The dripping of the icicles was slowing. Summer would soon be at an end. It was inevitable. Long summers led to long winters and the coming winter would last longer than all the rest.
The ages of waiting would end.
She had been forced to wait.
Azor Ahai had stopped her the first time. After him, she had seduced a man whose name was forgotten to time, yet his legacy remained. Night's King they named him. He is remembered, but she is forgotten.
She wanted to be forgotten. She waited, patient, ever so patient.
She waited until truth became legend.
She waited until legends became forgotten whispers.
The Children of the Forest had faded away. Even they had forgotten her.
A thousand generations of men and a thousand more, she waited. Amassing her army for the day she would return.
There were two things which the North should never have forgotten. Two rules which the North forgot.
There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. That was the first rule.
The Wall will stand so long as the Night's Watch remains faithful. That was the second rule.
The minds and lives of men are short.
There were no more Starks in Winterfell.
The Night's Watch, they who were once the shield against her power. They would be the ones to whom she would owe her thanks.
The Lord Commander was the one who was meant to take the place of Azor Ahai.
The Night's Watch did not remain faithful.
They slew their Lords, one on either side of the Wall.
She laughed as she heard the cracks begin to form. Eons of waiting was all that it had taken for men to forget. Yet she remembered.
She remembered what the North had forgotten.
Winter is coming.
And she was winter.