In the last moments of the world as Hermione Granger knew it, she wished she had heard it come. Or saw the wand pointed at her face. Or felt the hairs tingle on the nape of her neck. She wished she had seen the danger, that she put up a good fight.
She honestly didn't.
"Avada Kedavra!" the clear, cold voice said, and blinding green light filled her vision, and she fell like a marionette whose strings were cut. She broke, she was nothing but pain and terror, and everything she had ever seen, everything she had ever known, was gone.
And Death spoke to her.
To begin is to end and to end is to begin, Hermione was told, you will learn to walk and speak again, lose your teeth, bite into fruits, count stars lying on your back in the dewy grass and you will know, again, what it is to love and to hate. You will forget the life you have left behind, but there are many other things you will remember even when you can no longer recall their meaning. Do not be afraid, child. Let your soul dance with eternity.
And bewildered, she fell again.
THE WITCH
IN
THE NORTH
1
In the hour of the nightingale, the Last Hearth was a haunted place. The rising sun painted rays of reddish-orange through the blue fog of dawn, unveiling snow-mantled mountain peaks and misty forests spreading as far as the eye could see. Slowly, the tops of pine trees and oaks came into view, like shadowy black lace against the reddening sky, the world silent but for the howling of the wind and the ravens' haunting caws. Beyond the wildwood, the Wall was naught but a faint pale line across the horizon, stretching away to the east and west until it vanished in the far distance.
As Meryanne stared out the solar's window, she felt more dwarfed by the ancient square tower from which she watched the sunrise than the endless wilderness outside. She was unsettlingly aware of the castle's presence, rising ominously over the countryside like a forbidding black of doom. There were northmen who believed the crude blackstone castle had been raised by the magic of ravenous giants, and that the woods surrounding it came from a time when the children of the forest ruled Westeros. Meryanne never knew whether she believed those tales or not. Here at the end of the world, where cold and winds hammered endlessly at the earth, it was easy to believe in old gods and forgotten magics. Ofttimes when she prayed in the godswood, she would startle at a strange sound or a shadow and, remembering those old legends, scurry back to the Black Keep.
Would that he had been here, her lord husband would have laughed at her and said that if the children of the forest were real, he would have asked them to keep the bloody wildlings from encroaching upon their shorelines. But Jon was far away to the south, fighting the king's men at the side of Eddard Stark of Winterfell and Robert Baratheon, the lord of Storm's End.
Meryanne blew breath on the frozen diamond-shaped panes of the window, and rubbed at the frost to see better. Winter had held the lands in its icy grip for close on four years now, and this moon snowstorms came down with unusual violence; night and day the crash of the wind had resounded over the castle until no man or woman within the walls could sleep and even the hounds whimpered mournfully. She longed more than ever for the white ravens to fly from the great Citadel of Oldtown, bringing forth word of winter's end.
She noticed two heavy figures in black walking across the yard to the godswood, and wondered who was foolish enough to brave the biting weather. From on high they looked no larger than ants, but if she put her mind to it, she could have guessed who they were. Very few remained at Last Hearth, women, boys, babes, a few men-at-arms and those old, crippled warriors who all wore same faces. Fierce, with deeply lined eyes, experienced from deeds so gruesome as to only be whispered about. One of the maids once told Meryanne that during the harshest winters the oldest among them marshaled their courage, went hunting. . . and didn't come back, so others could live off their food. Anyone living down the Neck would call these ways callous, but the North was a cold, hard place and it bred cold, hard men with cold, hard ways.
Meryanne shivered and drew her furs closely about her neck. There will be no need for final hunts this year, she thought somberly. Any Umber would rather die warring than alone in the snow.
The war had raged for a year and four moons now. A castle had no secrets, and men and maids alike were full of oddments of kitchen gossip, repeating tales they heard from lone riders and travelers. King Aerys was dead at Robert Baratheon's hands. The heads of the Kingsguard were rotting on the walls of the Red Keep, impaled on spikes. The Targaryens had laid siege to Storm's End. The Baratheons had laid siege to King's Landing. Prince Rhaegar was dead. No, Prince Rhaegar was alive, and had returned from the south with twenty thousand Dornishmen. Lord Tully and Lord Stark marched down from Riverrun, burning and slaughtering as they went. They meant to smash the Mad King to put the lord on the throne, the master of horse said. No, not Lord Stark, the other one, the young storm lord.
Meryanne would have believed anything but this. What right did Robert Baratheon ever have to the crown? Granted, King Aerys was a madman, but the throne was rightfully his by all the laws of gods and men, and were he to die—and she guiltily admitted the realm would be the better off without him—he had two sons, Prince Rhaegar and Prince Viserys, and grandchildren besides. All trueborn Targaryens with the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and conquerors. Baratheon had no business sitting on their throne, no claim to it. And the Starks aiding him were no better. If those news were true, even the Umbers were traitors, usurpers, and rebels.
Or perhaps there were other reasons that Meryanne could not understand. It wouldn't the first time she found herself at odds with her goodkin. She had come into this world not an Umber of the Last Hearth but a Darry of the riverlands, daughter to a lord, then sister to another, and all loyal to the dragonlords. While her eldest brother Rollan ruled their lands, Willem had received his knighthood at the Lord Commander's hands, Ser Gerold Hightower, and served as master-at-arms at the Red Keep. The king himself bestowed the white cloak of the Kingsguard on her brother Jonothor when he was one-and-twenty, and it was not long ago that their youngest brother was anointed with the seven oils and recited his knightly vows and the Prince of Dragonstone tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Arise, Ser Raymun.'
And the gods know Darrys' vows do not break so easily, Meryanne thought with fierce pride. Her brothers would never bow to an usurper and betray those they had pledged to protect. They had sworn oaths to the dragons and would keep them until the very end, she had no doubt. Her pride was immediately followed by helplessness and dread. If what they say is true, and Baratheon becomes king, would I ever see them again? Safe and alive?
Meryanne raised a hand to the window glass again, saw that it was trembling, and put it back down. Memories she thought she had forgotten came rushing. Rollan had held her as she'd been born, had guided her straggling babe steps, and, once she was grown enough to crave sweets from the village market, slipped coppers in her skirts pockets. Rollan was ten years older than she, a husband and father besides, but had never treated her with anything other than steadfast affection, had never shown her anything but kindness. How she yearned to hear his voice now. Even Willem's angry tones would be comforting, she would give everything to sit beside him, while he raged and stormed against life's injustices. Raymun had quipped on numerous occasions that Willem's mere presence in a room darkened the mood, and that his glower could frighten the sun into hiding on a good day, but to Meryanne, rather than oppressive and brooding, their older brother had felt reassuring. And dear, dear Jonothor. He had long been her champion, from the moment their lady mother died bringing Raymun to the world. Both Meryanne's father and septa had not known what to do of her incessant wailings and sudden rages, but Jonothor had wrapped eight-year-old arms around her four-year-old body and firmly held her while she sobbed. How close they had all been, the five Darry siblings.
Meryanne felt such an urge of homesickness than the scenery behind the frost-covered glass disappeared. Beyond the trees was not the cold northern land, but the castle where she grew up, the great hall with the trestle tables and woven portraits of all the Targaryen kings from the first Aegon to the second Aenys hung on the walls. Darrys had always supported the Targaryens it seemed. Her ancestors had fought during the Blackfyre Rebellion, defended Queen Rhaenyra's claim during the Dance of the Dragons, and not to forget about the Demon of Darry, the hero of a hundred songs and fearless Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
It must be in the Darry blood, Meryanne thought forlornly, just as it is in an Umber's blood not to think twice of dying for the Starks.
Gods be good, no matter how this terrible war ended, she would lose somebody. All those she loved were out there risking their lives, her husband, the father of her children, her brothers, Rollan and Jonothor and Willem and Raymun, all fiercely loyal and foolishly brave. . . and all fighting under different banners.
Meryanne would have thought she was cursed by the gods, if not for the fact that many others were in the same case. The Seven Kingdoms had never been more divided since war broke out. King Aerys's harsh rule had won him no love in the realm, and the lords Baratheon, Stark and Arryn's rebellion was heralded by lords great and small flocking to their banners. Others fell back before them or took shelter in their castles, unwilling to risk their lives in the name of a king they reviled. Others remained loyal to the Targaryens, refusing to join with some lordling against their own king, going as far as to chose the dragons over their lieges. All were fighting among themselves—save for the north. When Eddard Stark called his banners, every single one of his vassals rose up against the throne. The northerners rallied for the second son, this quiet shadow who had been fostered in the Vale.
How queer, Meryanne had thought then, as she watched the Umbers march to war, young and old alike wearing black iron helms and cloaked in bearskins and wolfskins. Her goodfather Lord Harmon himself led them, his brothers and uncles and nephews riding beside him beneath crimson-red banners emblazoned with the roaring giant in shattered chains. When they left, she told her husband that her late father would never have sent his men off to die for a lordling he didn't know. Why were they supporting the young Stark when their loyalty was to the king?
"My wife and her damned southron ways," Jon had said, snorting in disgust. "Your king cooked our liege lord in his armour, strangled his son, called for his second son's head and his princeling raped their sister. Are we supposed to just bend the knee to them? To let them live?"
Yes, Meryanne had thought, because Queen Rhaella and Prince Viserys and Princess Elia did not commit any of these, and I doubt gallant Prince Rhaegar has acted as bullish as you all believe. Why, are you truly sure this Lyanna Stark refused his advances? How do you know she is not to blamed too? But she did not say it aloud. The only person in the castle who didn't find this war worthwhile was her, and her husband's mood had been to foul for sense anyway. He was angered that he was left behind to hold Last of Hearth 'with the cravens and green boys'. Lord Harmon had ordered him to, so someone would ward off the wildlings were they to cross the Bay of Seals and raid their lands.
Jon's mood only blackened when news came from the southwestern riverlands, less than two moons later. Dark wings, dark words, the fishwives said, and the messenger raven had proved the truth of the proverb. The bird brought word of Lord Harmon's demise, slain at Stoney Sept where rebels and the king's men battled in streets, alleys, and rooftops.
On the morrow, the newmade Lord of the Last Hearth had armed himself with his two-handed greatsword and warhorn, all grim and hollow-eyed, the grief fresh on his face.
"Revenge won't bring him back," Meryanne had told him.
"No, it bloody damned won't." And without another word, Jon saddled his warhorse and rode south.
At least he had left her with more than distress. The war raged on, nine moons had come and gone, his seed had quickened and Meryanne had born her second child only two nights ago, a beam of hope and light during terrible days.
Quietly, Meryanne left the solar and crossed the gallery on stocking feet to her bedchambers. Fire blazed in the hearth and when she touched the stone walls, she was reassured to find warmth under her fingers. She walked to the carved oak cradle and gazed down at the sleeping bundle, huddled in swaddling clothes, soft wool blankets and white bearskin.
How small she is, Meryanne reflected, not for the first time. The cradle had been made for Umber babes, and while her firstborn son had suited it just fine, her daughter was different. And just as different had been both pregnancies. Jon's birth had been terribly painful, her son getting far too much of the Umbers and far too less of the Darrys, from his size to his black hair. Her husband had been home then, attending his son's birth in the only way acceptable. He stood right outside the door, listening to Meryanne's every cry, and shouting words of comfort as she struggled to push the world's biggest babe out of her womb. Jon had been uncaring if any of his men heard him. Afterwards he had told her she had done well and bragged to his uncles and anyone else who would listen that southron flowers were stronger than northwomen. Lord Harmon eventually told him to shut up, because he was insulting his own northern mother.
Comparatively, their daughter had slid into the world with ease, announcing her arrival with a croaky cry of protest and the hot, sticky feel of her wrinkled little body plopped down upon her mother's chest.
Meryanne caressed her sleeping infant's cheek with a finger. The babe showed some sign of favoring the Darrys in both coloring and nature, to her delight. The hair on her head was more brown than black, her skin was fair, and she didn't cry whenever she awoke. Meryanne had yet to give her a name. Her husband had named their firstborn Jon, but he wasn't there now, which was a blessing in disguise. He would have chosen something terrible, Eddara, or Branda perhaps. No, for this child, she wanted a beautiful riverlander name, a soft one such as Helaena, or Elinor, or Cynthea. . . Northern names were only suited for boys, short and strong, worn as firmly as one might wear an armor. Karls and Brandons and Rodriks, with fathers named Arron and Erikar and Hendrick. Should Meryanne have had a little boy, it had been her wish that she might name him Harmon, for her goodfather who had died a year ago. Lord Harmon Umber had been an honorable man, loved by smallfolk and noblemen alike, but she could hardly name her daughter that.
Hermione.
The name came from nowhere. Meryanne shook her head dazedly. During the whole of her pregnancy her brain had been scattered, disorderly, foreign phrases and queer snatches of memories wedging themselves in there. She blamed the milk of the poppy. She'd been drinking it these past three days to cope with the aftermaths of birthing her girl.
Hermione.
Meryanne saw flashes of sorcerers and warlocks robed in black with pointed hats, brandishing magical shafts from which flew stags and dogs and serpents of pale blue flames. She wondered for a second, only a second, if the old gods had sent her the sight, and this was some dream that hadn't happened yet, flittering down like ash. Then she snorted, smoothed the furs covering her daughter and banished the very thought. She was a woman grown who had known twenty-three name days, and had no time for legends of the First Men and fanciful tales of children of the forest. All had been dead for eight thousand years, leaving only carved faces in the weirwood trees behind them.
She put her elbows on the cradle and stared at the babe attentively. Would Jon like this name, Hermione? It did sound southron now that she thought about it. She could just imagine carefully placing her daughter in her husband's arms, amid many protestations from Jon himself that he was a clumsy oaf, sure to drop her. How bloody small she is, he would say. We need to put some meat on her bones, aye. Crowfood, would you come look at this little thing? Seven hells, and she's mine.
Meryanne felt tears stinging the back of her eyes and hastily blinked them away. It seemed cruel for children to be born in wartime, knowing not whether their fathers would come back. She went to lay across the great canopied bed, then put her hands on her face, as she had years ago, when a bird arrived from the south announcing a deadly fever had come upon Lord Darry and sent him to join his wife in the hereafter. Meryanne had been well during the day, but when dusk fell, when the unfamiliar dark of her new home closed around her, she had needed to curl around a body, needed the physical assurance that she was not alone in this world. It was her young husband who had hugged her and wiped her tears away.
Meryanne swallowed. There was a lump in her throat, a lump a year old. Weary, she curled into the hollow left by Jon's body, breathing his scent in the pillows, pine needles and old fur mixed with the scents of herbs the midwife had used to ease her pains. Heavenly smells. How much more she would enjoy her babe if he were here with her. She missed him. In fact, so much it surprised her. Theirs had not been a marriage of love or any romantic notions. Theirs had been a fortuitous match made out of opportunity in the War of the Ninepenny Kings, when King Jaehaerys II had called his lords bannermen to fight the Band of Nine upon the Stepstones, and men from all over the Seven Kingdoms fought and bled together. Knights of the Vale fought alongside Dornishmen, ironmen mixed with northmen, storm lords alongside riverlanders. Old grudges melted away, replaced by experience of men at war, the particularly intense, long-lasting bond of brothers-in-arms, camaraderie.
Or so Meryanne's father had told her. Lord Esthor Darry had been a jovial, spirited man who made friends easily, and on the battlefield he had befriended Lord Harmon Umber, a northman whose bravery had awed him. From dawn till dusk Darrys and Umbers sat around a campfire, celebrating, jesting, eating, drinking wine until they were all staggering drunk, and somehow when morn came a match had been made and Meryanne Darry was promised to the young heir of Last Hearth, Jon Umber.
Years later, her father had confessed that he'd been drunk, as much on glory as on wine, and hadn't given it much thought at the time. Meryanne had said nothing to him, but in her bed she wept lakes. She wasn't a great beauty, yet many a man had commented favorably on her brown curls and harp playing. Her septa had instructed her in the womanly arts so when the day came she could make a fine wife to a southerner, mayhap a Mooton or a blue-eyed Mallister or a Vance of Atranta. Meryanne had been understandably disheartened upon learning she was to wed some stranger with a crude giant for a sigil. Jon Umber might have been a future lord—but he was from the north. He might as well have been an ogre who ground children's bones for bread. Meryanne's mother, a woman who had always done the proper thing, was sympathetic to her plight but firm in telling her to do her duty. Only her brothers had opposed the marriage until the end. Riverlanders did not wed northerners, and they never forgave their lord father for sending her away.
"What is done is done," Lord Esthor Darry had told his four children tiredly, "even lengthy betrothals are betrothals, and there is no honor in breaking it now."
"Honor?" Jonothor yelled, while Willem stood at his side in silent support. "She is your only daughter. What sort of honor do you have to ship her off like a bag of oats?"
Their father ignored him, instead he turned to Meryanne. "You are my daughter, a highborn lady of Darry blood, and Darrys are no oathbreakers. Will you shame me?"
Meryanne, face wet with tears, had wanted to say yes. To weep, to break vases, to scream that her place was here and not in savage lands in the middle of nowhere. But she noticed Willem's grim expression, the anger in Jonothor's brown eyes, and Raymun watching them all wearily from the door.
"I want to be wed at home," she had said, and when time came she dutifully pledged her vows beneath the great dead weirwood in Castle Darry's godswood, because the Umbers kept to the old gods. Her maiden's cloak, russet velvet richly embroidered with the black plowman, was unclasped from her shoulders and replaced by a crimson, heavier one, worked with linked chains in silver thread.
Looking back, Meryanne was only grateful they didn't embroider a giant. Perhaps that was because they already had given her one for all the rest of her life. Jon Umber, her lord husband, presented a spectacle to strike terror into any gently bred maiden's soul. Towering over all the men she knew, fierce-looking with a large beak of a nose, a bluntly square jaw and scars slashing his chest. He reminded Meryanne of the jagged cliff faces of the shores of the Bay of Crabs, all weathered crags and treacherous angles. The beard alone entitled him to direct lineage with wildlings, or so her brother Raymun had claimed.
At first, Meryanne used to weep for her home, but her giant of a husband had made it exceedingly difficult for her to keep her spirits low. He conquered her early fears with gruff kindness, slew her uncertainties with good humor and lusty attentions, brought her furs of wolves and foxes and bears when he went hunting, and treated her always gently.
Meryanne thought of happy memories of her marriage, past summer days with the fresh scent of crisp forest air. She remembered the feel of the sheets tangled around her bare legs as they spent early morns sequestered in their bedchambers. Jon hand-fed her fresh peeled fruits while she laughed and licked the sticky juice from his calloused fingers. In the afternoons she watched him in the practice yard. Sometimes she would join him. She'd stand, tucked into the solid embrace of his larger, stronger body, while he showed her how to position her hands on the grip of a crossbow, how to notch the arrow, to aim. The first few times, she missed the target completely, the sound of the arrow startling her, causing her to flinch. She'd fire into the ground or, if she was very lucky, sail the arrow ten feet above the target. Time and time again, Jon would patiently correct her, his voice a low rumble against the back of her neck as he leaned over and helped her wind back. "Notch, draw, and loose," he'd repeat. "It's not that hard, woman."
She yearned for the comfort of these arms now, for the bellow of his voice, to hear him sing bawdy tales at feasts, the peaceful days of Last Hearth before the war. She wanted an entire lifetime with this man. More nights when he would make love to her in their bed. Watching their son growing tall and strong, doting on their daughter, giving them siblings. Babes with the Umber raven-black hair and perhaps her brown eyes. A family.
Somewhere, her father was laughing.
Meryanne smiled ruefully. He had been right in choosing her husband, even if she had needed seven years and a war to see it. She had sowed in the north, endured loneliness, and in time found much she could love. Jon will come home, she reassured herself. The gods made and shaped this man to battle. He will come back to me.
"Mother? Are you awake?"
Any thoughts instantly evaporated when Meryanne caught sight of her son's face, his black eyes peeping out from behind her bedchambers' door. He shuffled along in his nightclothes, yawning widely. His black straight hair was standing up in peaks, and there was a red sheet mark on his left cheek.
"Did you sleep well?"
Jon nodded as he climbed on the bed. Meryanne sat up and drew him close against her, burying her nose in his hair and inhaling the sweet scent of soap, feeling hope and strength come back. She was Lady of Last Hearth, she had a keep to manage, lands to defend, people to protect. She had no time to wallow in misery.
Jon soon slipped from her embrace, gazing at her with sleepy yet eager eyes. "Can I see the baby?"
They went to the cradle, and Meryanne stooped down over her little boy, carrying him so he could see inside. Jon looked, then looked again, staring at the bundle then up at his mother.
"Did I look like that?" His tone hinted at disapproval.
"You were bigger, and louder."
Jon nodded satisfyingly. "The babe looks like a doll."
"It's because she is your younger sister, sweetling." She held up his hand and caressed the babe's cheek with it. "See how soft she is?"
"My little sister," Jon repeated, venturing a tentative hand over the side of the blankets.
"Yes, and every sister needs a strong brother to protect her. Will you do that?"
Jon jumped out of her hold and flexed his arms. "I'm strong," he said confidently. "I'll grow strong like Father. The strongest man in the world!" He glanced back at the cradle, frowning. "She can't play swords, can she?"
"She is a girl," Meryanne said, amused. "And too small, besides."
"Artos has a brother. He can play."
"Well, he doesn't have any sister, does he?"
His frown deepened and Meryanne knelt down, taking his hands in hers. "Having sisters can be a good thing, and you could teach her how to play later on."
Jon seemed pacified. "Fine," he shrugged. "What's her name?"
Maryanne pictured black-robed warlocks busting through bright green flames in the great stone fireplace. As soon as it came, the vision disappeared. She stared at the empty hearth, blinking.
"Mother? Moooother. Listen to me!"
"Yes," Meryanne said distractedly. She must be more tired than she had thought. "Don't raise your voice, son. What is it?"
Jon pointed at the cradle insistently. "What is her name?"
Hermione. Again Maryanne saw sorcerers, robed in yellow and scarlet and green, mounting broomsticks and flying up in the air to the sky. Foreign tongues giving way to chants and applauses.
"Can we call her Bean, Mother? I think we should. She's small, just like a bean."
Meryanne shook her head and looked back at her son, who was tiptoeing over the cradle, trying to peer inside without much success. "You are as bad as your father, and no, we are not calling your sister Bean. I have chosen her name already. Hermione, do you like it?"
Jon looked up at her in wonder. "It sounds like Grandfather Harmon."
"Yes," Meryanne said, with the usual pang of grief. She held out her hand to her son. "Come, we will go break our fast in the hall. And ask a servant to write Hermione's name in the registry."
Some hours later, the steward brought the thick book where he compiled his dusty lists of weddings, births, and deaths, and added the entry in a neat handwriting, under the watchful eye of his mistress.
"Jon Umber, fourth of his name, born to Lord Jon Umber and Lady Meryanne Umber in the 280th year after Aegon's Landing at the Last Hearth. Black of eye, black of hair, and fair complected."
"Hermione Umber, born to Lord Jon Umber and Lady Meryanne Umber in the 283rd year after Aegon's Landing at the Last Hearth. Brown of eye, brown of hair, and fair complected."