"History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again."
- Archmaester Rigney
"Don't go," the heart tree tells her, sap trickling down its carved eyes like blood.
Don't go, don't go," the blood-red leaves whisper, dancing in the light breeze.
She stares at the face of the heart tree, stunned and frightened. She shouldn't be afraid; she is a Stark. She has the wolf blood in her, the blood of the First Men… this is her godswood, her heart tree.
Yet, never before has she seen the eyes etched into the bone-white wood by the Children of the Forest watch her like this. Never before have the leaves whispered to her, sounding more like a little boy than a tree that has stood there for thousands and thousands of years.
She stares into the all-knowing eyes, heart hammering madly in her chest, grappling with the choices that lay before her. She extends a trembling hand, and touches the rough trunk of the tree, and the images flash before her – men lying dead and bloodied, the river running red, flames licking at a familiar man with grey eyes… Father! The cord tightening around Brandon's neck, the hammer landing fatally into the three-headed dragon on the chestplate, the dragon prince falling, a large hulking figure crushing a babe's skull, Ned crying, holding her unmoving hand, the rose petals spilling, dead and black—
"Stop it!" she screams, pulling her hand back from the tree, finding her cheek wet with tears, her heart racing a mile a minute at the frightening scenes she just saw… Father, Bran, Ned…
"Lyanna," whispers the tree. "Don't go."
She nods at the bleeding eyes.