"The southron had it easier. They had their septons to talk to, someone to tell them the gods will and help sort out right from wrong. But, the Starks worshiped the old gods, the nameless gods, and if the heart trees heard, they did not speak."

The boy-lord stayed in his brother's room for a long time. Nyssa paced outside. Blood drummed in her ears.

"It's a shame," Wald said. She'd forgotten he was there.

"What?" she asked. The guard nodded towards the door.

"The little lord, he won't ever walk again."

Not the red-headed lady, or the three-eyed crow, or the Child had told her anything about the boy being a cripple. Had they, she'd have told them it was better to kill him quick, while he still slept.

"Strange, you know," Wald said. "That boy's been climbing these walls for years. Her ladyship used to send us out after him, but we could never catch him. Damn near broke my neck trying."

The wildling scowled. The Child had called the boy the fallen child, but the red-headed lady insisted her son had been pushed. In the three weeks Nyssa had been at the castle, she'd given no thought to who wanted the little boy dead. Whenever she did begin to wonder, she reminded herself that none of it was her concern. She stood outside the fallen child's room, day and night, for the money, for Cara and Briar, for home. Getting involved in a southron feud was not part of the plan.

But the fallen child's face haunted her. She saw it when she closed her eyes, even if just to blink. What kind of monster would take the life of one so young or doom them to a cripple's fate? Nyssa felt a surge of anger towards the faceless, nameless murderers.

When the boy-lord finally departed the room, Nyssa fell into step beside him. Robb glanced over at her, but said nothing. Though all he wanted was to be alone, he knew that if she had something to say to him, she'd say it. If he told her to bugger off, she wouldn't. She's like a fly, he thought, as they rounded the corner. No matter how many times you swat at her, she buzzes back.

As soon as they rounded the corner, and Alf was out of earshot, Nyssa asked the question that had burned on the tip of her tongue since she'd spoken to the fallen child.

"Who are these people that want him dead?"

Robb's step faltered. They were alone. Even so, such matters weren't to be discussed in the hall. There are spies everywhere, even in Winterfell, his mother had warned him.

"Not here," he said. The wildling opened her mouth, no doubt to protest, so he hurriedly continued. "Just follow me." Still, she frowned. "Please," he added, forcing the word out between clenched teeth. The wildling nodded. She spoke no more as he led her to his room.

After closing the door behind them, and sliding in the bolt for good measure, Robb turned his attention to the dying fire. The room was already too warm, but being alone with her made him uncomfortable. Having a task at hand helped ease his nerves.

Nyssa remained by the door. She took in the young-lord's room. It was far larger than her own. There was too much space for one person. The tent she'd shared with Illa was one fourth the size of this lordling's chamber. Without asking permission, she strode across the room and pushed open the window. Below in the courtyard, two of the direwolves sat perfectly still, with their eyes raised to the fallen child's room. Nyssa backed away from the window. She suspected that the wolves knew far more than any of them did.

"Your mother said something about lions," Nyssa said, facing the boy-lord, who still knelt by the hearth. She was surprised he even knew how to build a fire. "What did she mean?"

"A lion is the sigil of House Lannister," Robb said.

"Sigils." She pursed her lips. The red-headed lady had used that word as well. "Those are the pictures you put on your little flags, right?"

"They're banners, not flags."

"Small difference," she said, shrugging. Robb let it go. Why bother explaining anything to her? She'd never understand.

"We think it was one of the Lannisters who pushed Bran and sent an assassin to...finish him off."It was difficult to say the words aloud. When he thought of Bran falling, and falling, Robb felt as if he were falling himself.

"Why?" Nyssa asked, cocking her head to the side.

The fire roared to life. With nothing left to do, Robb turned to her. For once, the wildling didn't look back at him with that haughty and hostile expression he loathed so. Instead, her dark eyes searched his face, as if she could read the answers written there.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"You don't know?" she snapped. "These lions, they've twice tried to kill your brother and you don't even know why? Do you know anything, boy?"

"Don't call me that."

"It's what you are," Nyssa said, folding her arms over her chest. "No wonder your mother wanted me here. You couldn't keep your brother safe from so much as a-"

She'd gone too far. She'd said what Robb had thought since first learning of Bran's fall, but he wouldn't take the words coming from her, of all people. He stepped towards her, not sure what he meant to do. The wildling held her ground,

"Are you going to hit me, boy?" she said. More than anything he wanted to, but she was a girl. No, she isn't, the rage in him hissed, she's nothing, she's worse than nothing, she's a wildling. Then, his eyes were drawn to the bruises, violet imprints of a man's hands, round her neck. The sight made him sick. No, he would not hit her.

Robb turned his back to her again and stared at the fire until he'd calmed himself enough to speak.

"The only explanation I have for why anyone would wish Bran dead, is that he must have seen something he was not meant to," he said, his words measured. "What he did see, I don't know, and neither does Bran. He claims to remember nothing."

Silence took hold of the room. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the wildling woman's deep, steady breaths. Nyssa moved back to the window. Thankfully, the wolves were gone. She leaned her body over the sill, looked down, and imagined what it would be like to fall from here. Suddenly, her eyelids grew heavy. She could not keep them open, and when they closed, she was falling. Nyssa could hear the wind rushing past her, louder than thunder. She flung out her hands, to catch hold of something, anything, but her fingers grasped only air. The three-eyed crow landed on her back. It's weight pushed her down. Get off, she longed to scream, but the wind forced the words back down her throat.

Then it stopped. When Nyssa opened her eyes, the boy-lord was at her side. She looked down at his hand on her arm and realized she was trembling. Part of her felt she was still falling.

Robb wasn't certain what had just happened to the wildling. He'd turned around, prepared to tell her to leave if she had no further questions, and seen her hanging out of the window, prepared to topple over the ledge.

"What in seven hells were you doing?" he asked. Nyssa shook off his hand. She feared if she opened her mouth to speak, she'd vomit instead.

"Nothing," she managed to say. "It's warm in here."

Robb looked at her skeptically. Her face was white as snow, drained of blood. Her hands still shook, though the rest of her was still as stone. She stood tall and straight, with her lips pressed in a stern, stubborn line, but her black eyes were full of fear. What scares a wildling? he wondered. His mother thought she had the sight. Robb had scoffed at the suggestion, but looking at the girl now, he almost believed. Almost.

Nyssa darted past him, but she stopped at the door. Her heart raced, as if she'd just been running for her life, or falling to my death. Her hands stopped shaking. She stared so hard at the grain patterns in the oak door that they appeared to move, like a writhing knot of snakes. Falling and falling and falling. For once, she understood the message the gods had sent her. They'd put her into the fallen child's body and she'd felt the boy's fear, mixed up with her own. But now that the fear had faded, a freezing anger swept through her.

"No lions are going to get their claws in your brother," Nyssa declared. "Not while I'm here."

Then she left, but her parting words echoed in Robb's ears. He did not doubt that she'd meant what she'd said, though he didn't understand her motives. It struck him that he knew as little about her world as she knew of his. Perhaps magic did still exist over the Wall. Perhaps...

He shook his head to clear such absurd ideas from his mind. Magic lived on only in fairy tales.

Since the fallen child had woken, Nyssa abandoned her post only to relieve herself or to snatch a meal from the kitchen. The bed in her new room remained un-slept in. She dozed with her head between her knees whenever Alfwald stood guard. He wasn't as old, or as young, as the others, and he had enough scars to vouch for his worth as a soldier.

I'm not doing this for you, she thought at the three-eyed crow, whenever he visited her dreams. Nyssa still intended to leave the castle as soon as the red-headed lady returned with the gold. Until that time, however, she'd decided to give herself wholly to the task of protecting the fallen child from the lions.

"Funny you call us the savages," she'd said to the boy-lord earlier that morning, as he'd left his brother's room. "But I never met a man or woman on the other side of the Wall who'd harm a child."He'd said nothing in return.

She knew nothing about these lions, or Lannisters as the boy-lord called them, but they took on the appearance of the Frozenriver people in her mind's eye. They had the same teeth, filed to sharp points and meant for breaking human flesh, but they wore the strange, metal suits of the southerners instead of heavy furs.

Summer, the boy's direwolf, scratched at the door. Nyssa stayed where she was. The guard could let out the beast. Her body tensed as the man opened the door. Summer trotted past him, across the hall to where the wildling stood. She backed up against the wall and glared down at the pup. Not a pup for much longer. Summer nipped at her skirts. At first, she thought the beast meant to bite her, but its teeth caught only the fabric.

"Away," she snapped, swatting at the pup's shaggy head. Summer pushed his snout against her legs. She realized that the pup was trying to herd her towards the fallen child's room. Though Nyssa did not want to go, the wolf was persistent.

"Fine," she said, raising her hands in defeat. "I'll go. You understand?"

Summer turned around and trotted back to the the guard stepped forward, to bar Nyssa's way, the wolf snapped at him and he retreated.

Summer went straight to his master. The wolf curled up atop the boy's crippled legs, folded his paws under his chin, and watched her, as did the fallen child.

"Some trick you've taught him," she said, glancing warily at the direwolf.

"Do you always stand outside?" Bran asked.

"Yes."

"But you never come in."

"Your brother doesn't like me to." It was one order Nyssa preferred to obey. She'd already become too involved. She could still feel the boy's fear, feel them both falling, and it was for that reason that she wanted to protect him, but also the reason she feared being too near him.

"You won't hurt me," Bran said.

"I might."

"No." The boy shook his head. "You said so yourself. Does the crow talk to you, too?"

"No," she said. It wasn't a lie. The three-eyed crow never spoke to her. "What does he say to you?"

"He made me wake up." Bran scowled at his legs. He could see them, but he could not feel them. "I wish he hadn't."

Nyssa knew not what to say, but she felt his pain as sharply as if it were her own. Had the three-eyed crow brought her here? Had the Child? Had Greta? Perhaps they were all one in the same. She and the child weren't so different. Fate had brought them here, in whatever form, but neither of them had arrived willingly to this moment. I might as well be a cripple, she thought. She'd run from the wolves, only to run to them.

"What did the crow mean? How are you supposed to help me?"

"I don't know," Nyssa admitted.

"Why are there always guards outside?"

"To keep the lions out."

"What?" Bran pushed his hair back from his eyes. He didn't look like anything other than a poor, crippled lordling now. Still, Nyssa kept her guard raised.

"Your mother, your brother, they think the lions want to kill you."

"The Lannisters?" Bran asked.

"Yes, them."

The boy took the news well, but Nyssa noticed him curl his fingers into the wolf's fur.

"I don't remember anything," Bran said, frustrated. "The crow said it was better if I didn't yet. Why?"

"You're asking the wrong person," Nyssa said.

"But you have the sight. That's what the servants say."

"Yeah, well, don't believe everything you hear. The gods don't reveal much to me, lordling." She called him lordling, not mockingly, but with a note of affection. The boy had many questions. More than his mother and certainly more than his grunting, glowering brother. At her words, his expression wilted to disappointment.

"My mother had the sight," Nyssa went on. Bran peaked up at her over the furs. His eyes were round as the moon at its fullest. "When she was very young, the gods showed her how she'd die."

"That's terrible," Bran said.

"Yes, it was."

"What happened to her?"

"She died just as they said she would." As her birthing time had drawn near, Nyssa's mother had told her that she would not survive the trial to come. I've always known this girl would be the death of me, she remembered her mother say, and I've always known that I'd bring her into the world any way.

Nyssa didn't know why she was telling the boy any of this.

"I should leave," she said, backing away from the bed.

"Please don't," Bran said. "I won't ask anymore questions."

Nyssa did not believe him. Nor could she say no to the boy. There was something about him that reminded her of home. A spark of magic in his eyes, so much like the one that had gleamed in her own mother's eyes. She sat in the straight-backed chair by his bed. Bran turned his head to look at her, with his cheek pressed to the pillow. They stared at one another for a minute. What now? Nyssa wondered. It'd been many years since she'd entertained any children.

"Do you know any stories?" Bran asked.

"A few."

"Will you tell me one?" He'd heard all of Old Nan's too many times.

Nyssa could only remember Illa's favorite story. She hadn't told it for a long time, but the words came back to her now as though not a day had passed. The fallen child clung to her every word.