frozen Ford ... and killed him, for Baelwould not harm his own son when they met sword to sword.”“So the son slew the father instead,” said Jon.

“No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneaththe castle.

Lord Brandon heard a child’s cry. Hefollowed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleepwith a babe at her breast.”

“Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flewforth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any signo’ Bael or this maid.

But when morning come, the singerhad vanished ... and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed theyfound empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow whereher head had lain.”

‘All I ask is a flower,’ Bael answered, ‘the fairestflower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell.’

harp in hand,

One day in his bitterness he called Bael a craven whopreyed only on the weak. When word o’ that got back, Bael vowed to teachthe lord a lesson. So he scaled the Wall, skipped down the kingsroad, andwalked into Winterfell one winter’s night

“And she never sung you the songo’ the winter rose?”

She was older than he’d thought at first,Jon realized; maybe as old as twenty,

She is noolder than I am. Something about her made him think of Arya, though theylooked nothing at all alike.

grabbing the man by the hair andjamming the point of the knife up under his chin as he reached for his—no,her—His hand froze. “A girl.”

. Did Robb feel this way before hisfirst battle?

Even so, he did not think ofthe foes who were waiting for him, all unknowing, but of his brother atWinterfell. Bran used to love to climb. I wish I had a tenth part of hiscourage.

“The mountain is your mother,”

His lips look like two wormsfucking.

“The histories say the crannogmen grew closeto the children of the forest in the days when the greenseers tried to bring thehammer of the waters down upon the Neck. It may be that they have secretknowledge.”

A pity Ned Stark had taken hisdaughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfellby marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by nowlikely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in theclutches of the Lannisters. A shame.

Reek stepped close. “Strip off their skins,” he urged, his thick lipsglistening. “Lord Bolton, he used to say a naked man has few secrets, but aflayed man’s got none.”The flayed man was the sigil of House Bolton, Theon knew; ages past,certain of their lords had gone so far as to cloak themselves in the skins ofdead enemies. A number of Starks had ended thus. Supposedly all that hadstopped a thousand years ago, when the Boltons had bent their knees toWinterfell. Or so they say, but old ways die hard, as well I know.

She’s as unnatural as Asha.Even their names sound alike.

There had to be two or more, he decided. While the woman wasentertaining Drennan, the others freed the wolves.

andthere had been a certain undeniable spice to fucking a common tavern wenchin Lord Eddard Stark’s own bed

His brother, however, he does not seem to miss at all.”

“They, hmmm, seem to be working better than they were.” Hallyne smiledweakly. “You don’t suppose there are any dragons about, do you?”“Not unless you found one under the Dragonpit. Why?”“Oh, pardon, I was just remembering something old Wisdom Pollitor toldme once, when I was an acolyte. I’d asked him why so many of our spellsseemed, well, not as effectual as the scrolls would have us believe, and he saidit was because magic had begun to go out of the world the day the last dragondied.

“There was a prince who tried that once,” said Tyrion dryly. “I haven’t seenany dragons rising over the city, so it would seem it didn’t work this timeeither.”

“It may be. Stannis burned the godswood at Storm’s Endas an offering to the Lord of Light.

His sister hadinsisted that Joffrey strip Blount of his white cloak on the grounds of treasonand cowardice. And now she replaces him with another man just as hollow.

Pleading illness, Lord Gulian Swann had remained inhis castle, taking no part in the war, but his eldest son had ridden with Renlyand now Stannis, while Balon, the younger, served at King’s Landing. If he’dhad a third son, Tyrion suspected he’d be off with Robb Stark.

Ser Balon Swann

That wood wasWinterfell. It was the north. I never felt so out of place as I did when I walkedthere, so much an unwelcome intruder. He wondered if the Greyjoys wouldfeel it too. The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood. Not in ayear, or ten, or fifty.

Though perhaps it did not matter. Massive walls and talltowers had not saved Storm’s End, nor Harrenhal, nor even Winterfell.He remembered Winterfell as he had last seen it. Not as grotesquely hugeas Harrenhal, nor as solid and impregnable to look at as Storm’s End, yetthere had been a great strength in those stones, a sense that within those wallsa man might feel safe. The news of the castle’s fall had come as a wrenchingshock. “The gods give with one hand and take with the other,” he mutteredunder his breath when Varys told him. They had given the Starks Harrenhaland taken Winterfell, a dismal exchange.

PyatPree was gibbering in some unknown tongue and hopping from one foot tothe other.

Perched above her, the dragonspread his wings and tore at the terrible dark heart, ripping the rotten flesh toribbons, and when his head snapped forward, fire flew from his open jaws,bright and hot. She could hear the shrieks of the Undying as they burned, theirhigh thin papery voices crying out in tongues long dead. Their flesh wascrumbling parchment, their bones dry wood soaked in tallow. They danced asthe flames consumed them; they staggered and writhed and spun and raisedblazing hands on high, their fingers bright as torches.

The Undying were all around her, blue and cold,whispering as they reached for her, pulling, stroking, tugging at her clothes,touching her with their dry cold hands, twining their fingers through her hair.All the strength had left her limbs. She could not move. Even her heart hadceased to beat. She felt a hand on her bare breast, twisting her nipple. Teethfound the soft skin of her throat. A mouth descended on one eye, licking,sucking, biting ...

Shadows whirled and danced inside a tent,boneless and terrible. A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a reddoor. Mirri Maz Duur shrieked in the flames, a dragon bursting from herbrow. Behind a silver horse the bloody corpse of a naked man bounced anddragged. A white lion ran through grass taller than a man. Beneath the Motherof Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and kneltshivering before her, their grey heads bowed. Ten thousand slaves liftedbloodstained hands as she raced by on her silver, riding like the wind.“Mother!” they cried. “Mother, mother!” They were reaching for her,touching her, tugging at her cloak, the hem of her skirt, her foot, her leg, herbreast. They wanted her, needed her, the fire, the life, and Dany gasped andopened her arms to give herself to them ...

Then phantoms shivered through the murk, images in indigo. Viserysscreamed as the molten gold ran down his cheeks and filled his mouth. A talllord with copper skin and silver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fierystallion, a burning city behind him. Rubies flew like drops of blood from thechest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his lastbreath murmured a woman’s name.... mother of dragons, daughter ofdeath ... Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst acheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing,breathing shadow fire.... mother of dragons, slayer of lies ... Her silver wastrotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpsestood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smilingsadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with

... the shape of shadows ... morrows not yet made ... drink from the cup ofice ... drink from the cup of fire ...... mother of dragons ... child of three ...“Three?” She did not understand.... three heads has the dragon ... the ghost chorus yammered inside herskull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the still blue air....mother of dragons ... child of storm ... The whispers became a swirling song.... three fires must you light ... one for life and one for death and one tolove ... Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her,blue and corrupt ... three mounts must you ride ... one to bed and one todread and one to love ... The voices were growing louder, she realized, and itseemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath.... three treasons will youknow ... once for blood and once for gold and once for love ..

indigo light.

“We knew you were to come to us,” the wizard king said. “A thousandyears ago we knew, and have been waiting all this time. We sent the comet toshow you the way.”

“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, andhis is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes metDany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. “Theremust be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her

Upon a towering barbed throne satan old man in rich robes, an old man with dark eyes and long silver-grey hair

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, thefeasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawlin pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed handsclutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throneabove them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crownand held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and hiseyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

and Shagwell kicked himdown into the bear pit.The bear is all in black, Arya thought. Like Yoren. She filled RooseBolton’s cup, and did not spill a drop.

Roose Bolton

“Nymeria,” she said. “Only she called me Nan for short.”“You will call me my lord when you speak to me, Nan,”

When he returned, he told them thatHarrenhal had been taken

“I do. My time is done.” Jaqen passed a hand down his face from foreheadto chin, and where it went he changed. His cheeks grew fuller, his eyes closer;his nose hooked, a scar appeared on his right cheek where no scar had beenbefore. And when he shook his head, his long straight hair, half red and halfwhite, dissolved away to reveal a cap of tight black curls.

“A girl might,” she said. “If a friend did help.”The knife vanished. “Come.”“Now?” She had never thought he would act so quickly.“A man hears the whisper of sand in a glass. A man will not sleep until agirl unsays a certain name. Now, evil child.”

. “It’s Jaqen H’ghar.”

till the Starks give him anarrow in the back for a wedding gift.”

Theon Greyjoy followed him into the bedchamber. “We’re not here to harmyou, Bran.”“Theon?” Bran felt dizzy with relief. “Did Robb send you? Is he here too?”

“At last word he was marching toward the Crag, the seat of HouseWesterling,”

Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. “As ladies die inchildbed. No one sings songs about them.”“Children are a battle of a different sort.” Catelyn started across the yard.“A battle without banners or warhorns, but no less fierce. Carrying a child,bringing it into the world ... your mother will have told you of the pain ...”

Our duty.” Catelyn’s face was drawn as she started across the yard. I havealways done my duty, she thought. Perhaps that was why her lord father hadalways cherished her best of all his children. Her two older brothers had bothdied in infancy, so she had been son as well as daughter to Lord Hoster untilEdmure was born. Then her mother had died and her father had told her thatshe must be the lady of Riverrun now, and she had done that too. And whenLord Hoster promised her to Brandon Stark, she had thanked him for makingher such a splendid match.I gave Brandon my favor to wear, and never comforted Petyr once after hewas wounded, nor bid him farewell when Father sent him off. And whenBrandon was murdered and Father told me I must wed his brother, I did sogladly, though I never saw Ned’s face until our wedding day. I gave mymaidenhood to this solemn stranger and sent him off to his war and his kingand the woman who bore him his bastard, because I always did my duty.

“Don’t you see the jest, Lord Varys?” Tyrion waved a hand at the shutteredwindows, at all the sleeping city. “Storm’s End is fallen and Stannis is comingwith fire and steel and the gods alone know what dark powers, and the goodfolk don’t have Jaime to protect them, nor Robert nor Renly nor Rhaegar northeir precious Knight of Flowers. Only me, the one they hate.” He laughedagain. “The dwarf, the evil counselor, the twisted little monkey demon. I’m

, and since that day I have hated magic and allthose who practice it. If Lord Stannis is one such, I mean to see him dead.”

And I never meant to strike you. Gods be good, am I turning into Cersei?

“Not now. Sweetling, I have ... well, call it the seed ofa plan. I think I might be able to bring you into the castle kitchens.”

Varys smiled, showing a mouth full of rotted teeth.

“Lord Varys has come to see you,” Shae announced.The begging brother blinked at her, astonished.

He was sick ofcaution.

“Lord Gyles will take him to Rosby,and conceal him there in the guise of a page. They plan to darken his hair andtell everyone that he is the son of a hedge knight.”

“They do not plan to climb the Wall nor to burrow beneath it, my lord.They plan to break it.”

“Ser Alliser Thorne will bring back freshlevies from King’s Landing, we can hope.

“They have wargs as well, and mammoths, and more strengththan we would have dreamed

“The Old Bear’s not like to give you a choice.”“Might be we won’t give him one,” said Chett.

I knew a brother drownedhimself in wine once. It was a poor vintage, though, and his corpse did notimprove it.”“You drank the wine?”“It’s an awful thing to find a brother dead. You’d have need of a drink aswell, Lord Snow.” Edd stirred the kettle and added a pinch more nutmeg.

Panting, she squatted and spread her legs. Blood ran down her thighs, blackas ink. Her cry might have been agony or ecstasy or both. And Davos saw thecrown of the child’s head push its way out of her. Two arms wriggled free,grasping, black fingers coiling around Melisandre’s straining thighs, pushing,until the whole of the shadow

There are no shadows inthe dark.

But here ... thisStorm’s End is an old place. There are spells woven into the stones. Darkwalls that no shadow can pass—ancient, forgotten, yet still in place.”

“If half of an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, orhe is evil.”

“Are you a good man, Davos Seaworth?” she asked.Would a good man be doing this? “I am a man,” he said. “I am kind to mywife, but I have known other women. I have tried to be a father to my sons, tohelp make them a place in this world. Aye, I’ve broken laws, but I never feltevil until tonight. I would say my parts are mixed, m’lady. Good and bad.”“A grey man,” she said. “Neither white nor black, but partaking of both. Isthat what you are, Ser Davos?”“What if I am? It seems to me that most men are grey.”

A thousand flickering campfiresburned around the castle, as the fires of the Tyrells and Redwynes had sixteenyears before. But all the rest was different.The last time it was life I brought to Storm’s End, shaped to look likeonions. This time it is death, in the shape of Melisandre of Asshai.

Yet they require me to make them true, he thought. It had been a long timesince Davos Seaworth felt so sad.

Davos wanted to protest. He was a knight now, no longer a smuggler, andhe had never been an assassin. Yet when he opened his mouth, the wordswould not come. This was Stannis, his just lord, to whom he owed all he was.And he had his sons to consider as well. Gods be good, what has she done to

but Melisandre told me that if I went to Storm’sEnd, I would win the best part of my brother’s power, and she was right.”“B-but,” Davos stammered, “Lord Renly only came here because you hadlaid siege to the castle. He was marching toward King’s Landing before,against the Lannisters, he would have—”

“So did my brother, the day before his death. The night is dark and full ofterrors, Davos.”

Celtiga

I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of mybrother’s peach.”

“I dreamof it sometimes. Of Renly’s dying. A green tent, candles, a woman screaming.And blood.” Stannis looked down at his hands. “I was still abed when he died.

“As the gods will it. Bring on your storm, my lord—and recall, if you do,the name of this castle.” Ser Cortnay gave a pull on his reins and rode backtoward the gate.

“And cast it in the same fire where you left your manhood?”

“A lie,” Ser Cortnay said. “I knew Brienne when she was no more than agirl playing at her father’s feet in Evenfall Hall, and I knew her still betterwhen the Evenstar sent her here to Storm’s End. She loved Renly Baratheonfrom the first moment she laid eyes on him, a blind man could see it.”

Lady Oakheart

“I know you for a man of ambition,” Ser Cortnay broke in. “A man whochanges kings and gods the way I change my boots. As do these otherturncloaks I see before me.”

Lord Caron and Ser Guyardof King Renly’s Rainbow Guard

“Since Lord Renly died, he has been troubled byterrible nightmares,” the boy had confided to his father. “Maester’s potions donot touch them. Only the Lady Melisandre can soothe him to sleep.”Is that why she shares his pavilion now? Davos wondered. To pray withhim? Or does she have another way to soothe him to sleep?

A chill crept down Tyrion’s spine as he realized what the sellsword washinting at. If Tommen was king ...There was only one way Tommen would become king.

hey say that you’ve filled the city with swaggeringsellswords and unwashed savages, brutes who take what they want and followno laws but their own. They say you exiled Janos Slynt because you foundhim too bluff and honest for your liking. They say you threw wise and gentlePycelle into the dungeons when he dared raise his voice against you. Someeven claim that you mean to seize the Iron Throne for your own.”

shouting men behind a tanner’s shop. The gold cloaks found her wanderingnaked on Sowbelly Row

igh Septon, ripped apart as hesquealed to his gods for mercy. Starving men take a hard view of priests toofat to walk, Tyrion reflected.

Cersei reared up like a viper. “Your place is where my brother says it is,”she spit. “The Hand speaks with the king’s own voice, and disobedience istreason.”

For half a heartbeat, Tyrion thought he glimpsed fear in the Hound’s darkeyes. Fire, he realized. The Others take me, of course he hates fire, he’s tastedit too well.

“You would call me ugly, you?” Hestarted to raise the bloody sword still clutched in his mailed fist. Bronnshoved Tyrion unceremoniously behind him.

The dwarf slapped his flushed face so hard the crown flew from Joffrey’shead. Then he shoved him with both hands and knocked him sprawling. “Youblind bloody fool.”

. Ser Mandon was helping the shakenking off his horse when Cersei, Tommen, and Lancel rode through the gateswith Ser Mery

King Joffrey and King Robb and KingStannis were forgotten, and King Bread ruled alone.

and even“Renly!”

Sansa Stark said, “and the twins Ser Arryk and Ser Errykdied with tears on their cheeks after each had given the other a mortalwound.”“Be quiet, or I’ll have Ser Meryn give you a mortal wound,” Joffrey told

Bold Wind

Lady Lyanna

When the time came to part,it was Prince Tommen who cried, and Myrcella who gave him comfort.

“You are a stranger who means to land on their shores

Dany had not theleast idea of how to train a dragon

give me an army?” she demanded. “Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Willthere be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?”

“And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it.”“Me?” She laughed. “How could that be?”The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany’s wrist. “You arethe Mother of Dragons, are you not?”

“I mean to sail to Westeros, and drink the wine of vengeance from the skullof the Usurper.”

Will he fight for me as well? There wasno way to be certain after so many years.

Ser Jorah she had leftbehind today, to guard her other dragons;

A widow brought thedried corpse of her husband, covered with a crust of silvered leaves;

The Qartheen were nothing if not polite.

and his bones must be laid to rest beneath Winterfell.”

Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, thefather of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletalfingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned’shands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned’s surcoat,the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothingremained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, thearms that had held her. The head had been rejoined to the body with finesilver wire, but one skull looks much like another, and in those empty hollowsshe found no trace of her lord’s dark grey eyes, eyes that could be soft as afog or hard as stone. They gave his eyes to crows, she remembered

“I would look on him,” she repeated.

“Ned?”The sisters lowered their gaze. Utherydes said, “Ser Cleos brought himfrom King’s Landing, my lady.”“Take me to him,” she commanded.

JonArryn was twenty years older than our father, however noble.

Her father’s hands clutched at hers, fluttering like two frightened whitebirds. “That stripling ... wretched boy ... not speak that name to me, yourduty ... your mother, she would ...” Lord Hoster cried as a spasm of painwashed over him. “Oh, gods forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. Mymedicine ...”

. This plan will work, Cat, you’ll see.”

“A ward can easily become a hostage, if need be.

Roose Bolton wed another, I hear.

Only my sweet brother would crowd all these useless mouths into a castlethat might soon be under siege. Catelyn knew that Edmure had a soft heart;sometimes she thought his head was even softer. She loved him for it, yetstill ...

Once, she would have named Tyrionthe least dangerous of the Lannisters. Now she was not so certain.

This was the Imp’s work, Catelyn suspected; it stank of the same sort ofcunning he had displayed at the Eyrie.

but Ser Cortnay will not consent.”He risks all for a baseborn boy whose blood is not even his own,

As she claspedthe other woman’s hands between her own, Catelyn could not help but smile.How many times did I watch Ned accept a man’s oath of service? Shewondered what he would think if he could see her now.

“No, but you have courage. Not battle courage perhaps but ... I don’tknow ... a kind of woman’s courage. And I think, when the time comes, youwill not try and hold me back. Promise me that. That you will not hold meback from Stannis.”

She looked up. “I could serve you. If you would have me.”Catelyn was startled. “Why me?”The question seemed to trouble Brienne. “You helped me.

“He’s not. Robert was never the rightful king either, even Renly said asmuch. Jaime Lannister murdered the rightful king, after Robert killed hislawful heir on the Trident. Where were the gods then? The gods don’t careabout men, no more than kings care about peasants.”

I have no skill with swords, but that does notmean that I do not dream of riding to King’s Landing and wrapping my handsaround Cersei Lannister’s white throat and squeezing until her face turnsblack.”

, but she never chattered, nor wept, nor laughed. She hadridden with them every day and slept among them every night without evertruly becoming one of them.

howed him the way, that Grey Wind of his.

‘Wolf in the Night,

Castamere

Martyn Rivers had made his camp in the shell of a shattered holdfast,beside a roofless stable and a hundred fresh graves.

LordTywin, why didn’t I say Lord Tywin?

A few mouthfuls of dark meat still clung to one thigh. He forgot, but nowhe’s remembered, Arya thought. It made her feel bad for telling Jaqen to killhim. She got off the bench and went to the head of the table.“I saw you looking at me.” Weese wiped his fingers on the front of hershift. Then he grabbed her throat with one hand and slapped her with theother.

Yes, Arya thought. Yes, it’s you who ought to run, you and Lord Tywin andthe Mountain and Ser Addam and Ser Amory and stupid Ser Lyonel whoeverhe is, all of you better run or my brother will kill you, he’s a Stark, he’s morewolf than man, and so am I.

... not natural, coming on them so fast, in the night and all. He’s morewolf than man, all them Starks are ...”

Maybe I should say HotPie’s name to Jaqen

“Last nightHot Pie asked me if I heard you yell Winterfell back at the holdfast, when wewere all fighting on the wall.”

Weasel,” Weese

ord Tywin Lannister was marching at last

Theon smiled. “It’s not Torrhen’s Square I mean to take.”

“I am no Stark.” Lord Eddard saw to that.