The temple was not as quiet today as the Cat normally found it. Most of the people who came in to weep at the feet of one or another of the statues in the House of Black and White did it early in the morning before the dawn broke or late at night, so it was disconcerting to hear a woman's soft sobs echoing around the chamber in the mid-morning hours when the sun was still climbing. The sound was emanating, appropriately enough, from the marbled feet of the Weeping Woman, where a slight form knelt, her head bent, her face pressed against the cool marble of the statue, bathing it with her tears. The Cat slipped silently past her to attend to her duties, the soft leather soles of her slippers making no noise which might disturb the despondent woman.
The acolyte drifted soundlessly around the temple, collecting offerings and replacing or relighting the candles which had burned too low or extinguished themselves. As she moved through the nearly abandoned corridors and wide open space of the main temple chamber, she longed to execute a few of the tumbling moves she had been practicing over the last few weeks, copied from the rat-faced boy. She dared not succumb to the urge with a worshiper in the temple, however. It would not be… seemly. She also recognized that if the Kindly Man crept in and caught her, he would surely not approve, and his disapproval could result in particularly unpleasant consequences. Besides, giving in to this whim would violate a particular instruction which the elder seemed to be emphasizing more and more of late.
You must learn to serve in stillness.
Almost as if he had been called from the mists by her thoughts of him, the principal elder appeared at the side of the sobbing figure, placing a hand gently on her back and speaking in low tones with her. After a few moments, during which he seemed to comfort her and she seemed to calm herself, the Kindly Man helped the woman rise to her feet and they walked arm-in-arm to the dark fountain in the center of the temple. The Cat watched as they approached the still waters, but when the woman sat on the ledge of the pool and the Kindly Man produced a cup (Where had that been? the girl wondered. Does he keep them hidden in his sleeves?) which he then handed to the forlorn woman, the acolyte turned away in distaste. It wasn't that she was bothered by death; not in the least. She had witnessed far too much of it for it to hold any discomfort for her, enduring its sting time and time again, even causing her fair share. Death held no horrors for her any longer. She found it difficult, though, to watch someone invite it; someone who had a choice between laying down and giving up or living and fighting on and yet chose wrong. In witnessing these things, there was no terror or sadness for the apprentice, only bewilderment. This loss of will, this weak succumbing, this lack of passion only baffled her and the Cat did not like to feel confused.
There is only one thing we say to Death: not today.
The girl wandered down one of the wide passageways which radiated from the main temple chamber and retreated into an alcove, the furthest one from the pool. She waited there to give the dark waters time to do their work. The corpse would need to be removed from the area around the pool and taken to the chambers below. It was her job to do this, and to strip the body of anything useful, but the acolyte had no want to take a dying woman before her time.
Thinking on the task ahead of her, the Cat sighed and turned, finding herself staring into the veiled face of the Stranger. The obscured countenance of the likeness brought to mind her discarded widow's disguise. Her mouth curved into a small smile at the thought, remembering how she had poisoned the beautiful maid's figs while wearing the dark clothes and veil. She had unintentionally dressed as the Stranger to usher another to the Stranger's side.
If you believed in all that, she thought wryly, her smile growing.
"I have seen many people visit this spot," the Kindly Man's placid voice started from just beyond the girl's right shoulder, "but I do not believe I have ever seen any of them smile." As soon as she heard the elder speak, the small smile died on her lips and as she turned to him, her expression was not amused any longer but rather radiated a practiced respect and sympathy (her temple face, as she had come to think of it).
"I was just thinking that the Stranger and I have much in common," the girl remarked, inclining her head slightly to the imposing statue with seeming reverence.
"Do not confuse service to the Many-Faced god and giving the gift of death with governing the dead, child," the man chided her gently as he regarded the pale, veiled figure before them. "A simple matter of costuming does not make you more like him."
Though the apprentice could not know it, even her own mother had seen that her youngest daughter, her fierce wolf-child, was much more like another of the Seven than the Stranger. The Cat might have fancied in herself a kinship with the most frightening of the Seven, but the devout daughter of Hoster Tully had glimpsed her wild girl's serious Stark features through the smoke trailing from a torch, clouding a ruined sept and stinging her eyes. She found the girl's face in the crudely rendered drawing of the Warrior, a visage she came upon in the sept of an abandoned village she had visited when treating in the name of her son, Robb Stark, the King in the North. Arya's mother had tried in vain to make a peace with Renly Baratheon, the one among the five kings with the most of summer in him. At the time, Lady Stark was recently widowed, grieving her husband, distracted with doing her part to guarantee the safety of her sons, and feeling the absences of her daughters acutely. The mother had not the time to spare much thought for what her vision might mean but had seen the truth of her daughter's destiny nonetheless. Arya had more of the Warrior in her than any of the other faces of the Seven but it was so very long ago and the youngest Stark girl had not been there, so the observation passed from all knowledge with her mother's murder.
If the Kindly Man was inclined to agree with Catelyn Stark's vision, he did not say so but instead commented on the girl's judgment of the woman who now lay dying on the ledge of the fountain just down the corridor from where they stood.
"Why do you flee from death, child?"
"I'm not fleeing from death," she corrected him. "I just don't understand it, is all."
"Valar morghulis," the elder reminded her gently. "All men must die."
"Yes, but there is no requirement to hasten along the path to your own death!" she insisted, frowning with distaste at the very idea. Since even before the end of her idyllic life at Winterfell, Arya had only ever known what it meant to stand and fight; in her play; in her willful disobedience of her Septa; in her tousling with her many brothers. Her natural drive to fight was only sharpened by all that came after her family was separated by her father's sense of duty and loyalty to his friend and king.
"No reason to hasten along the path to death?" the elder mused. "Some might see the choices the Cat makes and say the same thing."
This stopped her short, wondering to which choices the Kindly Man referred. Jaqen had been warning her all along that some of the things she had done were dangerous and seemed to be drawing her down a path where she might meet with the end of the principal elder's patience. He had more than hinted that a consequence of that could be her own end but she felt reasonably confident that either the Kindly Man was more tolerant of her behavior than her master was inclined to believe or that he was indeed unaware of the things which might have otherwise earned his ire. But, here was this cryptic observation, just specific enough to worry her but not specific enough to give her a clue as to the direction her worry should take.
Knowing that in these cases, it was best to hold her tongue and try very hard to remain unreadable, she merely raised her eyebrows as if inviting the elder to expand on his comments but showed no other reaction and remained silent. It was a ploy that never worked for her, only, this time, it did.
"You cannot be an acolyte forever," he told her gravely. "In time, each apprentice will become a master. You must be wary along your path toward facelessness so that you do not put your trust in the wrong places and spend your faith on the wrong people. If you are not careful, you will find that you have been led astray and have reached a point where you can no longer achieve your aim."
This surprised her, though she fought valiantly not to show it. She thought he might admonish her for listening in on conversations not meant for her ears or for hearing news of her family and responding as Arya Stark would rather than with the tolerance and detachment of no one. She thought he would berate her for having her wolf dreams, citing them as proof that she had not managed to give up herself fully to Him of Many Faces, but instead, he was warning her about trusting too readily. Yet, life had taught the Cat never to trust and it was a lesson she had learned well. She simply did not, could not, trust. There was no one she exempted from her deep seated suspicion and wariness.
Well, no one but her master and her half-brother (he was still alive, she was certain). Was the Kindly Man telling her that she could not trust Jaqen? But that was ridiculous! She must have misunderstood him. She meant to think on the elder's words and decipher their true meaning later because the very idea that she could not trust her own master was… unfathomable.
Do you trust a man?
I trust you more than I trust any man alive.
She remembered the words she had exchanged with Jaqen over honeyed chicken and fought the urge to bite her lip as she considered the nature of their trust. She had no desire to give the Kindly Man cause to slap her and nothing seemed to draw his ire like that particular nervous habit. She packed the elder's strange words away in the corner of her mind where she was piling the things that begged for more consideration and merely nodded at the man, showing she had heard his words.
The elder turned slightly away from her, peering down the corridor into the gloom of the temple and sighed, saying, "I believe you are needed by the pool."
The Cat seized upon the opportunity to make her escape, saying a quick, "Valar morghulis," to the Kindly Man and then darting toward the serene fountain to retrieve the once-sobbing woman, now silent and still, merely a shell from which life had fled before the irresistible press of the poisoned water.
She found the woman collapsed by the pool and could see that she would be able to easily lift her small frame, hoisting her over her shoulder to carry her down below to do her required work. As she rolled the corpse into a position for lifting, the acolyte was surprised to see that the departed was young, her face very beautiful. She had assumed the woman to be old and sickly or at the very least, disfigured and carrying some visible evidence of a disadvantage to explain her arrival here in the temple and her craving for the gift she sought. What reason could a fair woman in her prime have to give up on life? Even with her slack mouth and fading color, the Cat could tell that she was almost of an age with the woman who appeared to be even younger than the curly-headed maid the Cat had dispatched with her tainted fruit not so long ago.
The memory of that assignment called up something in her mind's eye. She leaned closer to the dead girl, studying her face in the dim light thrown by the candles and torches in the sanctum. Yes, she could see it now. The dark curls, almost raven-black; the soft doe eyes; the apple cheeks… Sisters? This one the younger? It had to be; the resemblance was too strong to be merely coincidence.
That gave her pause as she considered the likely scenario. A dear sister, dead of a mysterious ailment, a sudden illness perhaps, and the grief too much to bear. The Cat wrinkled her nose, looking into the girl's lax face, her worries no longer creasing her brow, her tears no longer flowing. She was at peace, the Cat supposed, but she could not avenge her sister. She could only join her in the Nightlands. Of all the bloody stupid craven ways to react to the death of your family…
She thought of Sansa as she hoisted the small woman, throwing the corpse over her shoulders with a grunt, and imagined what she would feel if she found out that her only sister had been killed. She knew that in reality, this was a likely scenario and if the acolyte were ever sent to Westeros on the business of the Many-Faced god, it was entirely possible that she would receive the same news that this formerly sobbing woman had received. The Cat tried to imagine herself swallowing down poison, willingly, in response to such a tragedy and she could not. She loved Sansa. She did. But that was exactly why she would not join her sister either at the feet of the old gods or in one of the Seven heavens or in the Nightlands or moldering in a tomb. She loved her sister enough to act. Blood and steel. That was the only correct answer. That was the only acceptable response to death.
Daggers pushed through the sides of necks or stuck into hearts and twisted; swords, two of them, parting shoulders from heads and cleaving men in two; poison strangling traitors at feasts; her own small hands, perhaps aided by a knee, crushing a throat; all these she considered using against her sister's imagined killer or killers as she made her way to the dark cells below the temple to commandeer anything usable from the cold woman resting on her shoulder.
As she removed the girl's clothes (with no Jaqen around to witness just how deftly her fingers worked clasps and laces, of course), her thoughts took a natural turn from her own imagined vengeance against her sister's fictitious murderers to her very real anger against her brother's betrayers. She wasn't sure how she would get to the Wall, or when, but she had added it to her list. With Ser Gregor, Dunsen, and Raff no longer demanding her energy, she found herself with some time available for wishing death upon a new set of offenders. That she was not sure which of the black brothers were responsible was of little consequence.
…death will come. On the morrow, at the turn of the moon, a year from this day, it will come. A man does not fly like a bird, but one foot moves and then another and one day a man is there…
She remembered her master's words, spoken as a promise in the godswood at Harrenhal. Jaqen had been vowing to kill the king, if she was so inclined to name Joffrey, but there was a greater lesson to be had, if only a girl had the ears to listen and the mind to understand. There was an inevitability about death (valar morghulis) but a vow to be the giver of that gift was sacred; unbreakable. The power to deliver a man to his end, to take from him his breath and stop his beating heart, was bestowed by the god of this temple upon his chosen; the power of death, and nothing more. All else a girl might claim to possess, she found elsewhere.
Mercy was for the Mother but Arya was no soft and pitying thing. She was not completely devoid of compassion, but she would spare none of it for those who had harmed her and hers. No, she did not carry the Mother within her; rather, she was the Warrior, the pitiless instrument of Him of Many Faces, and the cold vengeance of the old gods, her hatred relentless, her memory long, her impulsion savage.
The name "Satin" emerged in her thoughts and she remembered her mentor's tale of the escaped squire from Castle Black, now riding with the brotherhood at her mother's command. He would know who was responsible for betraying Jon. That she knew with a certainty that her brother still lived mattered not—betrayal was betrayal and with no Starks but herself left to exact justice (she could hardly imagine Sansa riding to Jon's defense, in any case, assuming she was still alive), it fell to her. She did not wonder at Jon's feelings on the matter, not caring that he might have taken his own revenge but had not. That was not Jon's way—he was too much like their father. Honor was his strength and his weakness, as it had been Lord Eddard's. He was not capable of pure revenge. She frowned a bit as she folded the underskirt she had removed from the apple-cheeked girl and thought how strange it was that she felt no shame that her disposition varied so extremely from those exhibited by the great men in her life. Her father would not approve of her revenge scheme, she was sure, and Jon might understand it, but he would not condone it. Even Jaqen would say that she was being selfish and selfishness had no place among the Faceless Men.
Service to the Many-Faced god means a man's own purposes are the same as the order's.
"Men are stupid," she mumbled to herself. How could exacting justice ever be wrong? How could avenging the wrongs done to your own family be selfishness? How could delivering the gift of death ever offend the Many-Faced god? Was there any greater form of reverence? Was there a more sincere sort of worship? Did their god not bathe in the blood of those delivered to him, their cries sweet perfume in his nose, the tears of the mourning a precious offering of grief to delight him? To do what she felt she must, to visit her righteous anger upon the heads of Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei, the traitorous black brothers, and any others who may have harmed those she loved, was not a selfish act, she was quite convinced.
It was a holy one.
The Cat was preparing to drag the naked corpse deeper into the House of Black and White, to the lowest and darkest level where she could release the apple-cheeked girl to the murky depths of the canal bordering the north wall of the temple which wended its way to the bay. From there, the tides would deliver the corpse to the sea, at least whatever parts of it were not consumed by the giant eels that lived on the muddy canal floor, feeding off the remains of the bereft and hopeless the Cat gifted to them, growing ever fatter and larger. She had once seen an eel rise smoothly to the surface and snap the head from a body that had been sent through the chute into the canal. She had never realized what powerful jaws and long, sharp teeth eels had until she saw one of them sever the neck of that corpse with a single bite.
Another young bride for the drowned god, some Northern part of her thought with disdain, contemptuous of both the weakness of a sister who could not stand and fight for her blood as well as of the god of the Iron Islands. I hope the drowned god doesn't mind his women a bit chewed, the eels haven't been fed in a few days.
Before the Cat had managed to hoist the girl once again to her shoulders, she felt a slight change in the temperature in the room, a small shift in the room's pressure, and whirled around to see one of the Faceless masters (the one she thought of as the handsome man) entering the chamber silently. His comely face was expressionless as he nodded to her and spoke the typical greeting of the temple.
"Valar dohaeris," the Cat responded.
"I have come for the woman," he told her simply in the tongue of Braavos.
"Why?" the girl asked automatically, receiving a reproving look from the master for her impertinence, but he answered her nonetheless.
"Her face has value," the Faceless Man told her.
The Cat knew that this meant the girl's visage was destined to be added to the repository. She nodded and stepped away from the corpse, allowing the handsome man to approach the apple-cheeked girl and lift her into his arms. He nodded to the acolyte and turned to leave the chamber but then stopped and spoke without turning back to face her.
"My brother is most worried about you, little wolf," he said and she could not tell if it was a warning or merely an observation. The handsome man swept noiselessly from the room without saying more.
Why was his brother worried? And which brother had he meant?
The girl entered the large dining hall for the supper that night still wearing her long, cowled robe which marked her as a member of the order, but her mind was far outside of the temple as she seated herself for the meal. Loric stood in the corner, ready to serve, grinning as ever despite a split, bloodied lip. She frowned at his abused face but said nothing as she accepted the lemon water he offered her (it was a deliberate kindness on the boy's part; he had heard of her sudden distaste for red wine, which was the other beverage being served that night).
"A drunken sailor caught me listening to his conversation," the young acolyte revealed unbidden, even his whisper sounding happy to the Cat's ear, "but I learned three new things, anyway!"
She wondered what he had learned that was worth a fist to the mouth, but knowing Loric, he was just happy to have completed an assignment, regardless of the quality of the information he had brought back to the Kindly Man.
As the boy practically skipped back to his corner, the Cat's mind drifted to her previous thoughts, mostly surrounding Nymeria. It was strange for the direwolf to be so prominent in the girl's mind without there having been a recent dream, but she had crossed paths with the black and white cat who wandered the temple (a fine mouser, that one) on the way to the dining hall and for some reason, seeing that small animal had brought to mind a much larger one. She had wondered where her wolf might be as she bent to stroke the cat's silken fur, earning a small nip on the hand just before the tom brushed around her legs, his arched back leaving a few small tufts of fur clinging to the hem of the girl's soft robe.
"Do you know where she is, little cat?" the girl asked the animal softly as she thought of her wolf leading a large pack of her cousins to better hunting grounds, and the cat trilled faintly, then purred as he circled the girl's legs once more, earning himself a scratch behind his ears. Satisfied with the attention he had received, he nipped once more at the girl's hand and then sauntered off, his tail curling lazily at the tip, and if he knew of Nymeria's whereabouts, he certainly wasn't saying.
At table, the question continued to plague the Cat. As the cordial murmurs of conversation surrounded her, the girl took a bite of her warm bread and stared into the flame of the candle sitting directly before her, casting its glow on the platters and bowls of food lining the center of the table. She found herself wondering if she might glimpse the answer she sought as a Red priest would. Her focus softened and the small flame flickered and danced with the movements of her brothers nearby, the inconstant placement of the fire creating burning shapes before her eyes. Her chewing slowed and then stopped as she stared and stared. Slowly, an image emerged and the girl saw a ruined face and in it, eyes that burned with hate like hot coals. She recognized the dark sentiment; it reflected her own too closely. The face faded from her vision then and she saw a tattered cloak and a hammer and noose, a fine longsword with a distinctive hilt, and a greybeard missing a finger, his features indistinct and his wrists shackled. The silver chain connecting the cuffs was broken. And then she saw Nymeria, her coat shimmering in the moonlight like ice in the harsh daylight of winter. She could not tell where the wolf was, but she was moving, ever moving, and the girl could feel her movement, carrying her eastward. Always to the east.
The image dissolved as a hand passed over the flame before her eyes, extinguishing it. Across the table from the Cat, her master had taken a seat, and his bronze eyes burned brighter than a thousand candles as she looked into them. His expression remained neutral and he did not speak, but she understood him anyway and sat up a little taller in her chair, suddenly voracious, attacking her lamb chop, her eyes cast down upon the platter before her.
"Tell us, brother," the waif began in High Valyrian, addressing Jaqen, drawing his attention away from Arya as the tiny woman brought him into her conversation with the handsome man, the little lordling, and the principal elder, "what is your opinion on these dragons in Dorne? After all, you are the only one to have seen them. What do they plan?"
The Lorathi seemed reluctant to discuss the subject at table and his apprentice could fairly imagine his thoughts, knowing he would likely prefer to have this conversation in council chambers and away from the curious ears of the acolytes (one in particular), but he answered anyway, though tersely.
"A man believes they plan to do what dragons have always done."
There was a quiet that fell over the table and all eyes turned to the Cat's master, awaiting his clarification. Shaking his head slightly and sighing, he finally obliged, speaking softly.
"To conquer the land with fire and blood."
"Just so," the handsome man interjected. "They may even have already begun their campaign. Our brother saw them in Dorne nearly a year past. It is difficult to believe they would have been sitting idle all this time."
"No," the Kindly Man disagreed mildly. "While it may be difficult to believe that they have been biding their time patiently in Dorne, it is true nonetheless."
He did not reveal how he knew this but no one disputed his statement. The other masters and priests merely nodding in deference.
He knows things, the Cat mused to herself, but how? Does he have a dragonglass candle? Or the gift of sight like the ghost of High Heart? Does he learn of things before they happen, informed by prophetic dreams? Or does the Many-Faced god whisper in his ear as he slowly shuffles through the courtyard garden alone?
"And once they have Westeros," the waif pressed, "will they turn their eyes toward Essos and the Free Cities?"
Jaqen shrugged and then reminded them that the dragons had already been in Essos, and departed, having lain waste to the slave cities when all attempts at sowing freedom there had not worked. Astapor was only cleansed of the bloody flux once dragonfire had seared it and Yunkai was little more than a pile of cinders now after those who took over command of the city attempted to use their new power to betray their rightful ruler, the conquering queen, and subjugate their Astapori brothers. Only Mereen had survived, and then only after a third of the surviving masters, the strongest and most stringent of Daenerys Targaryen's critics, had been roasted alive by dragonfire in the fighting pits as an example and the surviving slave populations from Yunkai and Astapor had poured through the gates and now outnumbered the former masters one hundred to one.
Those as could be trained to fight and were able bodied were likely in Dorne with their liberator now, following the Dragon Queen and her children across the narrow sea in a fleet of ships so large that they were forced to dock only long enough to put their passengers ashore and then had to sail again out to the sea, making way for the next wave of ships in need of unloading.
"To return here, intent on conquering the Free Cities does not seem a goal of either of the silver dragons," the Lorathi concluded. "There are no slaves to free and this is not their land by rights. A man believes the dragons will stay in the west."
The Kindly Man nodded his agreement and reiterated, "The dragons will not leave Westeros now that they have landed." But it seemed to the Cat that there was a keen look in the elder's eye as he said it which cast doubt on the conviction boasted by his tone. As she watched the Kindly Man declare confidently that the Free Cities had nothing to fear from dragons, he turned his eyes upon her face and observed her closely, his expression inscrutable. She held his gaze, trying futilely to interpret his look and could feel another pair of eyes burning into her from across the table. She did not outwardly acknowledge her master, but she knew his bronze eyes were urging her to tread very carefully.
My brother is most worried about you, little wolf.
If you are not careful, you will find that you have been led astray and have reached a point where you can no longer achieve your aim.
Stupid girl, who do you think your Kindly Man is? What does a girl suppose will happen to her once her Kindly Man has no use for her?
The handsome man; the Kindly Man; her master. All of their words rattled in her head, warring for her acceptance; confusing her as to their objective; demanding her trust. Unsure which way to turn, she gave her attention to her platter and finished her supper, thinking instead of the intentions of dragons and the intentions of those who would use them.
How fast do dragons fly? the girl wondered. How long would it take a dragon to cover the distance between Dorne and the North?
Long after supper, the Cat tossed and turned upon her soft mattress in the pitch black of her cell, finding that sleep eluded her no matter how fervent her desire for it. The knife and leather strap at her thigh chafed her skin as she rolled over once again, trying to find the position that would most likely result in her pushing her tumultuous thoughts down far enough that she could finally rest. Her mind seized upon one half-formed idea after another, throwing them into the forefront of her meditations in a rotating fashion and depriving her of her sleep she craved. Lady Stoneheart; dragons; the wooden case left at the Meerios Dinast armory; Jon; the final trial; Nymeria; Jaqen's lie to the Kindly Man; Gendry; blood magic; the rat-faced boy's hatred; the familiar doe eyes of the apple-cheeked girl; raking wounds against tanned flesh.
Frustrated, the girl flipped over again, beating her fist against her pillow and growling as the flat hilt of her small throwing knife pressed uncomfortably at her inner thigh. She grasped at it and yanked it from the leather strap, meaning to toss it in the corner in irritation when she felt a slight draft across her cheek.
Instinctively, she bolted upright in her bed, unseeing but knowing where her door was. The knife flew from her fingertips and struck flesh, drawing a muffled cry, followed by a low, grunting curse. She sprang from the bed, landing in a crouch between it and her chair pushed against her far wall. The Cat had thought to roll beneath her bed for shelter until she could scrabble through her doorway and into the corridor. The passage, normally lit, was as dark as the cell itself but she could feel the flow of air drifting in from the passageway and could follow it to her escape. The shuffling of feet, several pairs of them, caused her heart to sink. Too many, and blocking the path to safety.
The next instant, the girl felt her ankles grasped tightly and she was yanked roughly across the stone floor from beneath her narrow bed, cursing loudly as she scratched at the floor, seeking a grip somewhere but finding none. No words were spoken to her though she could hear the heavy breathing of one of the men, likely the one she had managed to injure. Many sets of hands were working on her, fighting to restrain her as she clawed and bit and resisted with all her considerable strength. One pair worked at binding her wrists behind her while another pair bound her ankles. A third set gagged her and threw a hood over her head (Why? she wondered wildly. The heavy blackness of the cell had already blinded her).
She could feel herself being hoisted into the air, and she kicked and fought her attackers as much as she could with her ankles and wrists bound and her legs pressed tightly against one of her assailant's chests, pinned by his strong arms. His shoulder dug into her belly, pressing the breath out of her and she stopped her useless movements, thinking to preserve her energy as she forced herself to think.
First, she needed to decide if this was part of her training or something more sinister. The masters were renown for taking acolytes unawares and putting them into difficult situations, teaching them to react quickly, to always be ready, and to solve their problems with whatever was available to them. But there were also those among her brothers who spared no love for her and who might possibly wish her harm. And then there were all of the warnings and ominous words that had been directed toward her lately, many from her own master but some from others, including the Kindly Man. She again remembered the handsome man's statement to her from earlier in the day. My brother is most worried about you, little wolf. Was this what he meant?
The Cat was adept at slipping bonds, but as she tried the cords at her wrists, she found them so bitingly tight that she was unable to even move her two wrists against each other. She could just wrap the fingers of one hand around the other to feel the top of the rope binding her but her short fingernails could not pick at it effectively.
The footsteps of the one bearing her seemed to slow and then she felt him push through a door and enter a stairwell. They begin descending. The footfalls of his companions echoed above her and seemed to be following her as they descended further and further into the temple, the air becoming cooler and then damper. They finally burst out of the stairwell and into a dank passageway and she knew where they were heading. An icy feeling gripped her gut and she began to struggle in earnest, her angry cries of protest muffled by the gag and hood.
The sudden vehemence of her movements seemed to hasten her attackers' pace and they bustled out of the corridor and into another chamber; the same chamber to which she had intended to bring the apple-cheeked girl before the handsome man had stopped her; the chamber with the square iron door mounted low on the north wall, covering the portal through which the Cat fed the eels. The same iron door whose bolt she now heard scraping across its latch as she felt hands gripping her limbs, forcing her into a horizontal position.
Her bound wrists were unable to reach the one blade left on her body, tucked into a small pocket sewn on the interior of her shift, just inside the neckline, resting uselessly at her breast. She felt the sickening cold of the metal door frame chilling her through the thin material of the shift as she was pushed across it roughly, head first. As more of her body was forced through the port and her shoulders breached the edge of the opening, she felt herself hanging over empty space, gravity working on her and pulling her head toward the canal below. This shift in her posture caused the heavy hood to fall away from her face and then drop down to the murky waters with a gentle flutter that belied the speed her own rapid plunge would have if she did not find a way to stop this. As she was pushed to the point where her wrists were just beyond the opening of the port, she grasped at its edge with her fingers, arresting her slide outward for a brief moment. She bent quickly at the waist, trying to sit up, hoping that if her attackers saw her face, they might relent in their madness. She stared desperately into the gloom of the chamber through the portal, unable to speak, but she saw four figures, all men by their size, wearing their belted robes of black and white, hoods raised around their heads, hiding their faces in deep shadow and protecting their identities. She was shoved harder, her grappling fingers wrenched from the edge they gripped, losing her battle to hold on. As her body moved further out of the small doorway and into the night air, the moon partly broke the clouds and shone weakly through the portal and into the room in which she was fighting to remain. The light was still too dim to pierce the darkness of the cowls and see faces, but as she tilted further downward, she glanced back up at her assailants one last time and thought she could see three healing scratches on the neck of the man whose grip was now all that kept her from plummeting down to the canal.
Jaqen? the girl thought desperately, her hope creating a thundering surge of joy in her chest, knowing as she did in her bones that her master would never allow any real harm to come to her.
And then all she knew was falling; falling, until she slipped into the murky depths of the canal, the cold water swallowing her whole.