Chapter 10: The Barrowlands

"Little bird."

That was wrong—she wasn't little at all—though she was flying. High above Winterfell, Sansa soared. When she turned her head toward her fingers she found the voice had been right, at least in part: instead of arms and hands she found wings, her black feathers glinting green and blue and purple where the sun struck them.

"Wake up, Sansa."

A murder of ravens flew all around her; when she turned, it wheeled with her. Each bird reacted to her smallest movement; they shifted in unison, and together made a dark, living cloud in the sky. Below her was the godswood, and when the sun touched the red leaves of the heart tree it set them aflame.

"Sun's falling, girl."

And then Sansa was falling too, plummeting toward the frozen ground. Terror rose up in her and she opened her mouth to scream, but something warm gripped her shoulder and pulled her up. When she opened her eyes, Sandor was there, peering into her face.

"You're all right," he said.

"Mmm," she agreed, and rubbed at her eyes. She felt odd, and in her barely awake state she couldn't figure out why. Then she swallowed, and grimaced. Her throat hurt.

Not today, she thought, and felt a trickle of dismay. It would be four nights to Moat Cailin, all in the bitter cold. A sore throat wasn't just an annoyance; it was a danger.

"Sandor," she croaked, wincing at her own voice. She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and shivered, feeling goose pimples rise under her clothes. Was the room cold, or was she feverish? "How long did I sleep?"

"Four or five hours." He sat on the bed beside her. His left arm snaked around her shoulders, and she leaned into his side. Then she felt fingers at her forehead. "Too warm. I'll get the maester."

He stood, and was nearly at the door before she found her voice.

"Wait," she said. "Find out where Bran is first, if you will. I need to see him—you can send the maester there."

Sandor nodded.

When he was gone she put on her boots and rifled through her drawers, searching for her spare handkerchiefs. Her head felt like it was stuffed full of wool, and the sound of the drawer's wooden runners sliding in their tracks was curiously muted.

By the time she found the fat stack of soft square cloths, she was shivering. She took up her fur-lined cloak and stuffed the handkerchiefs in one of the inner pockets before wrapping it around her. She put the hood up for extra warmth, and was considering winding the scarf around her neck as well when something touched her shoulder.

Sansa jumped, but it was only Sandor. He looked down at her with a frown.

"Sorry," she said, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. "I didn't hear you. Did you find Bran?"

"He's still in Jon's solar. We'll be going soon; I'll come up for you."

"All right," she said. That hot room sounded like paradise, and the chill in her body made her feel capable of enduring any number of nasty looks, if it meant she could be warm again.

But when she arrived at his chambers, Jon wasn't there. Bran was alone, and Sansa found that she was getting used to seeing only the whites of his eyes. She sank into the chair next to his, and thought, Bran, come back, there's so little time left. But the warmth seeping into her body from the room's hot air was so pleasant that their imminent parting receded in importance.

Sansa relaxed into her chair. Her eyes closed, and she was dozing, dangling over the precipice of true sleep, when Bran spoke.

"We're all wargs, Sansa."

Not me, she thought dreamily. I'm the ordinary one.

"Our line goes back so far," he continued, and she heard soft wonder in his voice. "I can see it, Sansa, thousands and thousands of years. Starks all the way back, and the blood is so strong."

"I don't even look like a Stark," she whispered, and a sadness so profound swept through her that she felt a prickle behind her closed eyelids.

"The Tully blood touched some things," he agreed. "But underneath the core is Stark. It is steel and will never yield."

Sansa opened her eyes and looked at her brother. She took in his auburn hair and blue eyes, so like her own. I should have been his sister, the way Arya is Jon's. It should have been me for Bran, not Meera, and she felt so keenly the selfishness of that thought that she hated herself. Without Meera Reed, Bran would have been all alone, the way Sansa had been all alone.

"I can't see what you can," she told him. "I can hardly see anything."

Bran smiled, and his gaze unfocused and became soft as he looked past her. "It was weakest in Robb, I think. He was older, more secure, when Grey Wind came to him. Brought up to rule, he had his birthright to guide him. It didn't need to be strong, though if it had been it might have saved him.

"Arya wasn't with Nymeria long, but the wolf is still alive, somewhere. It feels different in her. Flexible. Sometimes I see cats, with Arya, but I see the wolf, too. I see the wolf in all of us.

"In Jon it's a fire, raw and raging. He's been battling his whole life, and he's very tired." Bran's eyes focused, and he looked at her sharply. "Don't let him give up, not now when it's almost over."

"How?" she asked. "You saw how he looked at me. He doesn't even want me near him."

"You'll push him, just as you did before when he needed it." The blue eyes stayed focused on hers. "At first I thought maybe it wasn't in you at all. You had so little time with Lady. And all the trauma that came after… I thought maybe it had died in you."

"Didn't it?"

"No. I think it's locked away. It grew on its own, hidden, and bloomed in secret," Bran said. "With you, I see flowers."

"Flowers?" she said, not understanding.

"Sometimes birds, too. But always flowers."

"What does that mean?" she said, bewildered. "I could warg into plants, if I knew how?"

"Maybe, but that doesn't feel right. In you it's something else. I don't always understand what I see. But I see something."

Her first thought was that his words were a kind lie, spoken out of love. But he had to know that she didn't mind being an ordinary Stark, not really—after all, her father had been entirely unmagical as far as she knew—and it didn't feel like he was lying. Perhaps it was possible that she did have some power, though she had never felt any hint of such a thing. If it was there it was hidden, as Bran said, and no use to her. Sansa didn't mind; the whole idea made her feel uneasy.

"Sandor's coming, with Maester Wolkan," Bran said, suddenly sounding younger. "They'll pour potions down your throat and fuss over you like hens. Quick, give me a hug and a kiss. These may be the last moments we have together."

"Don't say that," she said. She meant to sound severe, but his request was too genuine and sweet; her smile warped the words.

When she embraced him, his hand cupped the back of her head, and after a few moments she pulled back enough to kiss his cheek. She intended to pepper him with kisses as she had done the evening before—had it really been only a single day since then?—but as she felt his lips against her own cheek, his hand caressed her face. The fingers pushed her hair away until his thumb rested in the center of her forehead. Then it pressed down, hard.

The solar vanished.

A jumble of images passed before her eyes. She saw a man riding an elk. Black birds roosted in the trees around him, thick upon the bare branches. Two young men sparred in the garden of the Eyrie, where she had once built Winterfell from snow and sticks. Father, she thought, but he was gone the next instant.

Faster and faster the pictures came. Bran fell from a tower. Lady's golden eyes looked up her. Arya kissed a man with silver hair. More came, each flicking by so quickly that she could not even register them all.

Sansa began to feel a pressure in her head, as though something was squeezing it. The queer sensation grew in intensity until she wanted to cry out—I cannot bear it, make it stop—and just as she thought her head would implode, the pressure was gone.

She saw herself, walking in a wild, impossible garden.

The path was wide and sunny, bordered on each side by flowers. Every bloom she knew crowded the beds, and even more were strange to her. Sunflowers nodded here and there, and orange lilies swayed gently in the breeze, their petals lolling like dog tongues on a hot day. Winter roses stood next to odd, spiky red blossoms, their sweet and spicy scents mingling. She watched as the Sansa in the garden lifted her hand, and the flowers turned toward her, all at once, as though she had spoken a command.

The garden exploded, and she was on the floor of her cousin's rooms, looking up at her brother. She pushed herself up to her elbows, feeling weak, then sat up. She felt very strange; her forehead tingled. Sansa touched it, but the skin felt as smooth as it always had.

"What did you do to me?" Even to her own ears, she sounded frightened.

Bran looked down at her, and his head was against his shoulder, as if he was too tired to hold it upright. His smile was so faint she was not sure if it was really there, and when he answered her his eyes closed; she could hardly hear his whisper.

"I unlocked the door."

The first night was miserable. Though she longed for sleep, she had never been a good enough rider to doze in the saddle, as Sandor could and did. Sansa had taken care to wrap herself in extra layers—two pairs of hose under thick woolen socks, an extra shift, and several scarves—but even so she shivered and could not get warm. She felt every minute of the fifteen-hour trek.

They rode at a brisk walking pace, for not everyone was mounted. Jon did not wish to leave anyone behind, and Sansa knew this was not a matter of sentiment; every person who failed to survive the march would be another wight to defeat later.

Dawn was only a lightening of the gray around them. Bone-tired, she watched the ravens following the column flit silently from tree branch to tree branch, and did not realize for a long time that her ability to see them meant that day had broken.

Her horse stopped walking when its companions did, but Sansa felt no particular urge to dismount. Her eyes followed one of the ravens as it took flight and climbed high into the air, circling lazily. It must be able to see the whole column from there, she thought, and could almost picture it: the remains of the Stark family and their fighters at the head; then the wildlings, who wished to be near Tormund and Jon. Behind them was the bulk of their modest army, the knights of the Vale, and finally the remains of the Wall defenders, a thin block of black brothers led by Edd Tollett.

They camped on the kingsroad itself. There was an inn half a dozen miles down the road, but only daylight mattered, and clutched in winter's fist they could expect a meager ten hours of light before darkness swallowed them again.

Sansa shared a tent with her sister. Her appetite was completely gone—she pushed away the food Sandor offered her after only a few bites—but she allowed the maester to ply her with dreamwine, and did not remember falling asleep.

The wine lived up to its name, for she dreamed vividly that night of flying back up the kingsroad to Winterfell. The trees and white, open spaces flashed by at a speed far above what even the fastest horse could achieve, and very soon she floated above the empty castle. To the north was a tall bank of white fog, and she watched it approach and touch her childhood home with a feeling of curious detachment. The castle walls split the fog neatly; Winterfell was a tall rock in a sedate stream.

Then Arya's hand was on her shoulder, and she was awake.

If the first night had been miserable, the second was torture. Her fever had deepened during her too-brief rest, and her thighs and backside were stiff and sore from the previous day's riding. Her head ached with a fierce, stabbing pain, pushing the discomfort in her throat to the background. She huddled in the saddle, Sandor to her right, Arya to her left, and their fourteen-hour ride felt like fourteen days.

When Sansa tried to dismount that morning, her legs buckled and she would have fallen if Sandor had not been there to catch her. He picked her up as though she was as light as thistledown, and carried her to the tent. Someone touched a wet cloth to her forehead; it felt as cold as ice, and she howled at the pain of it. When the maester came, she fought and lost. He poured something vile down her throat while hands held her down. When they finally left her alone she curled into a ball under the furs of her bedroll and wept.

Her rest was fitful; strange dreams plagued her and she could not tell if she was awake or asleep. "I fed his sons to him and slit his filthy Frey throat," she heard her sister say, but when she looked over her shoulder, Arya was asleep, snoring softly.

In the morning she was lucid, if not exactly herself. She no longer felt pain; her body was distant, as though she floated just above it. She stood next to her horse and leaned her forehead against its saddle while Arya and Sandor discussed the impending night's journey.

"She's too weak to ride. She'll fall."

"Stranger can carry us both."

"I don't know. Maybe we should put her in one of the wagons."

"No wagon," said Sansa, and they both turned to look at her. "You can't fight if we ride double, Sandor. Strap me to my horse."

Neither of them liked the idea, but Sansa meant to win this battle, and she did. It didn't take as much arguing as she expected, and she wondered what she must look like, that two of the most stubborn people in the world would give in so quickly to spare her the effort it might normally take to get her way.

They should have strapped me in the first night, she thought, when finally it was done. Her body and its pain were more distant than ever, and without the need to hold herself in the saddle, she was able to relax. As the hours went by she felt a rising euphoria.

"I feel wonderful," she confided to her companions, long after midnight, and could almost feel their worry rise. They think I'm dying. If I am, I don't care, she thought, and laughed out loud. An old tune ran through her head, and she would have hummed it if not for her throat, which she still could not feel, but wished no harm.

They were deep in the Barrowlands this third night, passing by long rolling hills untouched by snow. The temperature dropped quickly, and as it did her giddiness slowly seeped away.

Eyes closed, she listened, as though she expected to hear some sound besides the creak of wooden wagon wheels, the trudging of boots, and the jingling of hundreds of bits of gear.

Arya was distracting her, though, and Sansa wished she would girl was stuck in a loop, cycling through deep anger, thirst for action and blood, and sharp worry so quickly that Sansa could hardly keep track of it. A deep current of frustrated impatience ran underneath it all. It must be very tiring, feeling that way.

On her other side, Sandor was nearly her sister's complete opposite. Sansa could feel the merest thread of attention aimed at her, but the rest of him was a deep well of calm. He was sleeping very lightly, and Sansa smiled, her eyes still closed. She was very fond of Sandor Clegane.

The horn sounded from behind them, a long, mournful blast. There it is, she thought in satisfaction.

The second horn blast came on the heels of the first. Its tone was somehow self-pitying, and Sansa did not have to follow the sound back to its source to know that Dolorous Edd was behind it. Everyone on the march knew what the Night's Watch signals meant, and with the wildlings on their side…

When third blast came, a miasma of anxiety drifted up from the column, a long, sour snake of dread. On both sides of her, swords slid from scabbards. The army stumbled to a ragged halt in the dark, bunching up in some places and leaving gaps elsewhere.

"The Others," she heard Arya say. Sansa felt no fear from her, only resentment that she would leave work unfinished.

"No," Sansa said, not knowing how she knew. "This is just their calling card."

"What does that mean?"

"Quiet!" Sandor barked.

Sansa's horse sidled left, toward the middle of the column, and she did not correct it. When she opened her eyes, the nearest horse in front was Ser Davos Seaworth's. In the torchlight she could see the gray of his beard and the glint of his eyes as he looked back at the column.

The wind couldn't seem to decide which way it wanted to blow. It tugged at the left side of her hood, but a few seconds later pushed at the back of her head. Then they caught the sound of far-away screaming, fading in and out with the gusting of the wind.

An odd clacking sounded from just to their right, and when Sansa looked and saw the skeleton scrambling up the bank to the road, all the pieces fell into place.

They are raising the Barrowlands.

The gentle hills she had wondered at on her way to King's Landing had centuries' worth of dead men interred within. They must be beyond counting.

Stranger screamed in rage and leapt forward. Before the skeleton could rise and swing the pitted sword it carried the stallion was upon it. The thing's skull was so delicate and brittle that powder puffed up around the hoof that clove it in.

The clacking came again, this time from every direction, and became a symphony of rattling bones. She wondered how many had been too frail to free themselves from the earth that bound them. They're too old to be dangerous, she thought, but she was wrong.

All around her, horses screamed, terrified of the death closing in on them. Even her own garron reared and tried to bolt. It only ran a few steps before she took her left hand from the saddle's horn and shoved her fingers into the shaggy coat of its neck. There was an odd pressure in her head, and then the feeling of something flexing deep inside her mind.

The skin shivered under her glove, but the horse stood still.

She found herself neck and neck with Ser Davos, who was controlling his own mount with difficulty. Sansa looked at the animal, tossing its head and jogging in place, wanting to flee, and knew that calming it would be the easiest thing in the world; this time she didn't even have to touch the creature.

"It's not the Others," she said serenely to Ser Davos. "It's a snare. We need to keep moving; go sound the signal to march." He looked at her with his mouth agape, but she gave him a little nudge with her mind and the mouth snapped shut. He put his heels to his horse, cloak snapping as he rode for Jon.

The pressure was building in her head again, but it didn't hurt. She felt powerful, as strong as Sandor. She could feel him behind her, astride his furious horse, laying waste to the bones of the north's ancestors with the flat of her father's steel.

Years ago, in King's Landing, she had seen his face transformed during the bread riots. Then, she had been terrified of the look on his face when he killed to protect her, but now she could feel what he felt, and it was no longer something awful to turn away from.

The deep calm that she'd felt earlier was still there; he did not fear the brittle wights, and smashed them with a physical pride of doing what he was best at, what he was made to do. Every sweep of the sword, each contraction and stretch of muscle was a sensation to revel in, and he did.

Threaded through it all was a feeling of deep satisfaction and purpose. To destroy evil and protect the innocent had long been the secret, unfulfilled wish of his heart. He'd stifled it as best he could in a hard and unfair world, turned his back on it, and spat at the very thought of true justice. He had committed terrible acts, and drowned his heart in wine to endure them.

Until Sansa came along, all unknowing, her open heart the twin of his secret one. Her suffering had been the catalyst that set him free.

There was joy in his work now, and Sansa shared in it. The earlier euphoria rose, and her body felt so far away now that she did not know if she truly wept, or if it only felt like she did. The pressure in her mind from the power swelling inside was nearly unbearable. Her third eye was wide open, and if she didn't do something soon, it would kill her.

Desperate, she reached out for Sandor. With mental fingers, she touched him and took a small portion of what he was feeling into her hands. Sansa had no idea what she was doing, but some instinct guided her; she pushed her power into the piece of him that she held. It flourished and grew, like dough rising in a warm kitchen, and when she could grow it no larger she flung it over every living creature she could sense. It covered them in all of their thousands.

The screaming stopped at once. Both horses and men became quiet as her strange net sank into them. What have I done? Have I killed them? For a moment, all was quiet and she did not know what she had wrought.

Then, to her relief, she heard hundreds of swords slide from their scabbards; by the noise of it, every single one that had remained sheathed when the Night's Watch horn first sounded.

A horse whickered in the distance, and then the measured sounds of battle came to her ears. She heard the dull snap of ancient metal, the grunts of men swinging swords, and the hollow crunch of old bones smashing.

Two short, sharp horn blasts came from ahead, and soon they were moving again, more slowly than before, but steadily. The horse required no input, and went with his fellows, which was just as well; she couldn't feel her body anymore at all.

The queerest sensation of being drained came over her; the power that had mounted so hotly before was spinning slowly out into those around her. Sansa did not know if the strange magic she wielded would last long enough to see them through. She slumped in the saddle, eyes closed, her world narrowed to a pinpoint as she fought unconsciousness.

At the darkest hour of the night, in bitter cold and spitting snow, the army of the King in the North went forth. The torches dipped and swung, their fitful light glinting off whirling swords. Men and horses advanced in near darkness, flinging back the fragile wights, who had for centuries rested honorably in the gentle rolling hills of the Barrowlands. Protected by the waning banner of Sansa Stark's gift, the tattered army marched south step by step, toward survival, and the dawn.