“The cold gods,” she said. “The ones in the night. The white shadows.”

He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold,he does, and of late it comes more often. That’s why he started giving themsheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep’s gone too.Next it will be dogs, till ...” She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly

It’s for thebaby I have to go.”

So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking ofhis sisters, perhaps because he’d dreamed of them last night. Sansa would callthis an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, butArya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.

“Are you one of Craster’s daughters?” he asked.She put a hand over her belly. “Wife now.”

A dogcame sniffing round his leg. He kicked it and sent it off yipping.

So this is a wildling. Jonremembered Old Nan’s tales of the savage folk who drank blood from humanskulls. Craster seemed to be drinking a thin yellow beer from a chipped stonecup. Perhaps he had not heard the stories.

A flat nose and a drooping mouth gave hima cruel look, and one of his ears was missing.

As if Samwell Tarlyneeded warning on that score.

“The gods are good; Craster’s still there.”

“These are no Lannisters, my liege. It’s Lord Stannis at your gates. KingStannis, he calls himself now.”

If your son supports me as his fathersupported Robert, he’ll not find me ungenerous. I will gladly confirm him inall his lands, titles, and honors. He can rule in Winterfell as he pleases. He caneven go on calling himself King in the North if he likes, so long as he bendsthe knee and does me homage as his overlord. King is only a word, but fealty,loyalty, service ... those I must have.”

Had you stayed, and lent your support to Ned, he might still be alive,Catelyn thought bitterly.

“Lady Catelyn, you are wrong.” Brienne regarded her with eyes as blue asher armor. “Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die inbattle, they will surely sing of us, and it’s always summer in the songs. In thesongs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is alwaysshining.”

Ser Mark Mullendore brought a black-and-whitemonkey and fed him morsels from his own plate,

gazing back at her as if from the bottom of adeep green pond. The face of a drowned woman, Catelyn thought. Can youdrown in grief?

Pity filled Catelyn’s heart. Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as anugly woman?

last mounted of one hundred sixteen knights.

“Because he is no man, my lady. That’s Brienne ofTarth, daughter to Lord Selwyn the Evenstar.”

The boy might have been as comelyas his sister, but the broken lip, unfocused eyes, and blood trickling throughhis matted hair made it hard to be certain.

the girl no older than Robb, very pretty, with a doe’s softeyes and a mane of curling brown hair that fell about her shoulders in lazyringlets. Her smile was shy and sweet.

The crowned stag decorated the king’s green velvet tunic as well, workedin gold thread upon his chest; the Baratheon sigil in the colors of Highgarden.

This is madness, Catelyn thought. Real enemies on every side and half therealm in flames, and Renly sits here playing at war like a boy with his firstwooden sword.

a big knight in blue armor. His steel was a deep cobalt, even the bluntmorningstar he wielded with such deadly effect, his mount barded in thequartered sun-and-moon heraldry of House Tarth.

Fate drives me south and south again, Catelyn thought as she sipped theastringent tea, when it is north I should be going, north to home. She hadwritten to Bran and Rickon, that last night at Riverrun. I do not forget you, mysweet ones, you must believe that. It is only that your brother needs me more.

Still, that leavetaking was hard, hard. He did not evenknow her when she came to say farewell. “Minisa,” he called her, “where arethe children? My little Cat, my sweet Lysa ...” Catelyn had kissed him on thebrow and told him his babes were well. “Wait for me, my lord,” she said ashis eyes closed. “I waited for you, oh, so many times. Now you must wait forme.”

“He wants you to march on Harrenhal, ask your uncle Brynden if—”“I said nothing of Harrenhal,” Robb said

howevermuch

Sweet it was, sweet and gone too soon. Dawn came cruel, a dagger of light.She woke aching and alone and weary; weary of riding, weary of hurting,weary of duty. I want to weep, she thought. I want to be comforted. I’m sotired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for asmall while, that’s all ... a day ... an hour ...

, Catelyn dreamt that Bran waswhole again, that Arya and Sansa held hands, that Rickon was still a babe ather breast. Robb, crownless, played with a wooden sword, and when all weresafe asleep, she found Ned in her bed, smiling.

Yet at the brush of those fingers the wood dissolved and the veryground turned to smoke beneath his feet and swirled away laughing, and thenhe was spinning and falling, falling, falling ...

“They will be bigger still before they are grown,” the young male said,watching them with eyes large, green, and unafraid. “The black one is full offear and rage, but the grey is strong ... stronger than he knows ... can you feelhim, sister?”

blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him theSword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed.”Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more.

He tried to recall all he had beentaught of the crannogmen, who dwelt amongst the bogs of the Neck andseldom left their wetlands. They were a poor folk, fishers and frog-hunterswho lived in houses of thatch and woven reeds on floating islands hidden inthe deeps of the swamp. It was said that they were a cowardly people whofought with poisoned weapons and preferred to hide from foes rather thanface them in open battle.

“We swear it by ice and fire,” they finished together.

My lord father has sent us here to say the words again, for all ourpeople.”

“The Lady Meera of House Reed,” the rotund guardsman bellowed overthe clamor. “With her brother, Jojen, of Greywater Watch.”

He looked up and down the benches at all the faces happy and sad, andwondered who would be missing next year and the year after.

UncleBenjen had been there too, all in black. Bran and his brothers and sisters satwith the king’s children, Joffrey and Tommen and Princess Myrcella, who’dspent the whole meal gazing at Robb with adoring eyes. Arya made facesacross the table when no one was looking; Sansa listened raptly while theking’s high harper sang songs of chivalry, and Rickon kept asking why Jonwasn’t with them. “Because he’s a bastard,” Bran finally had to whisper tohim.And now they are all gone. It was as if some cruel god had reached downwith a great hand and swept them all away, the girls to captivity, Jon to theWall, Robb and Mother to war, King Robert and Father to their graves, andperhaps Uncle Benjen as well ..

He sent sweets to Hodor and Old Nan as well, for no reason but he lovedthem.

He had refused to let anyone cut it since their mother hadgone.

“And if Robb Stark marches?”“Harrenhal is close enough to the fords of the Trident so that Roose Boltoncannot bring the northern foot across to join with the Young Wolf’s horse.Stark cannot march on King’s Landing without taking Harrenhal first, and

“If it was Father who’d been taken captive, Jaimewould not be sitting by idly, I promise you.”

Cersei sniffed. “I should have been born a man. I would have no need ofany of you then. None of this would have been allowed to happen. How couldJaime let himself be captured by that boy? And Father, I trusted in him, foolthat I am, but where is he now that he’s wanted? What is he doing?”

Tyrion Lannister could not have been more astonished if Aegon theConqueror himself had burst into the room, riding on a dragon and jugglinglemon pies. He had not seen his sister weep since they were children togetherat Casterly Rock. Awkwardly, he took a step toward her. When your sistercries, you were supposed to comfort her ... but this was Cersei! He reached atentative hand for her shoulder.“Don’t touch me,” she said, wrenching away. It should not have hurt, yet itdid, more than any slap. Red-faced, as angry as she was grief-stricken, Cerseistruggled for breath. “Don’t look at me, not ... not like this ... not you.”

Lord Stark had probablyhad his delusions as well.

I say that Myrcella will not be shipped off to thisDornishman the way I was shipped to Robert Baratheon.”

What a disgusting little worm you are. Myrcella is my only daughter. Didyou truly imagine that I would allow you to sell her like a bag of oats?”

piping of a twisted little monkey demon.

Lord Stannis was sailing his fleet up theBlackwater Rush. Well, it would seem I have a goodly stock of wildfire, butstill ...

The boy does not want too much. Only half the realm

The riverlords are burning their own crops to try and starve us, and your father’sforagers are torching every village they take and putting the smallfolk to thesword.”That was the way of war. The smallfolk were slaughtered, while thehighborn were held for ransom.

“My lord. Your cousin Cleos Frey is here, come fromRiverrun under a peace banner with a letter from Robb Stark.”

King Aerys used you to roast the flesh off his enemies.

Dondarrion,

She never saw where the giant hadcome from. Three black dogs raced across his faded yellow surcoat,

They took Needle. The shame of that hurt worse than thepain, and the pain hurt a lot. Jon had given her that sword. Syrio had taughther to use it.

Who’sthere?” a voice boomed suddenly from the dark.Hot Pie leapt to his feet. “I yield!”

“Yield,” Arya suggested.

On the other, three sleek black shapes ran across a field as yellow asbutter. Dogs, she thought. Arya had seen those dogs before, but where?

he prisoner was wearing a shiny steel helm, and when Arya saw the hornsshe knew it was Gendry.

“I know my courtesies, m’lady,” Gendry said, stubborn as ever. “Wheneverhighborn girls came into the shop with their fathers, my master told me I wasto bend the knee, and speak only when they spoke to me, and call themm’lady.”

Arya blurted, desperate to escape the subject of the cock shedidn’t have.

You’re the onlyone of the bunch who’s good for anything. Even if you are a girl.”Arya froze in her steps. “I’m not a girl!”

“That’s not true.” Maester Luwin would have helped anyone who came tohim, she was certain.

Gendry was in no mood to hear it. “Quiet, both of you, I need to think whatto do.” He always looked pained when he tried to think, like it hurt himsomething fierce.

Weasel came creeping out from the bushes.Lommy had named her that. He said she looked like a weasel, which wasn’ttrue, but they couldn’t keep on calling her the crying girl after she finallystopped crying. Her mouth was filthy. Arya hoped she hadn’t been eating mudagain.

The mud was nice betweenher toes, and she liked to feel the earth underfoot when she walked.From up here, she could see a small wooded island off to the northeast.

They couldn’t havekilled him, she told herself, he was too hard and tough, and a brother of theNight’s Watch besides. She said as much to Gendry as they searched amongthe corpses.The axe blow that had killed him had split his skull apart,

The three dogs on our banner are thethree that died, in the yellow of autumn grass. A hound will die for you, butnever lie to you. And he’ll look you straight in the face.”

“Think I’m so drunk that I’d believe that?” He let go his grip on her arm,swaying slightly as he stood, stripes of light and darkness falling across histerrible burnt face. “You look almost a woman ... face, teats, and you’re tallertoo, almost ... ah, you’re still a stupid little bird, aren’t you? Singing all thesongs they taught you ... sing me a song, why don’t you? Go on. Sing to me.Some song about knights and fair maids. You like knights, don’t you?”

Will you send meanother note?”

“The singers say there was another fool once who was thegreatest knight of all ...”“Florian,”

Sansa found herself thinking of Lady again.She could smell out falsehood, she could, but she was dead,

Ser Dontos,”

Lady would have liked this place, shethought.

When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumpedout of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-offear. The creature spit at her and leapt away.

Joffrey into his armor.

If it is some trap, better that I die than let them hurt memore, she told herself.

Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon, evenriding through the winter town if she liked.

If only she had someone to tell her what to do. She missed Septa Mordane,and even more Jeyne Poole, her truest friend. The septa had lost her head withthe rest, for the crime of serving House Stark. Sansa did not know what hadhappened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never tobe mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimesthe memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears.

The girl was quick to obey, as ever, but Sansa decided therewas something sly about her eyes. Doubtless, she was scurrying off to reportto the queen, or maybe Varys. All her maids spied on her, she was certain.

The angry purple bruise SerMeryn had given her had faded to an ugly yellow, but still hurt. His fist hadbeen mailed when he hit her. It was her own fault. She must learn to hide herfeelings better, so as not to anger Joffrey. When she heard that the Imp hadsent Lord Slynt to the Wall, she had forgotten herself and said, “I hope theOthers get him.” The king had not been pleased.

even Beric Dondarrion, the young lord her friend Jeyne Poolehad loved, with his red-gold hair and the spray of stars on his black cloak.

“Prince Tommen is a good boy.”“If I pry him away from Cersei and Joffrey while he’s still young, he mayeven grow to be a good man.”“And a good king?”“Joffrey is king.”“And Tommen is heir, should anything ill befall His Grace. Tommen,whose nature is so sweet, and notably ... tractable.”

Gregor Clegane

Harrenhal.”

in greater numbers thanever before ... and better armed.”“Distressing,” said Tyrion Lannister, who had armed them.

“If I gave her Jon Arryn’s true killer, she mightthink more kindly of me.”

He knows and he knows that I know, and he thinksthat I cannot touch him.

“Drink withthe dwarf, it’s said, and you wake up walking the Wall. Black brings out myunhealthy pallor.”

elieve I care to see Ser Alliser just now. Find him a snug cell where no onehas changed the rushes in a year, and let his hand rot a little more.”

Alliser

Oh, yes, she’s a frail dove, just ask Eddard Stark.

thetears of Lys

For a moment Bran felt as though he could not breathe. A giant hand wascrushing his chest. He felt as though he was falling, and clutched desperately

Howland Reed

“No I won’t.” Bran knew he would never be a lord, no more than he couldbe a knight. “Robb’s to marry some Frey girl, you told me so yourself, and theWalders say the same. He’ll have sons, and they’ll be the lords of Winterfellafter him, not me.”

Hodor!” he kept shouting,cringing and covering himself, but he had never raised a hand against histormentors.

Hodor knew Bran’s favorite place, so he took him to the edge of the poolbeneath the great spread of the heart tree, where Lord Eddard used to kneel topray.

“Then let Lord Hornwood’s bastard be the heir,” Bran said, thinking of hishalf brother Jon.

“You will haveother suitors, my lady. We shall try and find you a prospect more to yourtaste.”

Bran wanted to give the lady a hundred men to defend her rights, but SerRodrik only said, “He may look, but should he do more I promise you therewill be dire retribution. You will be safe enough, my lady ... though perhapsin time, when your grief is passed, you may find it prudent to wed again.”“I am past my childbearing years, what beauty I had long fled,” she repliedwith a tired half smile, “yet men come sniffing after me as they never didwhen I was a maid.”

“Bolton’s bastard is massing men at the Dreadfort,”

h. “KingRobb needs his own coinage as well,” he declared, “and White Harbor is thevery place to mint it.”

Must I come myself to fetch you, as if you were a littlechild?”“No,” Bran said, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I only wanted ...”“I know what you wanted,” Maester Luwin said, more gently. “Would thatit could be, Bran. Do you have any questions before we begin this audience?”“Will we talk of the war?”“You will talk of naught.” The sharpness was back in Luwin’s voice. “Youare still a child of eight ...”“Almost nine!”“Eight,”

f the gods hadn’t taken your wits, you would have beena great knight.”“Hodor?” Hodor blinked at him with guileless brown eyes, eyes innocentof understanding.

“sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King’sLanding, and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy.”

Little birds fly through many a dark tunnel.

“Perhaps he read a book and looked at the color of a bastard’s hair, as NedStark did, and Jon Arryn before him. Or perhaps someone whispered it in hisear.”

wherehe found Varys waiting with candle in hand.

Sweet Cersei, always striving to make the smallfolk love us.

the chain a loop of solid gold hands,the fingers of each clasping the wrist of the next.

Cersei smiled the sort of smile she customarily reserved for Jaime. “LordPetyr, you are a wicked creature.”

“I like my tale better,” said Littlefinger,

She has two brothers, I believe.

A dozen feet down the tunnel she heard the sound, likethe roar of some monstrous beast, and a cloud of hot smoke and black dustcame billowing up behind her, smelling of hell. Arya held her breath andkissed the mud on the floor of the tunnel and cried. For whom, she could notsay.

while Hot Pie screamed “Hot Pie!”

“Winterfell!” she screamed.

Arya could not keep quiet. “We shouldn’t stay here,” she blurted. “Thepeople didn’t. They all ran off, even their lord.”

Arya could revealherself to Lady Whent, and the knights would escort her home and keep hersafe. That was what knights did; they kept you safe, especially women.Maybe Lady Whent would even help the crying girl.

“We can buy new mounts there, or else take shelter atHarrenhal. That’s Lady Whent’s seat, and she’s always been a friend o’ theWatch.”

well ... dawn came after all.”

“What a dismal place tolive,” he said.“I was born in a house much like this,” declared Dolorous Edd. “Thosewere my enchanted years. Later I fell on hard times.” A nest of dry strawbedding filled one corner of the room. Edd looked at it with longing. “I’d giveall the gold in Casterly Rock to sleep in a bed again.”“You call that a bed?”

Perchance

“The children of the forest could speak to the dead,it’s said. But I can’t.”

“The wildlings burn their dead. We’vealways known that. Now I wished I’d asked them why, when there were still afew around to ask.”

atop ugly humped creatures

He wants me, sherealized. He loves me as he loved her, not as a knight loves his queen but as aman loves a woman.

“What did shelook like, your Lady Lynesse?”Ser Jorah smiled sadly. “Why, she looked a bit like you, Daenerys.”

I broke nine lances against Jaime Lannister to no result, and KingRobert gave me the champion’s laurel.

a priest from Myr was the first man through

Her birth was far above my own. She was theyoungest daughter of Lord Leyton Hightower of Oldtown. The White Bullwho commanded your father’s Kingsguard was her great-uncle. TheHightowers are an ancient family, very rich and very proud.”“And loyal,” Dany said. “I remember, Viserys said the Hightowers wereamong those who stayed true to my father.”

A city pale as the moon

She gave Doreah water from her own skin,cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died,

She felt older than her fourteen years.If ever she had truly been a girl, that time was done.

Her hair had burned away inDrogo’s pyre, so her handmaids garbed her in the skin of the hrakkar Drogohad slain, the white lion of the Dothraki sea.

The Dothraki named the comet shierak qiya, the Bleeding Star.

Where? Theon might have asked, but by then he knew.

I would ask that you grant me Casterly Rock for my own seat,once we have taken it from the Lannisters.” With the Rock, he could holdLannisport and the golden lands of the west. It would mean wealth and powersuch as House Greyjoy had never known.

“So the boy would give me a crown again,” he said,“and all I need do is destroy his enemies.” His thin lips twisted in a smile.

“He heeds me, yes. I’ve hunted with him, trained with him, shared meatand mead with him, warred at his side. I have earned his trust. He looks on meas an older brother, he—”“No.” His father jabbed a finger at his face. “Not here, not in Pyke, not inmy hearing, you will not name him brother, this son of the man who put yourtrue brothers to the sword. Or have you forgotten Rodrik and Maron, whowere your own blood?”

“Was it his pleasure to garb you in velvets and silksand make you his own sweet daughter?”Theon felt the blood rising to his face. “I am no man’s daughter. If you

“They are both dead, Stark and that Robert who broke my walls with hisstones. I vowed I’d live to see them both in their graves, and I have.”

A thousand years before,the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in theirbeds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on themainland

Theon’s high birth and Robb’s regard forhim. For Robb himself, Theon did have a certain affection, as for a youngerbrother .

Theon did not need to be told that Black Wind was Asha’s longship. He hadnot seen his sister in ten years, but that much he knew of her. Odd that shewould call it that, when Robb Stark had a wolf named Grey Wind. “Stark isgrey and Greyjoy’s black,” he murmured, smiling, “but it seems we’re bothwindy.”

“What is dead may never die,

“Let Theon your servant be born againfrom the sea, as you were,”

Lord Balon hadwritten of his youngest brother going down in a storm, and turning holy whenhe washed up safe on shore.

Theon searched for his uncle Euron’sSilence. Of that lean and terrible red ship he saw no sign,

“Tell him heshould be pleased. As many times as I’ve fucked you, you’re likely withchild. It’s not every man who has the honor of raising a king’s bastard.”

and I am the man.

The Drowned God had madethem to reave and rape, to carve out kingdoms and write their names in fireand blood and song.

“No longer may we ride the windwith fire and sword, taking what we want.

the richpurse of gold he’d been promised never far from his thoughts.

The Drowned God makes men,

is my comet, Theon told himself

“They burned brightly.” Davos did not trust this man, for all his courtesy.House Florent had declared for Renly.

When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, agood-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the bestwoman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her,and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that wasthe price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay.

“A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and asit glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. ‘Nissa Nissa,’he said to her, for that was her name, ‘bare your breast, and know that I loveyou best of all that is in this world.’ She did this thing, why I cannot say, andAzor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said thather cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but herblood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel.Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.

jade-green flames swirling around cherry-red steel. Guards rushed to beat outthe cinders that clung to the king’s clothing.“A sword of fire!” shouted Queen Selyse. Ser Axell Florent and the otherqueen’s men took up the cry. “A sword of fire! It burns! It burns! A sword offire!”

flames burn green and blue and black,”

“In ancientbooks of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summerwhen the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world.In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. Andthat sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who claspsit shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.”

Davos touched the little pouch that hung from theleather thong about his neck. His fingers were his luck, and he needed lucknow.

The Lord of the Tides was of theblood of ancient Valyria, and his House had thrice provided brides forTargaryen princes

Septon Barre had once told Davos howthey’d been carved from the masts of the ships that had carried the firstTargaryens from Valyria. Over the centuries, they had been painted andrepainted, gilded, silvered, jeweled

His sons

“I wish I was home,” she said miserably. She tried so hard to be brave, tobe fierce as a wolverine and all, but sometimes she felt like she was just alittle girl after all.

two four eight twelve, a whole pack

“Yoren said wait.” Gendry’s voice sounded hollow. When Arya turned tolook, she saw that he was wearing his helm, all shiny steel and great curvinghorns.

I bet he’s that traitor’s bastard,” Lommy said one night, in a hushed voiceso Gendry would not hear. “The wolf lord, the one they nicked on Baelor’ssteps.”

If I told you tokill a babe ... an infant girl, say, still at her mother’s breast ... would you doit? Without question?”“Without question? No.” The sellsword rubbed thumb and forefingertogether. “I’d ask how much.”And why would I ever need your Allar Deem, Lord Slynt? Tyrion thought. Ihave a hundred of my own. He wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep;

arys? When and why? Who are you, truly?”

Tyrion smiled. “Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill

“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they? Whencecame their swords? Why do they obey?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledgeis power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say itderives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly HighSepton and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servantwere as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killedEddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne,who swung the sword? Or ... another?”

Perchance

“In future, you will tell me what you know,Lord Varys. All of what you know.”

Eddard Stark, my lord. I don’t suppose he ever imagined his life would endon the steps of Baelor’s Sept.”

Doing for a babe, and her still on the tit, that takes a certainsort. Not every man’d do it.

He never meant to kill the woman,that was her own doing. He warned her to stand aside and let him do his

every house that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune.Strong it might be

high towersare small use against dragons

or Tywin Lannister—Lord of CasterlyRock, Warden of the West, father to Queen Cersei, Ser Jaime the Kingslayer,and Tyrion the Imp, and grandfather to Joffrey Baratheon, the new-crownedboy king

“That thing’s not crimson,” Ser Brynden said. “Nor Tully red, the mud redof the river. That’s blood up there, child, smeared across the sky.”“Our blood or theirs?”

Edmure thinks it’s an omen of victory for Riverrun—he sees a fishwith a long tail, in the Tully colors, red against blue.

and kept Theon close to you.”

I have lost my Ned, the rock my life was built on, I could not bear tolose the girls as well ...

But I won’t free him, not even for Arya and Sansa.”

my doing, mine, no other ...

They would never have gotten that honorific through SerJaime Lannister’s perfect teeth.

wife, nor will you ever hold a child of your own blood in your arms. Robbwill rule, you will serve. Men will call you a crow. Him they’ll call YourGrace. Singers will praise every little thing he does, while your greatest deedsall go unsung.

“Give me a man for every vow I’ve seen broken andthe Wall will never lack for defenders.”

“Yourbrother Robb has been crowned King in the North. You and Aemon have thatin common. A king for a brother.”“And this too,” said Jon. “A vow.”

Well, no sane man wanted any blood of Aerion’s on thethrone,

Among thebrotherhood of the Night’s Watch, there was an unspoken pact never to probetoo deeply into such matters. Men came to the Wall from all of the SevenKingdoms, and old loves and loyalties were not easily forgotten, no matterhow many oaths a man swore ... as Jon himself had good reason to know.Even Sam—his father’s House was sworn to Highgarden, whose Lord Tyrellsupported King Renly. Best not to talk of such things.

and a boy whore

, a foppish youth in soiled satin

Dobber stepped naked out of the bathhouse with his clothes in a bundle,saw what was happening, and dropped everything but his dagger. “Is it afight?” he asked.

Something about the way he talkedreminded her of Syrio; it was the same, yet different too.